Every father and mother in New York has been saddened this week by readin’ the details of the terrible alcamity in which so many innocent little school children lost their lives. Yet in pathos and dramatic interest, as well as in realistic horror, this calamity was overshadowed and terribly surpassed by an accident to the Public School No. 26 on Greenwich avenue, opposite Charles street, which occurred on a November afternoon, thirty-two years ago.
There were about fifteen hundred children, large and small, boys and girls, in the school buildin’ at the time. One of the female teachers, livin’ still, was taken with a fit. A cry was raised for “Water.” This cry was soon re-echoed, and quickly changed into the awful word “Fire.” A panic arose, followed by a stampede to the single staircase. The staircase gave way. The door, which closed inwards, also prevented the frightened children gettin’ out; they fell one on top of the other in heaps nearly as high as the doors. And when all was over, when the teachers and the policemen and the firemen had done their best, there were nearly fifty little darlin’s killed, most of ‘em suffocated, and over thirty injured more or less seriously, some for life.
One teacher, a young man named McNully [sic McNally], behaved like a hero. He had charge of the larger boys who were in one of the rooms on the upper floor, and at the first sound of the alarm they all pushed to the door of the room, preparatory to rushing to the staircase, of course. McNally didn’t know what was the matter, but he knew this much, that whatever the matter was, a stampede of his boys would make it worse for ‘emselves and for others–that coolness and order were the great points to be preserved now. So, as his desk was by the door, he quietly stepped to it and closed it, and put his back against it to keep it closed.
The maddened boys made a wild dash for the door, but that door was not to be opened just then. McNally told the boys so, and requested ‘em to “sit down and keep quiet.” He might as well have asked ‘em to be angels, and with yells and frantic cries they tried to open that door and push him from it. But McNally was a powerful young man, and he was in earnest. He knew that if his boys once got out to the staircase, rushin’ on top of the rest, it would be the worse for others and for ‘emselves.
There was one boy there, the biggest boy in the room, who was desperate with fear, and madly determined to escape–he knew not how, from he knew not what–to get out of that room anyway, and he led on the other boys to try and open that door. But in vain did the big boy rave and struggle with his companions to open that door; in vain did he fight McNally. The door remained closed. Then, in his wild, dazed desperation, the foiled big boy saw the window near him. It was three stories from the ground, but it was open. With a yell, he leaped out ere he could be prevented. And of all the boys under Mr. McNally’s charge, he was the only one killed or seriously injured. The rest escaped. He fell from the window to the ground and was so shattered by the shock that he died the next day.
Meanwhile the alarm had spread through the district; parents, policemen and firemen rushed to the scene, and did what they could to extricate the children. One policeman, named Seabring, rushin’ to the school, saw in the hallway, lyin’ with several children on top of her, his own little girl, who couldn’t even stretch out her little arms to him or call him even, so tightly were they wedged in. All she could do was to look at him piteously, yet faintly. She was suffocatin’ fast. In among the children in that hallway rushed that policeman and father to rescue his child. But another man, rushin’ along, a neighbor of Seabrings, saw his child, lyin’ a little beyond Seabring’s child, and likewise suffocatin’ slowly. He, too, rushed into the hallway to recover his child, but there was only room just now and just there for one man to stand and have the free use of his arms, and the policeman had that place, rescuin’ his child, while the other man’s child was gaspin’ for breath.
The second father saw the situation at once, and without a word, obeyin’ one of the grand instincts of human nature, he seized the policeman by the throat, and tried to push him from his place, so as to be able to get at his own child first. But the policeman was determined to save first his own little darlin’, and he did so. Givin’ his assailant a blow which stunned him, he maintained his place and saved his child. Then he set to work and saved the other man’s child.
The day after the dreadful accident a coroner’s jury, composed of some of the most intelligent and prominent men of New York, paid a visit to several of the bereaved families to ascertain for ‘emselves all that they could about the origin of the affair.
In one of the houses the jury visited (a house occupied by a Mrs. Wooley) there was a most touchin’ sight presented. In the little parlor by the window, lyin’ side by side on the table, were two little coffins, and in one of ‘em was a little girl, in the other a little boy–brother and sister–only one year’s difference in their ages.
By the head of the coffin containin’ the little boy lay the mother in a swoon. By the foot of the coffin containin’ his little girl, sat the bereaved father, bowed down with grief–his moanin’ and sobs penetratin’ the room.
It was a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. It made the party weep, coroner and all. Mr. Wooley, the father, is alive today, an old, old man, and has forgotten almost everythin’ else, but he remembers distinctly this accident and the loss of his little boy and girl.
One of the singular facts connected with the affair was that, in the majority of cases, the corpses of the victims were not repulsive, but beautiful in death. Many of ‘em even had smiles on their dead faces, as if they died as they lived, happy. This was due to the fact that most of the victims had perished, not from bruises, but from suffocation, and in suffocatin’ the face, strange to say, assumes the appearance of smilin’, looks peaceful, if not positively beautiful, makin’ thus a mockery of death.
Perhaps it was better this way–far better that the poor parents should look there last at their dear ones with a smile upon their cold, still lips–rather fancy they were sleepin’ pleasantly in their shroud and casket then witness the horror of their takin’ off depicted on their faces.
But there was one mother whom every other mother envied. She had a little girl, who was found in the school room lifeless, senseless, and was laid out for dead. Dr, Vanderpoel, Sr., came along, and, lookin’ carefully at the child, thought he detected some signs of life. He got a powerful galvanic battery, and in less than an hour the dead was alive, and one mother’s heart was rendered unexpectedly happy.
[Editor’s notes: Francis McNally, principal, teacher, and hero of the Ward School disaster of 1851, was just 26 years old at the time. He was married and had two children, Amelia and Charles. A third child, Frances (daughter) was born in October of 1853, about the same time that her father moved to a better position as principal of a different school. However, in early 1854, Francis McNally caught pneumonia and died, leaving his wife and three children in the care of his wife’s father, a successful druggist. Daughter Frances grew up to be a schoolteacher. Charles became a civil servant, and Amelia married at a young age.
The tragedy that the above column refers to in the beginning was the February, 1883, disaster at the Holy Redeemer school–which was eerily similar to the Ward School tragedy. A small fire broke out on the upper floor, causing the students to panic. They rushed as a group to a small staircase with weak railings. The railings broke, and dozens of students fell into the deep corridor:
