MACI BLAZE WASN’T THE FIRST FIRE
THERE
Taken from The Southbridge News
dated September 17, 1971:
The fire that hit the Maci Building early this morning is not the first major fire at that location.
In 1863, three years after the establishment of the Southbridge Fire Department, a giant fire virtually leveled the row of frame buildings that occupied the present site of the Maci Building.
“At 1:30 a.m. on November 14, 1863, Henry Martin, a night watchman, and John Lucier discovered the fire,” reports the Sesquicentennial Historical Album of Southbridge. “They first got out the Tiger Engine and then hollered for help. Buildings on Main Street between Central and Foster Streets blazed four of the finest in town, including the Baptist Church. At that time Main Street was twelve feet lower than now and marshy. Nuisance Brook crossed Main Street and was spanned by a bridge. Young and old, men and women fought all night with a bucket brigade trying to fight the fire with brook water which soon gave out.
“At 3 a.m. the clock in the burning steeple of the Baptist Church rang the hour and dropped into the flames. Fighters fortified themselves in characteristic style,” concluded The Historical Album.
Another historical account of the fire notes that, “It is a question whether liquor or water flowed more freely.” As one press report has it, “There was no lack of help to man the engines and no dirth of ‘spirit’ or cider to stimulate their energy. Indeed liquor was more free than water some of the time, and more in demand, but notwithstanding the copiousness of the liquid that was poured on to the burning building and the fiery liquid that was poured down the throats, nothing was left standing but the charred and blacked ruins of the west half of the lower story (of the Healy Tavern).
Southbridge rebuilt, as it had in the past and, hopefully, as it will today. The C. A. Dresser House, a well-known hosiery, opened on the corner of Main and Central Streets where the Healy Tavern had been located. The Dresser House, costing more than $80,000 was never a financial success and closed as a hotel in 1899 when purchased by the Masonic Building Association.
The Masonic Building Association sold the building three years ago to Maci Realty Trust, Henry Madore and Louis Ciprari, principals. Their remodeling of the building had added a major modern structure to the core of Southbridge, that is until this morning’s fire. Hopefully, Southbridge will respond to this fire as it did to the fire 108 years ago by rebuilding.
But right now the community suffers
together the death and loss surrounding this tragic fire.
Other Southbridge Landmark Demolition Pages on this site: