The great drouth of the summer and fall of 1871 will long be remembered by the people of Northern Wisconsin. With the exception of slight showers of only an hour or two in duration. in the month of September, no rain fell between the 8th of July and the 9th of October-some three months. The streams and swamps and wells dried up. The fallen leaves and underbrush, which covered the ground in the forests, became so dry as to be ignitable almost as powder, and the ground itself, especially in the cases of alluvial or bottom lands, was so utterly parched as to permit of being burned to the depth of a foot or more. To use a poetical expression, which became almost a reality, "The sky was as brass, and the earth ashes."

For weeks preceding the culmination of this state of things in the terrible conflagration of the 8th and 9th of October, fires were sweeping through the timbered country, and in some instances the prairies and "openings," of all that part of Wisconsin lying northward of Lake Horicon, or "Winnebago Marsh," which was itself on fire. Farmers, sawmill-owners, railroad men, indeed all interested in exposed property, were called upon for constant and exhausting labor, day and night, in contending against the advancing fires.

The saw mills in the pine regions of Brown, Shawano, Oconto, Manitowoc, Kewaunee and Door counties, are, many of them, located in the very midst of the pine forests, and surrounded with a debris of slabs, edgings. shingle refuse, etc., forming a ready conductor for the undermining fires in the adjacent forests, to the mills and houses around them. The work of protecting these mills was long, harassing and exhausting, the ground being so dry, that water could not be obtained from wells, and the means of defense were mainly by circumvallating the property with ditches. These were in the main, effectual, so long as the fire preserved the ordinary character of previous forest fires, not fanned with gales, nor supplemented by a long-heated and ignitable condition of the atmosphere, which, as we shall see, followed later on. In this labor of fighting fire, the mill men. farmers and others were engaged through October, the exhausting work going on with good cheer in the constant hope that either the welcome rain would come, or that, finally, the ground would be wholly burned over, and leave nothing further for the flames to feed upon. Here and there, mills and houses were burned; fences. haystacks and outlying property were swept off; but no great disaster had yet occurred. Still no rain came; and for many days previous to the great disaster, a general gloom and fear seemed to have come upon the threatened region.

The long-continued labor of fighting the fire exhausted all energies; and an overhanging smoke permeated the atmosphere, sometimes so dense as to prevent seeing objects a few rods distant, seriously affecting the eyes and lungs. This was not alone the case in the forests. but in towns and in largely cleared settlements. In Green Bay, Depere, Appleton, Oconto, Menominee, Kew&unee, and other places, the smoke was frequently so dense that buildings at the distance of a square were invisible. And on the lake and bay, the smoke assumed the dimensions of an immense fog, obscuring the shores, and rendering navigation difficult. The fires also made travel on the roads difficult and often dangerous. Trees, fallen and burning, obstructed the highways, and bridges in every direction were burned It was a compensation in these cases, however, if it could be called one, that where bridges were gone the streams had dried up, thus allowing them to be passed without much difficulty. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway ran for fifty miles through this burning region-between Oshkosh and Green Bay-and it was only by the services of a large force of men stationed along the line, that it was kept in passible condition. The fires approached the track so closely in many places

that trains had to be run at increased speed to prevent their taking fire. And, as an illustration of the narrow escapes on that fatal Sunday of the eighth of October, we may mention that Older's circus-a long and heavy caravan, composed of upwards of eighty horses and some twenty wagons-passed safely, during that day, over the bridges between Green Bay and Manitowoc, some of which were burning at the time, and nearly all of which were destroyed before night. If any one of the bridges which spanned the deep and in passible ravines on that road had been burned in advance of the progress of the caravan, it would have been hemmed in and destroyed. Many devices were resorted to for the protection of life. Excavations were made in the earth, with earth-covered roofs, in which persons sought refuge. Many resorted to wells, which, from the long drouth, had become dry. And much property, which had been taken from houses and placed in the open fields for safety, was destroyed, while the houses themselves frequently escaped. But time drew on, the ground was burned over, and the long harassed people began to take breath, believing that the worst was passed.

This was the condition of things up to Sunday, the 8th of October. The air was dense with smoke and fitful blasts of hot air-so stilling, that at times it was difficult to breathe. All these northern towns had kept ready, as well as they could, for the emergency. In Green Bay, the fire engines had been kept at work weiting the buildings, and an extra police force was detailed to keep watch. The buildings were so dry that a spark would have set them on fre; flakes of ashes from the smouldering timbers fell in the streets like a snowstorm; and the citizens were anxious as if in the face of some impending calamity. A hot, southerly gale was blowing, and in the midst of it, on Sunday afternoon, a house took fire in the central part of the city. The interior was only slightly burned, however, and the fire was extinguished before it reached the outer air. Had it obtained headway, the imagination fails to comprehend the result. The country, on three sides of the city, was on fire, and on the fourth, where laid the only apparent outlet, were the waters of the Bay, into which must ave swarmed the population to a death only preferable to that which followed at their backs. It was the same gale which swept ove. Chicago. That city was then burning, though we did not know it; and that day and night the deadly blast was sweeping through the country northward, filling the land with death and destruction, unknown, as well, to us.

The Oconto County Fires.

But northward from Green Bay, in Oconto county, and for some distance into Menomonee county, on the west shore of the bay, and throughout the whole length and breadth of the Peninsula, which includes the whole of Door county, and parts of Brown, Kewaunee and Manitowoc counties, the fires reached their greatest devastation. The space to which we are limited in these pages will not permit of a detailed history of the whole burning, and we shall only undertake a brief description of those instances where the greatest damage and loss of life occurred. We will begin with the west shore of the bay, in Oconto county.

What is known as the Sugar Bush settlement lies between Oconto and Peshtigo, extending six or eight miles from north to south, and two or three miles in width. It was one of those oases of hard-wood timber land which are frequent among the pine forests, and are superior farming lands. It was settled by a thrifty, industrious and prosperous community of farmers, who owned their land and prided themselves on the beauty of their farms. A few miles northeasterly was the village of Peshtigo. It was a village of about 1,200 inhabitants, mainly engaged in the lumber operations of the Peshtigo Company, which had its headquarters there. The village stood on the banks of the Peshtigo river, about eight miles from its mouth, and was, for that region, a place of some age, sawmills having been operated there for upwards of twenty-five years. Within the past ten years. under the energetic management of the Peshtigo Company, with William B. Ogden as one of the principal capitalists and managers, it had become one of the first manufacturing places in Northern Wisconsin. Among its features was a wooden-ware factory, recently completed at a cost of $125,000, which was in full operation, manufacturing pails, tubs, churns, and other wooden hollow-ware. It was the most extensive one of the kind in the United States. There were also a sawmill,a sash and door factory,a grist mill,a machine shop, boarding houses,an extensive store,upwards of one hundred dwelling houses, several hotels, two churches, two schoolhouses, etc. A railway connected it with the "Lower Village," at the mouth

of the river, some eight miles distant. It was a hive of industry and had not, probably, an unemployed person within its precincts. It is estimated that on the night of the fire it had a population of 1,500 or 1,600 souls within its borders, as some 300 laborers were at work in the immediate vicinity, on the new extension of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway; and a company of fifty Scandinavian emigrants had arrived there the day previous to the fire. Of these fifteen hundred or more people, less than a thousand are accounted for since the fire, while all over the desolate plain and in the forests, and in the river bed, human bones attest the fearful loss of life.

With the southerly gale, the fire first struck the Sugar Bush. The testimony is singularly unanimous here, as well as n the cases of other places burned, as to the dreadful premonition and the final burst of flame. A anusual and strangely ominous sound; a gradual roaring and rumbling approach. It has been likened to the approach of a railroad train-to the roar of a waterfall to the sound of a battle, with artillery, going on at a distance. The people, worn out with the long harrassing by fire for weeks before, quailed at this new feature, and when the flames did make their appearance-not along the ground, as they had been accustomed to meet them, but consuming the tree tops, and filling the air with a whirl-wind of flame-the stoutest hearts quailed before it. There have been many opinions in explanation of this ap parent fire-storm in the sky. It has been attributed to electrical causes, and to the formation of gas from the long-heated pine forests of that region. We venture our own opinion, which is this: The same wind storm and condition of the atmosphere. had they occurred on the ocean, would have produced water-spouts. There, the water is drawn up by po verful attraction from above, and the clouds descend to meet it, accompanied with a violent whirlwind. Here, there were doubtless whirl-winds, having a tremendous circular velocity, and moving from north to south at a more moderate speed of from six to ten miles an hour. The pine tree tops were twisted off and set on fire, and the burning debris of the ground was caught up and whirled through the air in a literal cloud of fire. To use an anomalous expression, it was a water. spout of fire. No wonder that the stoutest hearts were appalled before such an unheard of presence, which could not be attacked nor resisted with any appliance in human grasp; and no wonder that the afaicted people abandoned every thought but that of seeking safety.

At Peshtigo, hundreds were saved by throwing themselves into the river. In the Sugar Bush, there was no stream deep enough for such a refuge. Men, women and children, horses, oxen, cows. dogs, swine-everything that had life was seized with pain and ran without me hod to escape the impending destruction. The smoke was suffocating and blinding, the roar of the tempest deafening, the atmosphere scorching; children were separated from their parents, and were trampled upon by the crazed beasts; husbands and wives were calling wildly for each other, and rushing in wild dismay, they knew not where. While others, believing that the Day of Judgment was surely come, fell upon the ground and abandoned themselves to its terrors. Indeed, this apprehension, that the last day was at hand, pervaded even the strongest and most mature minds. All the conditions of the prophecies seemed to be fulfilled. The hot atmosphere, filled with smoke, supplied the signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars;" the sound of the whirlwind was as "the sea and the waves roaring," and everywhere there were "men's hearts failing trem for fear. and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken." Near the town of Robinsonville, on the opposite side of the bay, is a conventual school, around which hangs a superstitious air from some circumstances connected with its establishment. It is said that the affrighted people of that vic.nity thronged to it in the belief that the world was being consumed, and falling upon their faces, crawled round and round it with long continued prayers. Multitudes of other instances are related, for details of which, we have no space.

The Sugar Bush was almost wholly burnt away. Four dwelling houses and one or two barns were saved. The people were all either killed or driven out. Some were burned near the buildings; some were caught in the fields and woods by the descending fires; others fled to the woods and were caught there; and some found their way to Peshtigo, either to death, or ultimate

escape.

Of the village of Peshtigo, there was not a vestige left standing except one unfinished house, which stood apart from others, and escaped. The fire burnt with such fury that but little effort was made to save any property. It had been before assailed by fire during the drouth, and had been saved by great efforts; and this time its courageous people rallied forth again to renew the