File:Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 23, Number 3531, 23 July 1862, A Visit to the Burnt District of Troy, New York.jpg

Reprint in Sacramento Daily Union from the New York Evening Post, describing a visit to Troy, New York after the Great Fire of 1862 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 23, Number 3531, 23 July 1862

THE MODERN POMPEII.

A Visit to the Burnt District of Troy. [Correspondence of the New York Evening Post ]

Trot (N. Y.) June 16, 1862. To visit this city now, one would think it had, in the recent great fire, received a blow from which it could never recover. A tract of seventy-five acres, in the handsomest part of the city, covered with comfortable and elegant residences aud churches, in a few hours presents nothing but a mass of fearful and saddening ruin.

ORIGIN OF THE FIRE. The bridge which spans the Hudson from Troy to West Troy is divided into two portions by Green Island in the middle of the river. It is, like most of the railroad and wagon bridges in the northern counties, covered with a long unpainted wooden shed, which seems expressly built to give every advantage to the stray sparks. About a month ago a train of cars entered the bridge, passed in safety the western portion, crossed Green lsland, and plunged again into the long wooden tunnel which forms the eastern part of the bridge. Sparks from the smoke pipe flew just as millions of sparks had done before ; most of them were drifted out into the air and floated away. Many became extinct ; but one lodged somewhere in a corner or crevice of the bridge, and in a few minutes gave birth to a tiny point of flame, which suddenly leaped into terrible life, and grew with dreadful haste. A fierce gale was blowing at the time from the west, and in fifteen minutes the bridge was a mass of flames, while the gale swept the fire directly out to the city, and house after house ignited, giving the occupants barely time to save their lives, without thinking of their property. By night the work of destruction was complete.

THE BURNT DISTRICT. At the time of the fire the newspapers gave full statistical details of the losses incurred. Already the energetic citizens have begun to repair tho disaster by beginning to rebuild ; yet it will be many years before the phoenix will utterly rise from its ashes - Imagine a tract of New York burnt down, extending, say from Canal street to Twentieth street, and from the North river to Broadway; such is, in proportion, the damage done to Troy by this devastating conflagration. The burnt district is not the "heart of the city," but is but a few steps from it. If Troy as a city has a heart it may be called Cannon Place, as our Park and City Hall might be called the heart of New York. Three minutes walk from Cannon Place and river street, will take you to the burnt district. The Lansingburg horse cars run between the ruins, where a street has been, as it were, exhumed.

THE UTTER DEVASTATION. The fire was an exceedingly complete one. It did the business thoroughly and swept as neatly as a new broom. It would almost induce one to believe in the doctrine of annihilation, which philosophy and science so emphatically deny, for while many of the walls are standing, there is very little of the usual rubbish and debris of a fire among them. The wood work seems to have been utterly burned away, and when the fire once got inside of the house it did its work completely.

THE UNION DEPOT. The most prominent object in the burnt district is the once magnificent Union Depot at the foot of the hill. It is now utterly roofless, but the bare walls and turrets remain, like some huge castle which has suffered from war. The immense arches formed by the north and south walls remain intact, though the square brown stone props which supported them are cracked and scaled. The cars again meet in the roofless area, which has received a fresh pine floor, though as yet no steps have been made toward rebuilding the edifice.

THE CHURCH. A few steps to the north of the depot arc the remains of a large brick church. Tho tower elands yet in a tottering, feeble way, its roof gone, and its floor covered with blackened bricks. The stoop and iron railing are unhurt. The roof of the church itself is, of course, utterly gone, and the north wall has fallen ; but the other three walls remain.

THE RESIDENCES. The burnt district once included some of the most beautiful private residences in the city, and near the edges of the district there are many houses completely gutted, but with the elegant brown stone fronts still standing. In some cases those fronts and the stoops are so unhurt that one could approach the house and mount the steps to tho front door without imagining that fire had been there, until a glance at the desolate interior disclosed the fact.

Other houses have been completely burned away to the foundations. Of one row only the front stoops, with neat iron railings of the same pattern, remain. Ascending one of the stoops I looked down into what had been the basement and kitchen. It had evidently been some cherished home not yet forgotten, For the space was cleared and neatly swept, while the large basement heater stood in its natural position, the old fashioned stove was in the back kitchen, and the basement mantle-piece was quite as good as ever. There was something vary touching in the sight ; it was like seeing the ghost — the garnished skeleton — of a once happy home. There are, as usual, some houses in apparently exposed situations, which received no damage ; but they are mostly in the outskirts of the burnt district, for in the center, where the fire raged with the greatest fury, the destruction was complete, and scarce a wall is left standing. The trees in the street shared the same fate as the houses, and their loss is still more irreparable, for houses can be rebuilt much quicker than trees can be regrown. It is a really melancholy sight, that presented by the long row of black tree trunks, with their now sable boughs overlooking the field of ruin ; and the contrast is painfully vivid when looking a little further in the same street, in that part of it where the fire did not reach, appears an archway of green foliage, flanked on either side by neat and often elegant residences. Troy is a well shaded city but this fire has shorn her of much of her arborial beauty. Only a few buildings have been yet actively begun on the burnt district, but the entire area will, of course, be rebuilt in time. General Wool's neat old-fashioned mansion is in a part of the city distant from the scene of the conflagration.

IS THERE ANY FIRE PROOF MATERIAL? In many cities where large fires take place it is a consoling reflection that the burned tracts will be probably rebuilt with much better edifices than before — that brick or stone will replace wood. But this is not exactly the case with Troy, where it was not a district of wooden houses that were destroyed, for most of the burned buildings were of more durable material. It is a fact that at this memorable Troy fire brick houses burned down like pasteboard, and stone ones were scarcely any better. The destruction of the iron and glass roof of the Union Depot was the work of a few minutes, and had a precedent in the burning of the New York Crystal Palace. So iron and brick and stone are powerless against the united force of wind and fire. What, then, can be considered fire-proof?