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[Montville, Waldo County, Maine], 14 October 1865. 2 pp. in ink on a single leaf, 7.75” x 7.75”. Including the original envelope with a canceled postal stamp. CONDITION: Very good, old folds, light scuffing.

A vivid letter composed two days after the Great Fire of Belfast, which destroyed over a hundred buildings across some twenty-two acres, comprising an account of the writer’s visit to the city the day after the disaster.

Nelson Allen, Esq. (1806–1873) was born and lived in Montville, some eighteen miles from Belfast. Allen was married to Mary Forbush (1814–1862), served as Justice of the Peace in Montville, and died in Searsmont, Maine. This letter to his son Charles N. Allen of Quincy, Mass., describes the state of the city as he found it in the immediate aftermath of the fire:

We have had a great fire in Belfast Thursday. I went to Belfast & when I got as far as Morrill City they told me that Belfast was no more but in ashes. But when I got there I found the upper part of the city [was] left. The fire caught where some men had been pressing hay on or near [James C.] Lewises wharf, the wind then being N.E. it swept the wharf of every thing consumable. A perfect desolation, it leaped up toward Phoenix Row but was stopped on the street between Lancaster & Durham’s little fish markett [sic], the next building below Otis Woods store by the Searsport [Fire] Engine, which saved the remainder, for it was progressing right up the City Block Mets & Phoenix row & all say would have taken the American House & so cleaned out the whole City & so that great Morrison structure where men drafted saw so much sorrow & misery is a heap [of] Ruins.

It is a little remarkable that Sibly’s property escaped as also Fredereks, Lanes, Fred Proultons, Anderson, & the Foundry[?]. This little rim was seen standing in the Morning. Knowlton & Smith, that large building at the parting of the roads, was just filled with flour & all went [i.e., burned]. Mrs. Smith the dinner woman all gone. It burnt the store where Beaman kept [shop] & all the building fell Excepting a little piece around the door with his sign all right on this little piece. In the Morning when I arrived there in the Morn I first went in to Doct. Moodys & such a looking Man all covered with ashes, cinders, [and] black as you please not having slept all night but packed all the numerous articles in that great store & moved them was no small business I tell you. To see the vast piles piled up around the Custom House & all the way to Wilsons Hill was quite a sight. Goods of every description, beds, sofas, chairs & tables &c &c.

The Great Fire of Belfast leveled some 125 buildings across the city’s waterfront, downtown, and residential areas. Although its precise cause is unknown, the fire began on the waterfront in the boat shop of James C. Lewis at about 10:30 on the night of October 12th. The shop was engulfed in flames before the alarm could be raised. From there, aided by the wind, the fire leapt to storehouses full of hay behind the boat shop and was soon spreading from building to building throughout the city. One of the two fire engines was out of commission, and low tide, combined with the autumnal low, meant that water was scarce. Firefighters demolished several buildings to stop the spread, and a fire engine from the neighboring town of Searsport came to help—but the fire continued to spread. The fire raged for some eight hours, and was ultimately brought under control by blowing up Dr. Sylvester’s store and numerous other buildings. City officials afterwards decided to bolster the fire department, but, despite their efforts, Belfast suffered three more fires before the end of the nineteenth century, in 1873, 1885, and 1899.

A remarkable eyewitness account of the immediate aftermath of the Great Fire of Belfast. 

REFERENCES: Seymour, Tom. “The Great Fires of Belfast” at Fishermen’s Voice, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2015), online.

Item #9187

Price: $475.00