The Brooklyn Theatre Fire
One of the worst disasters in Brooklyn's history happened on December 5, 1876
On the night of December 5, 1876, an audience of more than 1,000 women, men, and children were inside the Brooklyn Theatre on the corner of Johnson and Washington Streets. The theater had opened five years earlier, hoping to attract those who would typically travel across the river for entertainment. That is, to Manhattan.
The theater had three tiers of seats: stage level, a balcony, and, above this, the gallery. An estimated 400 people had climbed the single, circuitous staircase to watch the show from there, the cheap seats.
That night’s performance was a popular drama called “The Two Orphans” by N. Hart Jackson. At about 11 pm, as the fifth and final act began, actors Kate Claxton and Harry S. Murdoch were onstage. Mary Ann Farren, J.B. Studley, and Claude Burroughs waited in the wings.
A gas lamp. A piece of scenery, off-stage. A leap of flame.
* * *
In December 2016, I visited Green-wood Cemetery in search of the memorial to the victims of the Brooklyn Theatre Fire. The Green-wood was founded in 1838. It is non-denominational and, according to their website, “478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds, and paths.”
I’d been there frequently, but only to wander. My sense of direction is abysmal, and I expected to get lost, even though I’d consulted a cemetery map and memorized what turns to take. Yet soon after I entered the main gate at 25th Street and 5 Avenue, I came up upon the monument on Battle Hill. Leaving the path, I trudged up a slight incline, pausing once to look around. All was quiet except for a distant siren, a reminder of the city beyond the black gate. My footprints were the sole ones in the snow.
The night’s tragedy is told in panels around the obelisk.
I’d never heard of the Brooklyn Theatre Fire until I was writing my novel, Ashes of Fiery Weather, about a Brooklyn, New York, F.D.N.Y. family. Ashes spans a century. Each chapter is told from the point-of-view of a different woman and so is set in a different era. As part of my research, I read Terry Golway’s book, “So That Others Might Live: A History of New York’s Bravest: The F.D.N.Y. from 1700 to the Present.”
As Golway explains, in 1876, we were still the City of Brooklyn. The bridge was under construction. The F.D.N.Y. did not exist, and wouldn’t until Brooklyn was annexed into borough-hood in 1898.
When the theater caught fire, it was the Brooklyn Fire Department who battled the blaze through the night. Bad as it was, and though they heard screams from inside, the firemen believed most patrons had made it out in time. But as the sun rose, the firemen began to dig through the rubble.
The remains of 102 bodies are interred in the grave at the Green-wood, both the dead who could not be identified and those whose families could not afford a funeral. The monument says 278 died, but different sources put the number slightly lower or higher. Given the condition of the bodies, an exact number was unknowable.
New York would not lose so many in a single tragedy until September 11, 2001.
For weeks after, reporters told the stories of victims and survivors. Investigations commenced. Besides the wide main entrance–behind the panicking crowd–only five narrow doors led to the street (Golway, p 137). The ceiling came down, and the walls collapsed as people were still lunging for the exits and for air.
Survivors recounted people being crushed into the stairwell and against the floor by a crowd that had become a single, mad entity. Some were already unconscious, while others struggled to get to their feet. Many were killed not by smoke and flames but by stampede.
Burning of the Brooklyn Theatre by Anonymous aggregates the voluminous coverage of the tragedy. The dead are mentioned by name, like Mrs. Caroline Berri and her mother, Mrs. Martin. Officer Patrick McKean had been tasked with keeping order in the gallery. He was last seen desperately trying to point people to the exits. The Solomon family lost four members: Morris Solomon, his daughters, Mary and Deborah, Morris’s son, Philip, and Philip’s wife, Lena.
Actors Kate Claxton, Mary Ann Farron, and J.B. Studley survived. Harry Murdoch, 31, and Claude Burroughs, 22, did not.
Today, there is no remembrance of the fire where the theater once stood. The area is now Cadman Plaza Park, where there is a monument to the men of Brooklyn who served in World War II and a statue of Henry Ward Beecher, a renowned preacher, and orator who, in fact, eulogized the fire’s victims.
The Brooklyn Theatre Fire has disappeared from collective memory. There were calls for improvements in fire safety in theaters in the fire’s aftermath, and measures were taken. For a time, the F.D.N.Y. required a fireman to patrol theaters during performances. But no movement was born, as with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, which killed 146 and became a rallying cry for unionizing.
I went to Green-Wood Cemetery to pay my respects at the memorial because I felt I owed the dead that much. I’d written about the tragedy that had taken their lives. And no matter that it was 140 years ago. It happened in my hometown, and I felt that I should have known.
Standing in front of the memorial is to be glad that if there can be no names, then the story, at least, is there for all to read.
I came across this in Green-Wood and always meant to see if I could find out more. Thanks for writing this and sharing the story. There should be a memorial of sorts.
Thanks for this. I used to love wandering Green-Wood and would always think of all the stories I didn't know. Now I know one more!