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— VU err Jim Bell COLBORNE’S FIRE RECORD We are very lucky here in Col- borne that no bad fires have oc- eured for a great many years. In fact the last one that 1 remember was away back in 1892 or 3. It is hard to pjn it down to an exact date. The old files of newspapers were destroyed and it seems that there are a lot of things of which no record was kept. The fire, to which I referred, destroyed a good part. of the south side. of King Street from Mrs. E. Quinn’s resi- dence to the other side of the old Town Hall. It-was a Saturday night fire and started in the Chase Bros’ (McGlennon’s) Nursery Of- fices some time after mjdnight. Of course, with only a bucket brigade and no adequate water supply, it was impossible to cope with such a fire. This is the list of businesses destroyed as far as I can remember or been able to get any informatjon. Chase Bros’ Of- fices with the office of Dr. Dul- madge, Dentist, upstairs, Roh- bart’s Hardware, Thos. Peterson, Drygoods, Robt. Martin, — Sr., Butcher Shop and apartment, and a Tinsmith’s shop kept. by a’ Mr. Smedley. I am sure there were others but I cannot recall them. There used to be a Roller Skating Rink along there but it must have been destroyed or ‘torn down be- fore. John Reeves also had a Flour and Feed Store in 1894 and 95, I think he also handled stoves, etc. Whether his store was burn- ed or not I cannot say. Sam Tuck- er had an Undertaking Busjness 97 | REMEMBER just opposite the Registry Office. It was in a small white clapboard! building with a verandah in front. Possibly, the most dramatic in- cident in connectjon with this fire was on the Sunday morning fol- lowing. Shase Bros. had a big heavy safe and during the fire, it fell through the floor into the basement. To make it worse, the brick wall caved in on top of it. Mr. Jas. MeGlennon was very worried that valuable papers in the safe would be destroyed. He hjred three local men to go down and remove the hot brick off the safe. The men were Tom Connor, George Fowler and Harry Paisley. | Some of the brick walls were still standing’ and*one of them fell. in on the working men. They were all injured and were removed to the Brunswick Hotel and a doctor called. They all recovered without any too bad after effects. As te the safe and its valuable papers, I never did hear the climax of that part of the story. Among the hotels that were destroyed by fire in the early day! was Keeler’s Inn, the very first one jn Colborne. The Mansion House, evidently on the same site |as Keeler’s. Then, on the night of. the 24th of May, 1882, the Globe Hotel along with the Town Hall, Methodist Parsonage and other buildings was burned. Minister’s houses seem to have been especially unfortunate as the first Methodist Parsonage burned in 1852. The second in 1882 and the Anglican Rectory sometjme after 1900, where quite a few church records were destroyed.