Resiliency Inquiry Activity 1 Life on the Frontier

Resource Card B Mountains and Molehills

CHAPTER II
June , 1850.

THE fire was fast subsiding; and as the embers died away, and the heavy smoke rolled off to leeward, the site of the conflagration was plainly marked out to the spectator like a great black chart. There is nothing particularly impressive in the scene, for although four hundred houses have been destroyed, they were but of wood, or thin sheet-iron, and the "devouring element" has made a clean sweep of every thing, except a few brick chimneys and iron pots. Every body seems in good-humor, and there is no reason why the stranger, who has lost nothing by the calamity, should allow himself to be plunged into melancholy reflections! Planks and lumber are already being carted in all directions, and so soon as the embers cool, the work of rebuilding will commence.

I found it amusing next day to walk over the ground and observe the effects of the intense heat on the articles which were strewed around. Gun-barrels were twisted and knotted like snakes; there were tons of nails welded together by the heat, standing in the shape of the kegs which had contained them; small lakes of molten glass of all the colors of the rainbow; tools of all descriptions, from which the wood-work had disappeared, and pitch-pots filled with melted lead and glass. Here was an iron house that had collapsed with the heat, and an iron fire-proof safe that had burst under the same influence spoons, knives, forks, and crockery were melted up together in heaps; crucibles even had cracked; preserved meats had been unable to stand this second cooking, and had exploded in every direction. The loss was very great by this fire, as the houses destroyed had been for the most part filled with merchandise; but there was little time wasted in lamentation, the energy of the people showed itself at once in action, and in forty-eight hours after the fire the whole district resounded to the din of busy workmen.

On the "lot" where I had observed the remains of gun-barrels and nails, stands its late proprietor, Mr. Jones, who is giving directions to a master-carpenter, or "boss," for the rebuilding of a new store, the materials for which are already on the spot. The carpenter promises to get every thing "fixed right off," and have the store ready in two days. At this juncture passes Mr. Smith, also in company with a cargo of building materials; he was the owner of the iron house; he says to Jones, interrogatively-
"Burnt out?"
JONES. "Yes, and burst up ."
SMITH. "Flat?"
JONES. "Flat as a d--d pancake!
SMITH. "It's a great country."
JONES. "It's nothing shorter."
And in a couple of days both Smith and Jones are on their legs again, and with a little help from their friends live to grow rich perhaps, and build brick buildings that withstand the flames.