It's a family story I had never heard even the vaguest of references to. It's a major industrial accident in my own state that this history teacher was never aware of. It was nearly the end of my existence, some 120 years before I was born.
My second-great-grandparents, Patrick and Frances Hurley, had been married for about four years when they were both lucky to survive the collapse of a six-story textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The Hurleys were both employed at the Pemberton Mill, a large textile mill that stretched 280 feet long and 84 feet wide; one of the largest in the city. The mill itself was relatively new construction, having been built in 1853, but its owners crammed more and more machinery within to maximize profits.
The construction had been locally decried as insufficient as the owners had cut corners to save money.
"The building had never been considered as staunch as it ought to have been," reported the Boston Evening Transcript the next day. "It was built about seven years since, and was then thought a sham; indeed, before the machinery was put in, the walls spread to such a degree that some twenty-two tons of iron stays were put in to save the building from falling by its own weight."
This proved to be disastrous late in the day of January 10, 1860. It was about 4:30pm that Tuesday afternoon when the mill workers, which included immigrants, women, and children, felt the building shift and heard the world around them suddenly come crashing down.
The American Heritage magazine described the unfolding scene vividly: "Suddenly there was a sharp rattle, and then a prolonged, deafening crash. A section of the building's brick wall seemed to bulge out and explode, and then, literally in seconds, the Pemberton collapsed. Tons of machinery crashed down through crumpling floors, dragging trapped, screaming victims along in their downward path. At a few minutes after five, the factory was a heap of twisted iron, splintered beams, pulverized bricks, and agonized, imprisoned human flesh."
According to witnesses and survivors, the scene was unfathomable as the debris formed a pyramid of rubble in excess of 50 feet high. The Boston Globe reported: "The scene after the fall was one of indescribable horror. Hundreds of men, women, and children were buried in the ruins."
"The moans and cries for help of those in the ruins whose lives had not been immediately crushed out, mingled with an alarm rung out by the factory bells, called almost the entire community to the spot," reported The Boston Journal. "Darkness lent additional horror to the scene, for while a thousand hands were ready to rescue it was impossible to know whence the calls for assistance came."
A few hours after the initial disaster, at about 9:30pm, as search-and-rescue efforts continued in the darkness, rescuers employed oil lamps to guide their way. Unfortunately, one of those handheld oil lamps was inadvertently knocked over, leading to a massive fire that quickly spread through the textile mill.
"In a few moments the ruins were a sheet of flames," reported The Boston Globe. "Fourteen are known to have been burned to death in the sight of their loved ones, who were powerless to aid them."
The Boston Evening Transcript added: "The screams and moans of the poor, buried, burning and suffocating creatures can be distinctly heard, but no power on earth can save them."
It is impossible to say how many additional lives were lost because of the fire, though the Boston Evening Transcript reported on one such fatality: "Those near the breaking out of the fire were almost on the point of extricating a woman not badly hurt, but the flames drove them back, and the woman is supposed to have perished in the flames, when delivery seemed so near." In An Authentic History of the Lawrence Calamity, published later that year, it was reported that one trapped man cut his own throat rather than be consumed by the approaching flames; he was rescued, but died from his other injuries.
In the end, according to The Boston Evening Transcript: "Brick, mortar and human bones are promiscuously mingled."
From across the Atlantic Ocean, the London Times compared the disaster to the devastation typically reserved for battlefields. “We doubt, indeed, whether in any age, so many human beings have ever perished so terribly by an accident of ordinary life. War may produce parallel scenes of horror, but the annals of peace may be searched in vain for any calamity so appalling as the disaster at Lawrence,” The London Times reported.
As for the Hurleys, both managed to escape with their lives intact, though each was injured. Patrick was just a couple weeks shy of his 30th birthday, and had come to the United States just a decade earlier from Killarney in County Kerry, Ireland. Frances, also a native of Killarney, had just turned 21 years old weeks before. According to her obituary, after she died in 1909: "She was one of the few survivors of the Pemberton mill catastrophe of the 60's. Mrs. Hurley was taken out through one of the cellar windows. The mill, after collapsing, was burned through the carelessness of some of the rescuers. Mrs. Hurley claimed to be one of the last survivors of the collapsed mill."
The Atlas and Daily Bee of Boston published a list of the victims and survivors nearly a week later, consuming nearly one-third of the front page on January 16, 1860. My great-great-grandparents are listed among the "Saved," as are 897 other names. Among them are two other Hurleys, though whether they are related is not yet known, including a Joannah Hurley listed among those killed in the disaster. Additionally, though no known relations are included, so too are a more than a half-dozen Moriarty and Mahoney names listed among those involved in the Pemberton Mill collapse.
The Hurleys soon left Lawrence, though I am quite sure January 10, 1860 never left them. They moved some 80 miles southwest to the small town of Warren. Settling in West Warren, Patrick "was one of the chief promoters in establishing the present St Thomas Roman Catholic church," according to his obituary in 1906, almost a half-century after his life was nearly extinguished.
Patrick continued working cotton mills for a number of years as a loomfixer, before saving up enough money to buy a farm in the Thorndike section of Palmer. He retired from the farm life in his early 70s, moving back to Warren for the final few years of his life, passing away at the age of 76 on September 30, 1906. Frances survived until 1909, passing away the morning of August 10 at her Summer Street home. She was 69.
It is so very sobering to realize that my family line nearly ended that January afternoon, in a mill I never even knew existed until now.
