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| Date | October 28, 1915 |
|---|---|
| Location | St. John's School in Peabody, Massachusetts |
| Deaths | 21 |
The St. John's School fire was a deadly fire that occurred on the morning of October 28, 1915, at the St. John's School on Chestnut Street in the downtown area of Peabody, Massachusetts. Twenty-one girls between the ages of 7 and 17 were burned or crushed to death while attempting to escape the fire.
More than 600 children were in the building when the fire began in the basement of the school building. [1] There were no fire escapes on the outside of the building, [2] but instead those inside were forced to use wide stairways at either end of the interior which led down to the front exit. Mother Superior Aldegon, who led the Sisters who taught in the Catholic school, sounded a fire alarm and began the routine fire drill procedure.
This procedure should have led to the children and teachers leaving the building through the stairways to and out of a rear exit. However, as smoke thickened and the fire came closer, they ran for the front door instead, and became jammed in the vestibule. The fire broke through to the vestibule from directly under the front entrance and the vestibule, now crowded with pupils, was enveloped in flames.
Some students worked together to help others evacuate or ran back inside the school in attempts to find siblings or friends. [2]
With their exit blocked, many of the children escaped through first-floor windows or jumped from those on the second and third floors. The Sisters of Notre Dame who taught at St. John's aided the children trying to escape, some by dropping the students into coats and blankets being used as life nets. Others forced the children out the doors, picking up children who had fallen or fainted and pushing them outside and many went back to upper floors in order to make sure that students were evacuating. [2] The fire rapidly swept through the three-story brick and wooden building, fully engulfing it in less than five minutes.
Not all were able to escape, however; the bodies of the 19 victims were found after the fire subsided, huddled together and burned beyond recognition, on the inside of the school entrance and two later died at the hospital. [3] Of those killed, the eldest was seventeen-years-old and the youngest was six. [2] Two of the nuns were injured, one suffering serious burns; however, none of the adults were killed.
In the immediate aftermath of the fire, many did not want to remember the disaster. News photographers and a movie crew who had responded to the site along with personal photographers all had their cameras confiscated by law enforcement. [3]
As a result of this fire, Peabody became the first city to pass a law that said all doors (in public buildings and school) must push out. [4]
The school was later rebuilt at the same location and operates today as St. John the Baptist School, which educates children from preschool through eighth grade. [5] A memorial statue to commemorate the fire, which depicts a statue of Jesus comforting two children, was erected in 2005. [2] The last survivor of the fire died in 2008, at the age of 98. [6]
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