“Memorable Disasters

Date

1-17-1812

Newspaper

Petersburg Intelligencer

Page and Column

Page 2, Column 5

Newspaper Location

Petersburg, Virginia

Serial Number

1018

Abstract

Catalog of memorable disasters, mentions the Lisbon earthquake of 1756, and makes an oblique mention of the New Madrid earthquakes. Long detailed article

Transcript

MEMORABLE ACCIDENTS. Extracted from Lucombe's Tablet of Memory "The Amphitheatre at Fiatorca, in Italy, fell in and killed fifty thousand people. A. D. [unreadable]. The ruins of it now remain at [unreadable]. A fire happened at a barn at Burwell. Cambridgeshire, at a Puppet show, when 100 persons lost their lives. A. D. 1727. "The roof of the church at Fearn, in Scotland, fell in during the service, and killed 60 persons. Oct. 1742. "Amsterdam Play House took fire; 7 persons were setlocated, and great numbers were wounded in getting out A. D. 1772 "At the celebration of a wedding at [unreadable], 66 Jews were killed by a floor giving way; among whom were the bride and bridegroom's mother June 3d, 1776 "Bourbon-les-rains, in Basigni, France, had the vault under the church give way, during the celebration of mass, which occasioned the death of 600 persons. Sept. 11, 1778. "Montpellier, in France, had a booth wherein a play was performing, fell, and killed 500 persons. July 31 1786 "The floor of a meeting house of Methodists at Leeds, gave ay, when 16 women, a man and a child were killed, and near 30 persons dreadfully wounded.-May 29, 1796. "The Theatre at Mentz was destroyed by fire during the performance, on the falling in of which many were crushed to death, and seventy were burnt. August 1796. "Saragossa, in Spain, had 100 of its inhabitants perished by a fire, that burnt down the Play House, Dec. 1778" There is a more particular description of the fire of the opera at Amsterdam, given by the English Annual Register for 1772, in the following words. The reader will be at once struck by the similarity of its cause, and of the cause of the one which has just steeped our own city in tears: "The letters from Holland bring us the following melancholy account. On Monday evening last, the 11th instant, at the Flemish opera, at the theatre in Amsterdam, a small rope belonging to some of the machinery took fire, owing to a candle having been by accident placed immediately under it, which communicated itself to the scenery with such rapidity, that in a very few minutes the whole house was in flames. The smoke and confusion were so great, that thirty one persons perished on that melancholy occasion among whom were several ladies and gentleman of distinction. In short, when the mail came away, so great was the confusion, owing to the above dreadful calamity, that scarce half the business was conducted by the merchants in person. Eight or nine houses were likewise burnt down by the said fire." 11th May, 1772. Thus, man is cut off in a moment, in the midst of amusement-Yet these are not the only cases in which "the paths of pleasure have led to the grave." The following are taken from the [unreadable], a small register of memorable counts just published by E.C. Cole at Baltimore: "Fire Works, at the Parisian, exhibited [unreadable] honor of the Dauphin's marriage, the massage being stopped up, occasioned such a crowd, that the people, seized with a panic, sampled upon one another till they lay in heaps, a seafold erected over the river also broke down, and hundreds were drowned; near 1000 persons lost their lives. "Theatre at Cape d'lstria, in Italy, fell, and crushed the performers and audience to death, Feb. 6, 1794" The theatres and other places of amusement in London have been the constant prey of fire-but comparatively speaking, very few lives have been lost. Drury-lane Playhouse was originally built in 1662; it was burnt down 10 years after; pulled down in 1791, rebuilt in 1794; burnt down fifteen years after, February 24, 1809, and is now again rising from its ashes Covent Garden was built in 1733, enlarged in 1772, and was burnt on Sept.20th, 1808. The Pantheon, in Oxford-street, was opened in 1772, converted to an Opera-house in 1784, burnt in 1792. Ashley's Amphitheatre, burnt in 1894. Royal Circus, Blackfriars, burnt in 1805. There were few lives lost on any of these occasions-perhaps, indeed, none of them took place during representation. But in all these cases, of which we have seen a description, we notice the same devouring velocity of flame, which so much astonished as in our own case. In the last fire at Drury-lane, "the flames spread with a rapidity an violence not to be described; so that, in about half an hour, every part of this building, extending near 400 feet in length was on fire; and before three quarters of an hour, the lofty roof & the figure of Apollo (17 feet in height) which surmounted the whole, fell in with a terrible crash. In vain did a number of surrounding engines pour in a flood of water; the vast body of fire within the walls, mocked all attempts to extinguish it, or even to loosen its force. The furious flames ascended to heaven in a kind of pyramid, illuminating the metropolis and its neighborhood for many miles round in a most uncommon degree, and resembling rather the eruption of a burning mountain, than the effect of a common fire." "In less than a quarter of an hour, (says another account) the fire spread into one unbroken flame, over the whole of the immense pile, extending from Bridge's street to Drury-lane, so that the pillar of fire was not less than 450 feet in breadth. They made an ineffectual attempt to get out the theatre engine, and play on it from their reservoir, but is less [unreadable text]. "This may be account for from the body of air which [unreadable text] afforded and he circumstance of the whole being a wooden case." The same rapid transmission was observed in the [unreadable] of the new theatre at Berlin, on the 1st of July, 1808. "The fire raged with so much violence and rapidity, that in a quarter of an hour, the roof was wholly consumed and fell in. It was found totally impossible to extinguish the fire, and in two hours the whole of the edifice fire was reduced to ashes." This fire took place in the afternoon, and there were no lives lost. This consuming fury is, however, no argument against the Theatres or the Stage. The fatality, which has wrapped our own city in mourning, has been [unreadable] by the committee of Investigation, in the defects in the construction of our theatre.

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