1895 - Ocean House Fire

 “At 4:30 yesterday afternoon, the Ocean House Birely Bros.’ large summer hotel at the Beach, was thronged with guests; the wide plazzas were crowded ; the dining room was  resplendent with snow-white linen silver and glass;, and the strains of gay music floated out through the windows on the summer air.”

Hamilton Times.    July 18, 1895. Image 125.

For nearly 20 years, the Ocean House was a popular summer hotel at the Beach Strip, and upon opening it was advertised as being located in ‘the Long Branch of Canada,’ but over the years, the hotel’s reputation had started to wane:

“The Ocean House was erected in 1876 by the late F.N. Birely, of the city, at a cost of $10,000, and the first manager was James Nevilles. After running the hotel for two years, Nevilles ran himself over to Chicago with the proceeds of a year’s business. Since then the hotel was leased for several years to John Kerner and Hood Brothers controlled it for two years. Of late years, it has been managed by the present proprietors, Birely Bros. About ten years ago, extensive additions were made to the hotel building, but it has long been felt that as a summer hotel for a popular resort like the Beach, it was a back number.”1

Times. July 18, 1895.

The Ocean House was a complex consisting of the hotel proper and a couple of external structures, one of which served as a barroom, a billiard room and which contained bowling alleys:

“The fire started in the large frame structure to the east of the Ocean House proper, and used as a barroom, billiard room, and bowling alleys. In the cellar a large quantity of liquors were stored, and it is supposed that a cigar thrown through the area grating fired some rubbish. Lou Schumacher and Ralph Watson were in charge of the barroom, in which there were quite a number of people. Watson’s attention was called to a thin column of smoke issuing up between the boards of the flooring on the bay side of house. He lifted up the cellar hatchway with the intention of getting down and putting out the little fire he thought existed there, but smoke issued from the hatchway in a thick cloud and drove him back. Immense tongues of flame followed the smoke, and immediately the crowd inside made a rush for the doors. The flames spread with almost incredible rapidity, feeding on the liquors like so much oil. In a minute, the interior of the bar was ablaze, and Watson was glad to escape with his hat and minus his hat and coat.”¹

Those in the bowling area when the fire broke out had little time to save themselves:

“The billiard room was practically deserted, but the bowling alley was occupied by Contractor Van Vinck and John Dickenson, of the Kramer-Irwin Company, and young Jack Birely. As the smoke belched up from the cellar, Van Vinck seized his coat and ran across the billiard and out on the lake side, Birely followed him, but when Dickenson attempted to do the same, after getting his coat, he found the exit cut off by a wall of flame. He then turned and jumped through a window, leaving his hat inside.”¹

When it became generally known that there was a fire at the Ocean House, many were willing to help out as best that they could :

A bucket brigade was quickly formed, and orders to clear the house were issued from the hotel office. While one crowd of volunteers kept a line of buckets going, another, numbering perhaps two hundred, commenced the work of removing all that was portable from the doomed hotel. Meantime a small shed standing between the hotel and the bar was hauled away bodily by the crowd, and even the remaining portions of the fence were carried away in a vain attempt to make a fire break.

“The building was entirely of wood and well-seasoned, and it burned like tinder. The heat became so great that the leaves on trees across the road curled up like tissue and telegraph poles commenced to blaze.”¹

In 1895, there was not a dedicated fire department responsible for fighting any fires on the Beach Strip, and, as shown by the bucket brigade, there were no water mains:

“About 4:50 some thoughtful person telephoned to Burlington for a fire engine. The reeve, Dr. Richardson, gave the alarm in the village and to the prompt response of Chief Maurice Hatton and company of 16 men is undoubtedly due the credit of saving all the buildings between the big hotel and the canal. They lost a little time getting a team for the engine, but were soon hustling across the mile and a half of sand as fast as the horses could bring them. The engine was run up on the pier and the lighthouse side of the ferry slip and was soon throwing two streams on the fire, which, by this time, however, had got such headway that nothing could save the building and the men turned their attention to saving the Lake Side House, adjoining the Ocean House, and owned by Fred Kreutchman. Notwithstanding the heat, they succeeded in keeping the hotel too wet to burn.”¹

A call about was also made to Hamilton, but the Hamilton Fire Department was unable to get to the scene rapidly:

“At 5:15, Ald. Hall, acting Chairman of the Markets, Fire and Police Committee, received a call from the Beach for assistance, and instructed Chief Aitchison to respond. The Chief accordingly started down with a detail of sixteen men and the steam fire engine and 1,000 feet of hose. A long delay at the Stuart street station over getting flat cars for the transportation of the apparatus made it nearly 6 p.m., when the city foremen arrived, and by that time, the fire had practically burned itself out.

There was a major sailing regatta taking place at the time of the Ocean House, so there were literally thousands of people in the vicinity to either help out or to just witness the spectacle:

“Between 5 and 9 p.m., the bay shore of the Beach opposite the side of the Ocean House presented an appearance similar to that of the shore of Lake Michigan during the Chicago fire – on a small scale. All along the Beach, there were piles of furniture and bedding of every known style; kitchenware, crockery, and glassware, food of all kinds, clothing, trunks and boxes. Beside the car loads of stuff from the Ocean House, there was nearly all the furniture from the Lakeside hotel, and also all of J. Johnston’s stock of confectionary etc., besides that of Newport. In many cases, guests who found their baggage amongst the hotel lot gathered it into a heap and stood guard over it until they could get transportation to another hotel. Many used boats to take their effects down shore, and the yachtsmen removed their trunks etc., back to their yachts.”¹

The next day’s Hamilton Times carried the following editorial about the Ocean House and what the prospects for another hotel along the Beach Strip would be:

“The burning of the Ocean House yesterday afternoon leaves the Beach quite deficient in accommodation for boarders and guests from a distance. Already it is confidently predicted that a larger and better building will be erected by somebody to take the place of the hotel that had done service for the last twenty years. It has not been an easy matter to make the old hotel pay, for the season of active operations is short and the expenses are heavy. Hamilton people, who liked living at the Beach, found too little privacy at the Ocean House, which really did duty as a railway station as well as a hotel, and most of them built or rented cottages. For the custom of foreign guests, the competition was very strong, as the number of good summer hotels on the continent runs up into the thousands. A larger and more modern building would doubtless prove more attractive than the old one. The need of fire protection on the Breach was exemplified yesterday. The cottages for nearly a mile are now so close together that, if a fire were to break out when the wind came from the direction to carry the flames along the row of houses, no bucket brigade could check the destructive agent. Sooner or later, a water pipe from the neighborhood of the pumping house will have to be laid on the Beach, not only for fire protection, but because the well water is sure to become contaminated as population increases. Burlington and Hamilton may be ever so willing to lend their fire engines, but the burning of wooden houses takes so little time that help from either direction might be too late.”

 

“The burning of the Ocean House yesterday afternoon leaves the Beach quite deficient in accommodation for boarders and guests from a distance. Already it is confidently predicted that a larger and better building will be erected by somebody to take the place of the hotel that had done service for the last twenty years. It has not been an easy matter to make the old hotel pay, for the season of active operations is short and the expenses are heavy. Hamilton people, who liked living at the Beach, found too little privacy at the Ocean House, which really did duty as a railway station as well as a hotel, and most of them built or rented cottages. For the custom of foreign guests, the competition was very strong, as the number of good summer hotels on the continent runs up into the thousands. A larger and more modern building would doubtless prove more attractive than the old one. The need of fire protection on the Breach was exemplified yesterday. The cottages for nearly a mile are now so close together that, if a fire were to break out when the wind came from the direction to carry the flames along the row of houses, no bucket brigade could check the destructive agent. Sooner or later, a water pipe from the neighborhood of the pumping house will have to be laid on the Beach, not only for fire protection, but because the well water is sure to become contaminated as population increases. Burlington and Hamilton may be ever so willing to lend their fire engines, but the burning of wooden houses takes so little time that help from either direction might be too late.