Panic-Stricken Citizens

Panic-Stricken Citizens

Panic-Stricken Citizens
Rushing Past the Sherman House, Carrying the Aged, Sick and Helpless, and Endeavoring to Save Family Treasures, 1871
(Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper) Inside the Burning City

The pandemonium in the streets just northeast of the Courthouse. A wealthy couple in a coach try to force their way through the mob of terrified people and horses, as a host of others in the wild melee variously attempt to save their nearest and dearest and look out for themselves.
"I went through to Wabash Avenue," New York Assemblyman Alexander Frear wrote in the New York World of October 15, "and here the thoroughfare was utterly choked with all manner of goods and people. Everybody who had been forced from the other end of the town by the advancing flames had brought some article with him, and, as further progress was delayed, if not completely stopped by the river--the bridges of which were also choked, most of them, in their panic, abandoned their burdens, so that the streets and sidewalks presented the most astonishing wreck. Valuable oil paintings, books, pet animals, musical instruments, toys, mirrors, and bedding, were trampled under foot."


	Panic-Stricken Citizens Rushing Past the Sherman House, Carrying the Aged, Sick and Helpless, and Endeavoring to Save Family Treasures, 1871 (Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper)	Inside the Burning City
	The pandemonium in the streets just northeast of the Courthouse. A wealthy couple in a coach try to force their way through the mob of terrified people and horses, as a host of others in the wild melee variously attempt to save their nearest and dearest and look out for themselves. "I went through to Wabash Avenue," New York Assemblyman Alexander Frear wrote in the New York World of October 15, "and here the thoroughfare was utterly choked with all manner of goods and people. Everybody who had been forced from the other end of the town by the advancing flames had brought some article with him, and, as further progress was delayed, if not completely stopped by the river--the bridges of which were also choked, most of them, in their panic, abandoned their burdens, so that the streets and sidewalks presented the most astonishing wreck. Valuable oil paintings, books, pet animals, musical instruments, toys, mirrors, and bedding, were trampled under foot."