Blankenship - James - Hattie almost perishes - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Monday shortly before 9 a.m. an alarm of fire called the department to the residence of James Blankenship, just west of the Y. M. C. A. building. A fire originating in a defective flue was raging and volumes of smoke were pouring from the eaves. The house is a story and a half affair with a brick front raised before the old building, hiding a window and leaving a little alcove between the brick front and the house. The firemen were busy working away when suddenly Henry Coolman, the blacksmith, shouted in thunder tones: “My gawd! A helpless female is perishing in the flames!”

The crowd ran around to the west side of the house when a horrible spectacle burst upon their startled vision. Miss Hattie Blankenship upon the outbreak of the fire had hustled up to the front room to secure her Easter bonnet net and in attempting to return found the egress cut off by reason of the suffocating smoke. She climbed out of the front window mentioned above, and walking between the old front and the new brick front reached the west wall upon which she stood like Patience on a monument. From the dizzy height of some fourteen feet she gazed down upon the excited throng below. Upon the cruel pavement, men seemed no larger than pigmies, and raising her eyes to heaven (to which it seemed that she would be pretty suddenly called), the poor girl clasped her hands in silent prayer. The spectators, sick at heart, groaned and many turned away. Suddenly a joyful shout went up. Rescue was at hand! The firemen bold began to run their ladders up the wall. Would they fall short? The awful dread was relieved when the last inch of the ladder on the scene banged against the top of the wall like a policeman’s club on the cranium of a loitering bum. A loud huzza rent the air in several pieces as Chief Dorsey ran up the quivering rungs with fawn like grace. The rolling smoke encircled his brown like a laurel crown as he reached the damsel and unheeding the faint plaudits of the wildly excited masses in the street far below he took the position for the two step waltz. The lady jammed her Easter bonnet on her head in happy abandon and held on for grim death. The perilous journey down the ladder was safely accomplished and impeded only by the lady occasionally sticking her feet through the rungs of the ladder at the imminent risk of having them broken off. Arrived upon the pavement the escaped victim of the cruel, hungry flames was restored to her happy relatives while Chief Dorsey, unconscious of his heroism, turned his attention to the subduing of the fire fiend.

The building was saved with a loss of perhaps $400. It is the property of Mrs. Mary Lee and was insured for $700 in the Phoenix, of Hartford.