[Newspaper]
Publication: The Boston Daily Globe
Boston, MA, United States
vol. 57, no. 19, p. 9, col. 2
STIFF SOMERVILLE BLAZE.
New England Glass Company's Plant
Damaged About $3500.
About 9:30 last evening a fire broke out in the establishment of the New England glass manufacturing company, 26 Lake st. Somerville. It threatened to assume serious proportions, as on one side of the burning structure was the long, low, hay and grain establishment of A. M. Wilder, and on the other wooden tenement houses.
The building of the glass company is a one-story wooden affair, with a frontage of 25 feet and a depth of 50. The company employs 25 hands at the work of making exclusively glass insulators for telegraph wires.
The fire is supposed to have started from oil pipes. A great deal of oil is used in the work, and a leak in one of the pipes from the oil tank may have caused an ingnition with the furnace fire. Some similar condition of affairs is supposed to have prevailed, at any rate to those who first saw the fire the blaze seemed to have contact with the entire interior of the building and was accompanied by the strong odor of oil.
An excellent opportunity was afforded the fire department to show its efficiency. Adverse criticism has been recently made by a committee of the ward 1 reform club. That the criticisms of the committee had gained widespread notice was apparent at the fire, as there was much speculation made as to the extent the fire would obtain.
An alarm was sounded from box 27 in the police building, when a much nearer box might have been sounded if box 225 had been pulled in Union sq. Chief Hopkins was on the scene with the first piece of apparatus and at once assumed direction of affairs. The flames were bursting from the roof of the building. The end of Mr. Wilders hay and grain shop was within five feet of the burning structure, but such was the work of the firemen that the place was barely scorched.
The fire was confined in the glass house, and that was not burned down. The stock and the machinery was damaged to the amount of $3000, and the building, which is owned by D. O. and J. S. Hill, was damaged $500. Mr. Wilder sinted that his loss would be trifling, caused wholly by smoke.