The Fire in King Street—Recollections—The Old Coffee House Corner—The Stores in King Street—The Old Masonic Hall—The St. John Hotel—Its Early Days—The Bell Tower—King Square—A Night of Horror—The Vultures at Work—Plundering the Destitute.
The fire entered King Street in the western side from Germain and Canterbury Streets. It began by burning down Lawton & Vassie's brick store, erected on the site which contained the famous Bragg building. This stout building and Bowes & Evan's premises were soon buried in the common ruin. The fire went along King Street, destroying Mr. Sharp's dry goods store, Jas. Adams & Co's., James Manson's magnificent palace, including his safe and all his valuable papers, John K. Storey's and Magee Bros., Imperial Block. This last place is quite historic. This block was erected in 1852, by the late John Gillis. It was built on the site where the memorable coffee house stood. Here of an evening for years and years the old men of the place used to sit and gossip and smoke and sip their toddy. Here in 1815 they met to learn the news of the war between France and England, and read the story of Waterloo four or five months after it was fought and won. In this sort of Shakspeare tavern, the leading merchants of the day met and chatted over large sales, and compared notes. Here a verbal commercial agency was established, and here delightful old gossips,
like busy Sam Pepys and garrulous old busybodies, like Johnson's Bozzy, met and told each other all about everybody else's affairs. What a time these old fellows had every night sitting there in that quaint old coffee house, chatting and smoking, smoking and chatting again. And there were Ben Jonsons in those days, who wrote dramatic pieces and showed them to their friends over a cup of hot spiced rum. And poets too, full of the tender passion, sighed out hexameters of love in that old coffee house so dear to some of the men we meet to-day who lost everything in the flames on that dark Wednesday in June. Ah, yes, the grand old coffee house was torn down in 1852 to make room for the handsome pile of stone and brick which perished only the other day. The corner is again bare, and the few who remember the coffee house are fast passing away.
The Burland Desbarats Lith. Co. Montreal
KING STREET.
The fire now gained great headway, and soon it was seen taking prodigious leaps, going ahead, and then seemingly to dart back again and finish what it had already begun. The people everywhere were in the wildest state of excitement. In the back streets the fire was progressing and destroying the residences of the men who were trying to save their business property in the marts of commerce. People sent car loads of their more valuable goods to places which appeared to be safe, but which turned out in the end to be of only temporary security. Men had their stores burned at four and five o'clock, and their goods burned at seven and eight o'clock. It was only putting off the evil for a few brief hours. Cartmen
charged wildly and exorbitantly—some having to pay as high as fifty dollars to have carted away a cartload of stuff. On every roof in King Street clerks and employers stood with hose and buckets of water, but nothing that man could do or devise held the flames at bay, or kept them off for the brief space of a moment. The fire was determined on a clean sweep, and despite the most strenuous exertions it had its own way, and baffled the efforts of those who attempted to stay its fierce will. Beek's corner, lately in the occupancy of H. R. Smith, bookseller, and a perfect feeder of a fire like this, was an easy prey, and with a loud roar its rafters fell, and a well-known corner was no more. Mullin's shoe store, a building of similar construction, went down in another moment, and now the only brick building in the block from Canterbury Street to Germain Street was attacked by the fire. This was Pine's brick building, a fine structure which several years ago Mr. George Jury Pine built, and in which I. & F. Burpee commenced business, and George Stewart, of Stewart & White, began trade. Messrs. Della, Torre & Co. occupied No. 30, and Geo. Stewart, Jr., Druggist, held the other store, No. 32. The present owner of the building, Stephen Whittaker, of Fredericton, had lately begun the erection of a spacious rear addition, and improvements on a liberal scale had been commenced in the upper stories. The rest of the building was known as the Russell House. This building went to pieces about six o'clock. The photograph rooms were destroyed before Pine's building went, and the flames sped quickly, carrying be
fore them the stores of Bardsley Bros., Scott & Binning, W. K. Crawford, Geo. Salmon, and Hanington Bros.' drug store, formerly Fellows & Co.'s establishment on Foster's Corner, corner King and Germain Streets. The contents of this store were quickly snapped up by the fire, and pills and plasters, soaps and perfumes were spilled about in hopeless profusion and confusion. Mr. T. H. Hall's twin buildings were across the street, but a barrier like that was an easy jump for the infuriated flames. They leaped into the windows, attacked the wood-work, and with a strong pull the two splendid stone buildings were borne to the ground, and thousands of dollars' worth of property lay scattered about in all directions. Mr. Hall occupied the corner store as a book-store, and T. L. Coughlan had the other. Dr. J. M. C. Fiske, dentist held the room overhead.[B] The Gordon House, Fred. S. Skinner's grocery store, a row of wooden shanties, Landry's brick building, with a rich stock of organs in it, Logan, Lindsay & Co.'s large grocery, A. & J. Hay's, Geo. Nixon's, Wm. Warn's bath-rooms, W. H. Watson's, Geo. Suffren's, W. H. Patterson's, Taylor & Dockrill's, George Sparrow's, R. McAndrew's, and the United States Hotel, only lived a short time in the very heart of the fire.