Thomas D. Foster, whose story of the Great Fire is here published for the first time, was a young man of twenty-four when he arrived in Chicago, from London, Canada, in September, 1871, for the purpose of establishing a packing plant for John Morrell & Co. Ltd., of Liverpool, by whom he was employed. The down town offices of the firm had just been opened in the building situated on the southwest corner of Clark and Washington streets; this fell a prey to the flames and was entirely consumed. A small packing house, located at Archer Avenue and Quarry Street, had been leased from the owner, and this was not harmed; and although the fire delayed the beginning, packing operations were actively carried on during the winter of 1871-2.
Foster writes that he was staying at the Briggs House. This was situated on Randolph Street at Wells, and was one of the prominent hotels of the city. Wm. S. Walker in his Description of the Great Fire, published in 1872, gives us this picture: “Spinning along Randolph Street the conflagration fed heartily on the glories of the Briggs, Sherman, Metropolitan, and Matson hotels; upon stately business houses, Woods Museum, and a miscellanny of trade edifices that of themselves would have formed the heart of a small city.” It was in this “heart of a small city”—in the very center of the “furnace in which stone buildings melted like so much lead”—that Foster’s adventures began.
It was Hallowe’en, three weeks after the fire, before he was able to settle down to write a full account of his experiences for the folks overseas. Even then, writing must have been difficult, for he had “no desk, and no fire.” What became of the original letter or manuscript is not known; after being read by the members of the family it was passed around among relatives and afterwards loaned, over and over again, to friends in the neighborhood. Requests for it became so numerous that a copy had to be made, and it is this copy that has been preserved to the present day. This account has been carefully compared with authentic records published immediately after the fire, and in no case have any important discrepancies been discovered.
Order followed chaos; the citizens formed themselves into Home Guards under General F. T. Sherman, and Foster patrolled a beat on State Street, with a rifle over his shoulder, from midnight until four A.M. Later, the city was put under military control with Lieutenant-General Philip H. Sheridan commanding.
In 1830 Chicago had a population of 70; at the time of the fire it had grown to 300,000, then
“Men clasped each other’s hands and said,
‘The City of the West is dead’,”
and little did they think as they viewed the desolation of three thousand acres sown with ashes, that from those ashes was to rise, within a generation, a new “City of the West” with a population ten fold, and which was destined to take its place as one of the three greatest cities of the world.
T. Henry Foster
Ottumwa, Iowa
October 9, 1923