“About a quarter before eight o’clock last evening flames were discovered issuing from the upper story of the ‘old brewery’. The alarm was sounded very promptly and in less than five minutes from the time that the bell first tapped there was a stream of water on. This was quickly followed by three or four others, but the fire made a wonderful sweep through the entire upper portion of the tinder-like building and for a time seemed to defy the department’s efforts to stay its progress. Aside from the current of air created by the flames there was not a puff of wind stirring, else all the water that could have been thrown would not have saved the piles of staves and barrels and the small frame dwellings near by; but as it was the firemen succeeded in keeping the flames within the building where they originated.
ON SOUTH HILL
The bright moonlight was paled before the dazzling refulgence of the cracking flames, which threw into view a swarm of people that blackened the sward far up and on either side of the hill and terraces like the audience in a vast amphitheatre, which the Coliseum itself could scarce excel in area or in beauty. There is something intensely interesting in the spectacle presented by a conflagration—something that retains thousands of spectators in almost perfect silence. So it was here. The people watched the battle between man and the fiery element and if they spoke at all it was in subdued tones. For nearly an hour the struggle for the mastery continued, and then the sullen gloom which gradually succeeded the vivid light told that man had conquered and the structure was partially saved.
THE OLD BREWERY
had stood vacant for a long time, so the well founded supposition is that the fire was of incendiary origin. The police say that the place was notoriously the rendezvous of gamblers, streetwalkers and tramps, and there is little doubt that some of one of these classes applied the match. The Brewery was built in 1824 or 1825 by C. W. Preston, who also built the residence on East Seneca street now owned and occupied by S. H. Willetts. The brewery has changed hands with almost every succeeding decade. After Prescott sold out it was owned by Collings and Huntington, then by Wait T. Huntington. O. H. Gregory ran if for other parties from 1836 to 1843. A man named Root ran it and finished his career as a brewer by getting drowned in one of the vats. In 1857, the year of the great freshet, it was owned and conducted by a man named Hawley. On the day of the flood, June 17th, Hawley climbed a tall poplar tree near the brewery, thinking he would be safe there, but the tree washed out and he was dropped. In more recent years it passed in W. M. Smith’s hands, and at the present time all that remains of the old land-mark belongs to Theo. R. Sitgreaves, a prominent citizen of Easton, Pa. Mr. Smith’s lease of the premises expired on the first of the present month, as did also his insurance upon some four or five hundred dollars worth of property stored therein. Samuel Love, Esq., is Mr. Sitgreaves’ agent, from whom we learn that the brewery and contents were insured to the amount of $8,000, distributed among New York companies as follows:
Commercial $2,000
Mechanics and Traders 2,000
Resolute 1,500
Safeguard 1,500
Adriatic 1,000
THE LOSS
can not be accurately estimated at present, but it will not fall much short of the amount of the insurance. The entire upper portion of the brewery which was of wood, is totally destroyed, but the first story, built of stone and brick, is only slightly damaged. Several persons had property of more or less value stored in the building, among others William Jackson, household furniture. This was removed with little if any damage.”