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| Frank B. McCrary's photograph of the fire's aftermath (note: black crepe on the compression chamber behind driver's seat), Knoxville News-Sentinel, April 22, 1934 |
Two weeks prior, William H. H. Dodson, a ladderman with the department's hook and ladder company, was injured in a freak accident while assisting a lineman in the erection of an electric light pole. The pole had fallen and struck Dodson across the nose causing it to bleed profusely. A few of his colleagues helped him back to his home at 27 Market Square where his wife Emma saw to it that he spent the rest of the day in bed. He was back to work the next day; however, within a few days, Dodson fell ill with a fever that his doctor diagnosed as malaria. On March 31, 1889, Dodson died. The official cause of death, according to the coroner, was attributed to pneumonia (three deaths, the day prior, were all attributed to pneumonia). At thirty-nine years of age, Dodson left behind a widow of the same age who supported herself and their five children as a dressmaker out of her own home. Dodson, the first active fireman to die in the history of the paid, professional department, was laid to rest at Old Gray Cemetery the following day.
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| William H. H. Dodson's death recorded as pneumonia, Ancestry.com |
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| W.H.H. Dodson's grave, Old Gray Cemetery |
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| Emma Dodson, a widowed dressmaker, 1900 Census, Ancestry.com |
Thus, it was with heavy hearts on the morning of April 4, 1889 that Knoxville's fire laddies at the City Hall headquarters carried out their daily tasks and worked out the four dray horses that pulled their two steamers--the Alexander Allison and the J.C. Luttrell, the department's grizzled, twenty-two year veteran fire engine. By half past eleven, dull gray clouds hung overhead shoved along by a stiff northerly breeze. Suddenly a call came into the police department. On the other end of the line was William B. Samuels of D. R. Samuel & Son, a packing box, keg, and wheelbarrow factory with a planing mill located in the Ninth Ward at 20 Ramsey Street on the north side of the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad where the tracks crossed Second Creek. Samuels reported that his men were unable to contain a small fire that began in his factory's shaving room near a boiler, which, fanned by a stiffening wind, had quickly spread to additional buildings on site.
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| D. R. Samuels & Son's factory located at 20 Ramsey Street, 1884 Knoxville Sanborn Map |
The alarm was quickly relayed to the fire department and little time was wasted as the firemen yanked on a couple of ropes to drop the quick-hitch harnesses from the ceiling onto the backs of their well-trained fire horses, who, without any verbal command, trotted into their position in front of the Alexander Allison. Within a minute, the harnesses were snapped into place and Ned Smith had taken his place in the driver's seat. As the big doors swung open, Ned gave the horses a little encouragement. Within seconds, the horses, with their accompanying engine--the Allison--charged out of the department's main headquarters onto Asylum Street with its full company aboard, bells and steam whistles clearing the way with the hook and ladder truck in tow. The Luttrell, affectionately nicknamed "Old Brassy," was left behind. It took less than five minutes for the department to reach the blaze. William W. Dunn, nearing the completion of his second week on the job as Knoxville's fire chief, arrived first. He observed that the strong wind had quickly whipped a small blaze into a conflagration. The wooden framed factory went up like a tinder box and Chief Dunn feared that the blaze would soon spread to homes located to the north and east. The Allison was deployed at a safe distance from the conflagration; however, Smith brought the engine to a stop next to the streetcar line thus blocking it and forcing passengers to transfer a block or two from their destination. Smith unhitched the horses and led them to a safe distance away from the action. Meanwhile, the pipemen, Cole Nelson and R. D. Luttrell, went to work connecting the hose to the Allison. Will Newman stoked the fire to get the steam up for his father, Engineer David Newman, who monitored his pressure gauges on the boiler.
A crowd estimated between two and three hundred soon gathered at the scene of the blaze. The efforts of the earliest arrivals to assist the factory's workers in quenching the fire proved as futile as William Samuels' attempt to check the fire's advance. Samuels had badly burned his right hand and chin while handling a hose kept on site in an attempt to put a steady stream of water on the fire until the city's laddies could arrive. Before Samuels ordered his men to abandon the factory, he rushed into his office and threw all the valuable financial books and papers he could find into the company's safe. A momentary panic erupted when a rumor that the factory's large boiler was about to explode raced throughout the throng of onlookers. Frightened spectators began pushing one another to put as much distance between themselves and the blaze which caused one black man to fall off the railroad culvert into Second Creek.
One of the more remarkable scenes during the fire was Hood Whitten's narrow escape from death as the lineman for the telephone company rushed headfirst into the blaze to rescue the factory's telephone box before its burning walls came crashing down. Moreover, the property of Jake McDonald was the scene of additional excitement as flying embers cascaded down onto his roof, which caught fire several times; however, a number of his neighbors and good Samaritans extinguished the flames each time. A Knoxville Journal reporter observed that Reverend Joseph C. Lawrence of Shiloh Presbyterian Church "threw water like an experienced hand."
Frank B. McCrary, one of Knoxville's most prominent photographers, arrived with his camera not too longer after the fire department had begun to put a steady stream of water on the fire. McCrary photographed the entire plant while on fire and captured the image (see above) of the Alexander Allison and the father-son smoke eating duo (the Newmans), with some of the onlookers who came to watch the biggest blaze to strike Knoxville in more than a decade (McCrary's 1889 image--neither taken in 1888, nor an image of the Park City Volunteer Fire Dept. as noted in the caption--,which was kept in the possession of James Roger Newman, is believed to be the oldest surviving image of the Knoxville Fire Department in action. See more on the Newmans, the first family of Knoxville's Smoke Eaters, at the following blogs Part 1 & Part 2).
The Samuels' factory, which had stood for seventeen years, was a total loss and damages were estimated by D. R. Samuels, the elder partner, who carried no insurance whatsoever, to be about $18,000. Though suffering a significant financial setback, both father and son expressed their intentions to rebuild the business which shipped barrows, kegs, bent-wood, packing boxes and manufactured items of a similar nature to points across the United States.
Two streams of water were kept on the smoldering ruins for a few hours to prevent any flare-ups. At about 3 o' clock in the afternoon, Mr. Samuels called the fire laddies over to the boarding house of Martin C. Fisher and treated the tired, wet, and hungry boys to a well-earned lunch. D. R. Samuels sat down with a reporter from the Knoxville Tribune as dusk turned slowly to darkness and drafted a card of thanks to be printed in the next day's edition: "We desire to thank the fire department and the many citizens who put forth their efforts in endeavoring to save the factory from destruction for their needed help. Also we would like to publicly acknowledge our indebtedness to Yardmaster Fisher for kindness shown the men engaged in putting out the fire. Respectfully, D. R. Samuels & Son."
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| Knoxville Daily Tribune's account of the conflagration, April 5, 1889 |
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