Spotswood Holocaust 64 Years Ago

Christmas Day Fire in 1870 One of Worst in City Annals

By Horace A. Hawkins

Christmas Day 64 years ago Sunday, December 25, 1870, the city was awakened at 2 o'clock in the morning by the alarm of fire--the famous old Spotwood Hotel was in flames. It was a bitter cold morning, and there was great excitement.

The Spotswood in those days was among the foremost of hostelries of the South, and it was the headquarters for celebrities. President Jefferson Davis was a guest there on many occasions, the last time being that of his arraignment in the Federal courts here, following the war.

The hotel was filled with guests on the night in question, and there were a number of the gentry of that period who had been out for the evening attending social functions, reaching the building along about midnight, for in those days the proper thing to do was to end such affairs before the midnight hour.

Patrick Byrd, the watchman, was making his rounds in the early morning, and it is recorded that he smelled smoke and at once began an investigation. One of the guests was the late Dr. Gray Latham of Lynchburg, and he joined with the watchman in the task of arousing the sleeping guests, rushing from door to door and knocking loudly. The fire appears to have started in a room directly over the office and it spread with great rapidity.

In a few minutes, according to the printed narrative of the fire, the halls were filled with half-clad men, women and children seeking to escape a holocaust. The interior was almost entirely of wood, and with the opening of doors and windows it was almost like a flue, the flames appraching with great speed. The building filled with smoke. Frantic appeals of fathers and mothers for the safety of their children rang through the night. In half an hour fire was seen on each of the five floors of the building.

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Firemen of that day made a brave fight to arrest the blazes, but to no avail, and soon the floors began to give way and then the structure collapsed.

An immense crowd had collected, and on every side business places were opened to give shelter to those who had escaped to provide quarters for those who had been injured in leaping from the windows and those who had been taken from the smoke-filled building. To add to the dread of the fire, brisk west wind set in, the building--being on the southeast corner of Main and Eighth Streets--caught the full force of the breeze, increasing the difficulty of rescue and the efforts of the firemen.

Business places to the east of the hotel--Grove & Baker's sewing machine agency; E. Cironti, house furnishings, and Henry Hungerford's banking house--were swept away by the flames, as were also Thea. Wolfedeck's cigar store and W. J. Anderson's tinware and stove establishment.

Among those burned were Samual H. Hines, a North Carolinian who had made his home in Richmond, and Erasmus W. Ross and Samuel M. Robinson. These men were members of the Knights of Pythias and were close friends. Hines, when he had reached the ground from the top floor, could not find Ross and Robinson, and he entered the building to go to the top floor and rescue them. He was seen to reach the floor and appear at a window with one of the men, and they were seen to stagger and fall back--and to their death.

Mrs. Emma Kennealy, the housekeeper, was also among the missing, as were also W. H. Pace, who sacrificed his life in the task of attempting rescue of friends in the building. A. Lieb of Tampa; E. George and E. H. Andrews, Syracuse, N. Y., and Henry Kroth of New York, were among those unaccounted for.

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Miraculous was the escape of C. A. Shaffler, then the public printer for Virginia. His room was on the upper floor. Escape was cut off by the fire-filled halls, and he swung from the ledge of the window in his room and managed to catch the ledge of the window below and held on until firemen could reach him with a ladder.

Eccles Cuthbert, the Richmond and Southern correspondent of the New York Herald, was a guest of the hotel, that being his headquarters. He was gotten out of bed and escaped in his night clothes, losing the furniture and his entire wardrobe. E. M. Alfriend, who had a suite of rooms in the Spotswood, did all he could on the sound of the alarm, donning his clothing and then going to all the rooms on his floor and arousing the guests, saving the lives of many.

While the loss was great for those days, the published reports show that it was less than $500,000, including the stores, the hotel and all the furnishings of the establishment.

Characteristic of the hospitality of the people in those days, the reports of the fire show that the business places of all sorts were opened and the destitute were given food and clothing without price, and residents generally opened their homes to those who had been injured and stood in need of medical and nursing attention. All such services were given without price of any sort, the physicians of the city responding and doing all that was possible to bring relief to the sufferers.

The reports of the fire say that seven or eight persons were known to have died in the fire, but it is believed that a greater number perished, for many of those registered in the hotel were never again heard from, and it is believed they lost no time, once they were out of reach of the flames, in boarding trains and steamers and getting away from the city.

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Today there is a plain stone at a little mound in Oakwood Cemetery, which marks the resting place of the bones that were taken from the burned building, with no mark save to say that the remains were those taken from the burned Spotswood Hotel. There are a few people living here today who recall the fire and the distress that was caused, the sorrow in homes from which the victims came.

Following the burning of the Spotswood Hotel, the site was occupied by the Pace Block, built by the late James B. Pace, long one of the outstanding business men of the city, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway occupied practically all of the upper floors as general offices, and some 30 years ago fire once again broke out and gave the fire fighters of the city one of the hardest and stiffest battles for a long time. It was restored and is now occupied by a number of concerns for offices, the ground floors being used for general business and commercial purposes. The building became known as the Allison Building, when it passed from the ownership of the builder.

Mr. Pace did much for the restoration of the city in which he made his home and was a leading figure in many enterprises, being at one time engaged in the manufacture of famous brands of tobacco and was also known for his philanthropies.