Mowry Hotel

Text Source:  The Syracuse Herald, Vol. 79, Syracuse, NY, Monday Morning, February 11, 1907, pg. 1

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Flames which broke out at 12:00 o'clock yesterday morning destroyed the six-story Mowry Hotel, sweeping through the building with such rapididy that in less than two hours only the front walls were left standing.

The fire was the worst Syracuse has had in several years, endangering several adjacent buildings and imperiling the lives of over seventy occupants of the hotel at South Salina and West Onondaga streets.

While many reports were at once circulated that lives had been lost in the burning building, nearly every occupant of the hotel has been accounted for.  Several were injured, including guests of the hotel, firemen and others, but non seriously.  The register was burned, so that the hotel management had no accurate list of guests.

Many hazardous rescues of guests of the hotel were made before the eyes of thousands of people, who quickly gathered, attracted by the unusually spectacular appearance of the fire.

The entire loss, as estimated by firemen, insurance men and property holders, will exceed $200,000, partly covered by insurance.  George M. Barnes, owner of the Mowry Building, put his loss at $75,000.  Occupants had heavy loss and owners of adjacent structures had considerable.


When the fire broke out there were over seventy guests and employees of the hotel asleep, and within five minutes the fire had gained such headway that it was believed that the loss of life would be large.  Quick and effective work on the part of firemen and policemen, re-enforced by volunteers, many of whom risked their lives, served to prevent the apparently certain big death list.

When the first of the firemen arrived many of the guests were asleep in their rooms, and were only aroused after their doors were smashed in by the axes of firemen and the clubs of policemen.  Then there was bedlam in the corridors as women and children rushed f rom their rooms trying to find a way to escape from the menacing death.


Women and children screamed while men cursed.  They struggled through the halls, which were pitch dark, the lighting power having given out, and to the stairs, where some felt and were fallen over by others eager to reach a place of safety.

Some of the occupants were picked up from the floors of the halls and the stairs and assisted to the street.  Others were dragged from their beds and hurried to the stairs and went on their way to safety.  On every landing there was some one to direct them.

All the time the flames were roaring through the building and clouds of smoke were filling the halls.  Some of those who staggered through the corridors were overcome by the smoke and would have fallen unheeded if rescuers had not been near at hand.

In the meantime, extension ladders and short ladders had been raised to the windows on the outside of the building, and firemen and others were engaged in taking men, women and children from the windows.

Every time a person was rescued a cheer went up from the crowds in the street.  Many were taken down the ladders when flames were shooting out of windows and endangering the lives of both the rescuers and their burdens.


One of the first to leave the burning building from the windows was Giles Clifford.  He was awakened by the cry of fire, and quickly donning some of his clothing, threw out a rope the escape from his window on the fourth floor on the Onondaga street side.  In view of several thousand people he slid to the ground, his hands badly burned by the rope.  He had come from next to the top floor, the street floor not being numbered.

He told Chief Engineer John P. Quigley that there were a man and a woman in the room next to his.  An extension ladder was quickly run up to the floor and a fireman mounted it finding the man and woman in a window.  He took the woman in his arms and started down the ladder, followed by the man.  The rescued proved to be M. [unreadable] Hencle and his mother.

Then another cry for help was heard and two women and a man were seen in a window on the first floor on the same side of the hotel.  John Congdon, son of Police Matron Mary E. Congden, and John Miller of Richmond Avenue, the latter of whom had just returned to Syracuse after serving four years in the United States Marine Corps, ran up a short ladder that had been raised bdy the firemen.

The marine was in the lead, and he dragged over the window [unreadable] Mrs. Mary Walrath, 70 years old, and turned her over to young Congdon, who carried her to the street.

Miller followed with Mrs. J. E. Girvin in his arms, and the latter's husband started down the ladder.  Before he reached the bottom he slipped and fell to the ground, but was injured.


Mrs. G[unreadable] had a handbag containing some silver knives and forks in her hand when she reached the street and a case containing $500 worth of jewelry.  She handed it to some one as she reached the gound and has not seen it since.  She reported the loss to the police.

The G[unreadble] were taken into the Florence apartment house across the street and after being supplied with clothing went to the residence of Andrew W. Kelly at No. [unreadable] South Salina street.

Patrolman William Dwyer broke in the door of a room on the second floor and found an aged woman, who was deaf.  Not knowing that the building was afire, she tried to drive the officer out of her room.  He discovered that she was deaf and grabber her in his arms and carried her out of the building.


William Murphy of No. 705 East Adams street, a street "car" conductor, rushed into the building just before the firemen arrived, ran the elevator up to the top floor and brought down a load.  Three times after that he ran the elevator up to the top floor.  Finally he was obliged to abandon his work of rescue, as the elevator refused to work.

When the fire burst into Henry Hughes cafe and the liquor store of J. D. Page & Co. on the South Salina street side Mr. Hughes, with his bartender, Thomas Eagan, and his chef, H. D. Le May were inside, Mr. Hughes turned a hand extinguisher on the flames, but in less than five minutes all three were obliged to flee for their lives.

Chief Engineer Quigley said last night that when he turned into Onondaga street on his way to the fire the flames were shooting high over the roof of the hotel.  Just as he dashed into South Salina street the fire burst out of Page's liquor store.  Shortly afterwards the interior of Andrews, Loomis & Andrews' store on the Onondaga street side of the Mowry Build-

Ibid, pg. 6

ing was all ablaze, and the plate windows crashed out.


Chief Quigley directed his first efforts towards saving lives, then towards saving adjacent property.  Streams were played on all of the surrounding buildings, and [unreadable] of hose were had in such a manner that they could be used to advantage in case the fire spread.

At 1:00 o'clock the entire building was ablaze with the exception of David Whelan's cigar store.  There are two walls there in the shape of an acut angle running to the top floor and these protected the cigar store.  The stock, however, is a total loss from the water and smoke.


At 1:00 o'clock the west wall of the building crashed outward and onto the roof of the Andrews building.  As the tons of brick crashed onto the roof demolishing it, the lives of many firemen at work there were endangered.

They saw the wall totter and rushed to the further side of the roof and held on.  The falling wall [unreadable] in the roof of the building on which they were standing, but they clung to the side wall and then made their way to a place of safety.

After that parts of several of the inside walls crumbled [unreadable].  Then the rear wall crashed onto the roof of two one-story extensions of the Smith Premier Company's old building on Clinton street.  By 3 o'clock only the front walls on Salina and Onondaga streets were left standing in their entirety.  The interior of the building is now only a mass of ruins.


One of the sights that caused considerable comment was the working of the automatic sprinklers on the outside of the Smith Premier Building.  The sprinklers started and kept the windows from breaking.  The water poured down the wall and kept the bricks cool.  At times, however, the firemen played a stream of water onto the wall when the heat was the most powerful.

This and the Franklin Hotel saved, the loss was practically contained to the hotel proper and the stores in the Mowry and Andrews Building.

Although the loss on the Mowry Hotel is estimated at $75,000, the total insurance is only $50,000 on the building.



Andrews, Loomis & Andrews have a loss of $20,000, principally covered by insurance, J. D. Page & Co. had a stock valued at [unreadable] with [unreadable] insurance.  Mr. Page said last night that he thought possibly [unreadable] or $10,000 worth of the stock in the cellar, which was valued at [unreadable] might be saved.

David Whalen said that the loss on his stock would be $5,000 and that he carried [unreadable] insurance.  Some one entered his store while the fire was burning and carried out the cash register.  Three dollars that had been left in it was stolen.

The $1,000 loss on the furnishings of the Frankling Hotel is covered by insurance.

The [unreadable] Lodge of Odd Fellows had a [unreadable] loss and only carried $600 insurance.  The Armory Lodge had a $750 loss and carried [unreadable] insurance.

C. T. [unreadable] carried only [unreadable] insurance on a [unreadable] stock.

The Andrews Building, which is owned by Mrs. Eliza C. Babcock, is said to  be valued at [unreadable], partly covered by insurance.

Franklin Hoffman, proprietor of the Premier Hotel, said that his loss of [unreadable] was covered by insurance.

[unreadable] Norton, dry good dealer, had a loss fully protected by insurance, as is also that of Charles H. Miller, jeweler.

John E. Woodruff of the [unreadable]electric Machine Company said that the company's loss was covered by insurance, as is that of the Syracuse Ornamental Company and Goody & Edmund, machinists.

Dean Clark of the Smith Premier Typewriter Company said whatever loss the company sustained was fully covered by insurance.


Reports of those who escaped agree that the house alarm [unreadable] were not rung until after the firemen arrived and the flames were creeping well up to the top floor.

Edward McLaughlin rushed into the hotel office from the street and pushed all of the bells, ringing those longest on the top floor, [unreadable] awakening many sleepers to their danger.

One of the [unreadable] occupying a room on the [unreadable] floor was William S. Waudby, special agent of the Bureau of Labor of the Department of Commerce and Labor at Washington.

Mr. Waudby heard the bell, but thought it was a call bell in an adjoining room.  He turned over in his bed, intending to go to sleep, and in so doing saw the relfection of the fire on an adjoining building.

It took him about a second to get into a few of his clothes, and he grabbed up a picture of his wife as he ran out of the room.


Going to the elevator, he found the flames coming out of the shaft and the hallw as filled with smoke.  Putting his rain coat up to shield his face, he ran down the front stairway to the third floor, where he became bewildered and would have been overcome but for the assistance of a fireman, who pushed him towards a window crying, "This way."

Mr. Waudby knows he ws carried down from the third story on a ladder, but he cannot recall any of the incidents of going down.  Once on the walk he became sick on account of the smoke he had inhaled and swallowed when John L. Bannett, proprietor of the Vanderbilt Hotel, happened along.

"You look pretty sick," said Mr. Barnett, "you go over to the Vanderbilt and tell them Mr. Barnett sent you."

Mr. Waudby went to the Vanderbilt with a handkerchief tied over his head and looking much like a tramp.  The clerk asked him if he had any baggage, and he replied that he had a lot of it at the Mowry.  He said Mr. Barnett had sent him and he got his room.

His Manuscript Lost.

One of the most serious losses was that of the manuscript of a book upon which he had been working twenty years, entitled "The Concillation of Labor and Capital."  This had been passed upon by the editor of The Arena, and was about to be published.

Another loss was that of a matchbox which formerly belonged to General Robert E. Lee and a collection of Confederate coins.

Mr. Waudby has had a strenuous life recently in the service of the government.  At Bowling Green, Ky. December 22, a man "ran amock" and stabbed two men and began shooting in the street.  Mr. Waudby ran to the window and received two buckshot under the eye.  He selected room No. 33 on the fifth floor of the Mowry, because he thought it would be quiet there.


George F. McKeough occupied suite No. [unreadable] on the fifth floor.  He was dozing when he heard the alarm bell ring.  He got up and went into the hall, where he found a roaring furnace, the flames showing brightly from the north hall window.

Mr. McKeough called to his wife and rushed back into his apartments to get his 5-year-old girl, whom he took under his arm.  He hastily put on a pair of trousers, a shirt and a vest and with his wife and child ran for the main stairway, which was filled with smoke and smoke, which were coming in.

The firemen were shouting for everyone to get out of the hotel, and the family hastened in safety.  Neither Mr. nor Mrs. McKeough had time to put on their shoes.  With a number of other occupants of the hotel they went into a Greek candy store, nereby, and from there they were soon able to go to the residence of a friend to pass the remainder of the night.


"If Mr. McLaughlin had not rung those bells," said Mr. McKeough, "no [unreadable] power could have saved anyone on the top floor.  As soon as I looked out of my door I could see the flames shooting up, and I did not know whether we could get out or not.  The elevator had long since stopped running, and smoke was pouring out of the shaft."

Mr. McKeough's little girl put her head under her father's arm and did not suffer from the smoke.  Mr. McKeough and his wife suffered, however, to a considerable extent.

Awakened by Shouts.

Mr. and Mrs. James Burns of Redwood, Canada, occupied room No. 50 on the third floor and had one of the narrowed escapes of the night.  They were awakened by shouting from the Florence across the street and hasily putting on a few clothes made their way to the main stairway.  Here the smoke and the sparks were so thick that they did not dare try to make the flight down stairs.

Mr. Burns and his wife thought they were lost unless they could get out of the south windows.  They ran to the south end of the hall and jumped out of the window onto the roof of the Andrews Block, where seven other people were standing.

They shouted to the people below and finally saw the trap door on the roof open, and all were helped down.  The flames were even then coming over onto the roof where they were, which afterward fell in.


Principal and Mr. William K. Wickes of the High School occupied a suite on of the third floor.  Mrs. Wickes was one of the coolest people in the house, and they went down the main stairway fully dressed, but saving practically nothing.

Mrs. Wickes lost a number of valuable diamonds and Mr. Wickes lost a library which he had been accumulating all his life and the manuscript of an educational work upon which he had been working twenty years.

They went into the candy store and soon secured a room at the residence of a friend.


Mr. and Mrs. R. P. Ellis occupied a room on the fifth floor, and like the others heard the bell.  Mr. Ellis thought there was some mistake about the bell ringing at the time of night and he plugged it up with blotting paper so it would not disturb him.

Before going to sleep, however, he smelled the smoke which was coming in through the [unreadable] and in a short time the two were down stairs.

John A. James, engineer of the Mowry, and his family lived on the fifth floor.  They were awakened by the smoke and roaring of the fire and quickly dressed.

Mr. James' son is lame and had to be carried down the five flights of stairs.  Mr. James had all he could do to save his life.  He fought his way along and finally reached the outside door.


Del Snyder, assistant engineer, was at work in the boiler room when he looked through a window and saw the flames.  His only means of escape was by a coal hole, which brought him out on West Onondaga street.

Willis Allen, the night clerk and elevator man, was overcome by smoke and had to be carried out of the hotel.

Charles Houston, day elevator man, had just gone to bed in his room on the first floor when he was awakened by the calls of the firemen for every one to get out of the building.  It took him but a short time to get to the street.

In room No. [unreadable] on the fourth floor, were J. M. Ross, James Robertson, and Ralph Wenzel all of this city.  They escaped by the main stairway.

James Lighton and wife of Rochester had room No. 66 on the second floor and succeeded in getting down the main stairway.

James Wilson, who was on the fourth floor, escaped in his night shirt.

His Bath Interrupted.

Charles Goettert[?], who had room No. 21[?]on the fifth floor, was taking a bath in the public bathroom on the second floor.  The firemen broke in the door and told him to disctoninue his ambitions, and Mr. Goettert wrapped his bathrobe around him and hustled to the street.

Dulbert[?] D. Rose, paying teller of the Onondaga County Savings Bank, and his wife occupied apartments on the first floor.  They were able to get out without trouble, but lost all of their possessions.

Cashier Henry T. Linkfield had gone to bed in his room on the fifth floor and was awakened by the shouts.  He dressed and groped his way down to the main stairway.

Charles E. Russel, president of the Bush & Smith Company of this city, and wife went down the main stairway, as did Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Ross and Miss [unreadable] Crowley, who was with them.

C. J. Walker succeeded in getting out of room No. 44, and Robert Walker made a hurried exit from room No. 50 on the third floor.

Edward Greenland son of School Commissioner H. W. Greenland, had a room on the third floor and escaped.

Mrs. Kate Hatch occupied room No. 57 on the second floor and got out of the building unharmed.

Mrs. O. G. Jones and her son, Harry Jones, lived on the third floor and were able to get out uninjured.

It was reported at first that Charles Bray could not be found, but he was found later at the Premier Hotel.

Mrs. Belle Hall, the cook, and Burdette Virginia, one of the elevator men, were not in the hotel.


Engine Companies Nos. 6 and 1 and Hook and Ladder Companies No. 1 and 4 were the first pieces of fire apparatus to arrive on the scene.  Engine Company No. 6 at once laid a line of hose through the alley between the Mowry Hotel and the Franklin Hotel, formerly the Imperial, and vainly tried to check the flames in the court.

Truck Company No. 1 was divided into two squads.  Captain Wilbur H. [unreadable] with Laddermen John [unreadable] and Jerry Long, took ladies through the alley.  They rushed one ladder to the roof of a one-story extension of the Mowry, and from that roof raised another ladder to the fourth floor, where several people were calling for help.


The firemen found one young woman, attired only in her night clothes and a sheet wrapped around her, on the roof of the one-story extension.  She had jumped from the second floor.  She was taken to the ground at once, and later the firemen began carrying down women from the fourth floor.

From [unreadable] floor they took five women and one man, all clad in their night clothes.

From the second floor they took other men and women, some coming down the fire escape, making a total of fifteen or sixteen rescued from the windows in that part of the hotel.

After the last one who appeared at the windows was taken down the firemen climbed the ladders and searched rooms on the second and fourth floors, but did not find anyone.  The ladders were held in position until the rear walls began to [unreadable] and then were taken down.

The firemen felt sure at that time that everyone near that end of the building had been rescued.  It was in that part of the building that the servants' quarters were located, and the firemen say that they took down three Polish girls, who were later thought to have been lost.

Smash In Doors.

Lieutenant John Cooney of Truck Company No. 1, with Ladderman Edward Ryan and Daniel Shea, rushed up the front stairs of the hotel.  They went to the top floor and smashed in doors they found closed and aroused the occupants of rooms.

They met many in the halls trying to find their way down and stopped long enough to dress them.  They then went down to the fourth floor and smashed in doors there with their axes.

Lieutenant Charles A. Boynton, in command of Engine Company No. 1, went

Ibid, pg. 10
into the hotel and up to the third floor, aroused guests there and helped others to find their way to the stairs.

Many of the guests who had been aroused and rushed from their rooms, only to find the halls in darkness, become confused and wandered about unable to find a stairway.  Some in their eagerness to escape from the burning building knocked others before them to the floor and down onto the stairs.  In many instances policemen and firemen stumbled over them and dragged them out of the building.

Patrolmen Patrick Dowling and William Dwyer were the first police officers to reach the hotel and they directed their attention toward breaking in doors and helping people to the stairway.  It was half an hour after the firemen arrived before they would leave the burning building.


Assistant Chief Engineer Thomas F. Ryan, who had arrived on the first alarm and gone upstairs to direct the work of the squads in the interior in saving life, finally ordered all the men to leave the building.  By that time every floor from top to bottom of the building was ablaze.

Flames were rushing up the elevator shaft and had attacked the stairway on several floors for a few seconds it [unreadable] as if the firemen had been caught in a trap, but the retreat had been ordered just in time, and they rushed from the building to the street.

Captain Reiley and Peter Welch, tillerman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 4, then raised a ladder to the third story on the Onondaga street side and rescued a man and woman taking both safely to the street.

In the meantime Hook and Ladder Company No. 2 had raised its extension ladder in front of the hotel and reached the fifth floor.   Lieutenant Fred Kaiser and Ladderman Barney Haylon took a man and woman from a [unreadable] story window.

The man was able to walk down the ladder, but the woman was carried down.

Ladderman Patrick H. O'Hara of Hook and Ladder Company No. [unreadable] mounted No. 2's extension ladder and took two men and a woman out of the fifth story.  They were the last to be brought down.


Several short ladders had been placed against the side of the building on the Onondaga street side, and firemen and four volunteers rescued several men and women from the second and third floors.

Before the work of rescuing the guests had been finished nearly every place of line apparatus had arrived on the scene, and several engines were at work pumping.  Fifteen lines of hose had been laid, and were played from all points of advantage.

Chief Engineer John P. Quigley and his assistant chiefs, Thomas F. Ryan, Charles Coombs, Philip Kantz and Eugene F. Sullivan, were all on the scene within a few minutes after the general alarm was turned in.

Lines of hose were taken into the Smith Premier Company's old building adjacent to the rear of the Mowry, and from upper windows streams were played onto the burning building.

Another line was taken up Hook and Ladder Company No. 1's extension ladder onto the roof of the Franklin Hotel.  Four hosemen took a line onto the roof of the Andrews Building, while several streams were directed from the alley between the Franklin Hotel and the Mowry Hotel.


As a precautionary measure a line of hose was taken up into the Franklin Hotel and kept in readiness in case the fire broke through into that building.

By 1:15 o'clock the entire line fighting force of the city, with the exception of one truck company and one engine company, which were stationed in No. 3's house, were on hand, and Combination Company No. 2 was held in South Salina street near the fire to respond in case the States Marine Corps, hung onto the ladder.

Dr. B. C. Loveland was called to attend Mrs. [unreadable].  Dr. Loveland said the window was the only possible means by which the family could escape, as the flames shot off from the hall leading from their apartments to the stairway and elevator.

Mr. Franzen said at the hospital that he was 25 years old, and was born in Ohio.  He returned to Syracuse only recently.  Captains Cain and Reilly each had a thumb cut while breaking in the windows in the front of the building.


Twice sparks from the fire set fire to the roof of the Jefferson Hotel, a block away, and only a sharp lookout on the part of employees who were detailed to guard the roof saved the structure.  The sparks fell thick and fast on the roof, but pails of water were kept in readiness to extinguish any that threatened to set fire to the building.

The sparks also set fire to the roof of the Wieting Block, but the blaze was extinguished by firemen from Combination No. 2.  Many buildings were endangered by the firebrands.

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The Mowry Hotel was built in 1868[?] by the late Henry J. Mowry and was always regarded as one of the best constructed buildings of the kind in the city.  The inside walls were thick and the exterior was built of heavy pressed brick and brown stone trimmings.  It was always conducted as a combined apartment and transient hold under the management of Mr. Barnes.  Seldom was there a vacant room or suite in the house.


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. . .

Chief Quigley said that he believed that the fire had started in the boiler room of the hotel, practically in the same place as iti did on February 1, 1903, when above [unreadable] damage was done in the building.  The other time the firemen were able to check the fire in the air shaft.

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Submitted 4 April 2006 by Pamela Priest