Source: North Manchester Journal, June 3, 1897

TWO FIRES IN ONE NIGHT
Evident Work of Fire Bugs Creates Consternation among the People of this Place

There seemed to be no end of excitement in town Monday night. Two fires, both evidently of incendiary origin, before midnight worked the people up to a high pitch of nervous excitement. About ten o'clock Nightwatchman Kohser in passing the restaurant of Bert Bonewitz noticed a blaze pouring up from the basement of the building through a shaft used as a passage way for a belt from a water motor in the cellar to run the ventilating fans in the restaurant.

It was quick work to spread the alarm and the assembled crowd soon broke into the building, which was locked up, the proprietor having gone home for the night. The fire was discovered in the middle department of the cellar and evidently had not been burning long. It was but a short time until the fire company had hose laid and the basement flooded with water.

The fire had started close to a pine partition which divides the cellar and had spread to the hole in the floor and up the pine boarded belt shaft. The boards and timbers around were burned and charred to some extent, but the worst damage to the place resulted from smoke and water. The origin of the fire is very mysterious, as the restaurant people declare there was nothing in that part of the cellar to start a fire. The rear room of the cellar is used as a kitchen and the cook stove is fully six feet from and on the opposite side of the partition where the fire started.

In about an hour after the excitement over the fire had subsided Nightwatchman Kohser discovered another fire blazing in the second story of the old frame building, which is occupied by the Woods sisters' millinery store. It evidently had not been burning long and there was unmistakable evidence that it was the work of fire bugs. The second story of the building is unoccupied and the fire was started inside a closet room. An old fruit can which evidently held coal oil was found in the room. Beside there is no possible way by which the fire in the cellar of the restaurant building, which is of brick, could have been communicated to the frame building.

The fire alarm was again turned in and in a comparatively short time the fire company had the building flooded and the fire out. But little damage, compared to what might have been, was done to the building. The walls in one corner of the closet room were somewhat charred and the roof slightly damaged. The water, however, poured on the building ran through into the millinery store and damaged a considerable amount of the goods. In fact the store presented a very sorry appearance after the fire was over. All parties were protected by insurance which will cover the losses and damages sustained.

There seems no doubt that both fires were the work of an incendiary. Mr. Bonewitz and his family had locked up the restaurant only a few minutes before and at that time there was no evidence of fire. They had gone but a little over two squares on their home when the fire bell rang. There are two suspicious circumstances connected with this fire. They have kept the key to the back door of the basement hung high overhead on a post outside where it would hardly be disturbed. The key was afterward found on the ground behind the building. About a week ago Mr. Bonewitz discovered that the putty had been cut away from around a glass in one of the windows in the rear end of the basement, as if some one was trying to get in. In the room where the fire started there was a gasoline stove, but it had not been used since last Saturday. The circumstances all around are very suspicious and the town is fortunate that it escaped without a serious conflagration that night.

During the fire the fire hose bursted several times and it is claimed by some that it was cut. An inspection of the hose looks very much that way and is another evidence that the fire was the work of fire bugs.