Taking into account, with the fires of Paris and Chicago, the great Wisconsin and Michigan forest fires of 1871, in which it is estimated that 1,000 human beings perished and property to the amount of over $3,000,000 was consumed, it is plain that in the annals of conflagrations that year stands forth in gloomy preeminence.
LOSS OF THE LADY ELGIN.
Crete, Ill.
When was the Lady Elgin lost, on Lake Michigan and how many persons were lost, and saved?
John Miller.
Answer.—The steamer Lady Elgin was cut to the water’s edge by a sailing vessel named the Augusta, heavily loaded with lumber, which struck her amidships, during the night, Sept. 8, 1860. She sunk almost immediately. Carrying an excursion party from Chicago to Milwaukee at the time, she had about 400 passengers on board. The disaster occurred about twenty-two miles north of Chicago, nearly off Glencoe. Many of the passengers and crew got on rafts and portions of the wreck, and drifted toward the land. Some of these came ashore between Glencoe and Evanston; but the most of them, after getting within hail of the beach, despite the best efforts of citizens and students of Evanston and Winnetka to assist them, were swallowed up in the breakers and carried out into the lake by the terrible undertow. Men with ropes around their chests plunged into the breakers, seized exhausted, drowning men and women, and were dragged in by main strength of men at the lines. Conspicuous among these noble men was Mr. Edward W. Spencer, of Rock Island, Ill., then a student at Garrett Biblical Institute, who saved fourteen or fifteen passengers, persisting until he was utterly exhausted; an example of heroism which was suitably commemorated afterwards by the presentation of a memorial watch and chain, given him by citizens of Chicago and Evanston. Of the total list of passengers only about one-fourth were rescued; 297 perished.
AUSTRALIA.
Colmar, Ill.