140 .- Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

Especially, because of the absence of good roads and facilities
for transportation—save by the river to Fayetteville—there was
but little opportunity for extending the trade of the town.

Further, the trouble with England, the embargo, the inter-
ruption of commerce by the War of 1812, with the attendant
financial embarrassments, brought loss and ruin in their train.

Superadded was the scourge of yellow fever during the sum-
mer of 1819, the disease in that season being more prevalent
throughout the Southern and Middle Atlantic States than had
at any other time been known. Baltimore, as well as the more
southern ports, was entirely paralyzed. As in 1862, many
families fled from Wilmington into the interior.

Hardly had the desolation subsided and commerce revived,
when Wilmington was visited by the most disastrous conflagra-
tion recorded in its history. The total loss, as stated by some
standard authorities, was about one million dollars, but the
Cape Fear Recorder estimated it at between six and seven hun-
dred thousand dollars—an almost total obliteration of the
wealth of the town.

We quote from the Raleigh Register and North Carolina
State Gazette of Friday, November 12, 1819:

It is our painful duty to register a very extensive and calamitous
fire which took place at Wilmington in our State; and we do it
with those strong feelings of sympathy and regret which such events
naturally inspire. We cannot portray the circumstances in which the
town was placed more feelingly than it is depicted by the Editor of
the Cape Fear Recorder; “who feels them most can paint them best.”

Frre! Wilmington (says the Recorder) has experienced more awful
calamities by fire than any other place in the Union. Thrice, within
twenty years, has the devouring element laid in ashes the abodes of
her inhabitants. Enterprise, industry, and the assistance of her neigh-
bors, gave her, measurably, resuscitation, until the recent pressure
of the times bended her down almost to the sinking point. Em-
barrassments in pecuniary matters had reached that state which ap-
peared to baffle relief. Sickness and death followed in the melancholy
train. Despair had almost concluded that she could not sink beyond
this. Hope, the bright luminary by which man’s path in this world
of care is heightened and cheered, brought consolation, and pointed
to better days. Disease had ceased—the periodical work of death
completed—the late deserted abodes of her inhabitants filling—vessels
arriving daily in her port—the appearance of business reviving. On
Thursday morning, the 4th inst., about three o’clock, the cry of fire was
given, and the delusion vanished. Her bright hopes were destroyed.

The frightful picture is before us and it is our duty to present it to
our distant readers. The fire originated back of a small building

Early Years 7 141

occupied by Mr. Samuel Adkins as a grocery store, situated on the
wharf, near Dock Street, and adjoining the large brick warehouse
lately occupied as the *76 Coffee-house, in part of which was the office

and counting house of Gabriel Holmes, Esq.

From the best calculation we can make, the whole number of houses

destroyed was about three hundred, of every description, including the
Presbyterian Church, lately erected; and the total loss of property

between six and seven hundred thousand dollars.

The following persons are those who have lost by the destruction of

buildings:

Col. Archibald F. McNeill, John London, Col. Thomas Cowan, John

Swann, jr., William McKay, Estate of Thomas Jennings, Seth Hoard,
Joseph Kellogg, Estate of J. London, Mrs. McRee, Jacob Levy, Richard
Bradley, Edward B. Dudley, William J. Love, S. Springs, James
Dickson, Hanson Kelly, David Smith, Henry Urquhart, John Walker,
George Jennings, Robert Rankin, State Bank, Estate of Nehemiah
Harris, Estate of James Allen, M. Blake, Estate of M. Murphy, James
Usher, Mrs. Hoskins, Mrs. Toomer, William Harris, James Marshall,

Estate of P. Harris, Louis Paggett, Estate of Hilliary Moore, Reuben
Loring, William C. Lord, Gilbert Geer. This list is no doubt incomplete.
Among those who suffered by the destruction of other property the
principal in amount are, Isaac Arnold, Edmund Bridge, jr., Eleazar
Tilden, Dudley and Van Cleff, Dudley and Dickinson, Miles Blake,
Seth Hoard, Richard Lloyd, J. Angomar, George. Lloyd, H. Wooster,
Patrick Murphy, B. C. Gillett, W. C. Radcliffe, Stewart Robson.

It is almost impossible to ascertain the amount of individual losses.
Every person within the bounds of the fire, and all those without it
who removed their property, lost more or less. But the extent of a
loss, as it regards merely its amount, is not the criterion of its injury—
it is he that has lost his all, the unprotected, the friendless, and the
helpless, that ought to excite our pity and compassion, and calls for

our assistance.
Only one life was lost—Capt. Farquhar McRae, after the fire had

almost subsided, who ventured within a building for the purpose of
saving property not his own. The walls fell, he was crushed to atoms.
He was a useful citizen in his sphere of life and would have been
regretted even had he died on the couch of disease,

To the sufferings of others Wilmington has never remained indif-
ferent—limited as were her means, to know them was all that was
necessary for her to contribute her mite. She is now in distress—
hundreds of her inhabitants are suffering. The knowledge of her
situation will, we are certain, confer relief.

And all this is the work of an incendiary. Suspicion has been afloat,
but we suspect it has not been directed toward the right person.
Higher views than those of plunder must have been the object, for we
have heard of not much success and of very few attempts.

(Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette, Friday, December 3, 1819.)

Wi-mineton Fire—We have pleasure in stating that a subscription
has been opened for the relief of the sufferers by this disastrous event,