Thomas J. O’Neill and the Great Baltimore Fire
On February 7, 1904, it was a cold day in Baltimore, Maryland, and that morning there was nothing too out of the ordinary to distinguish it from any other Spring day, that was, until a small store fire was ignited from a discarded cigarette on the lower floor of the Hurst building which soon grew to a massive fireball that swept the city, destroying 1,500 buildings and damaging thousands of others in what at the time was the United States most ferocious fire since the ‘Great Chicago fire of 1871'.
However, one building in the path of the devastating blaze is still etched in the folk memory of that terrifying day, and that was the O’Neill & Co Department Store whose walls were licked by the flames before miraculously changing direction. That department store was the property of a ‘big red-headed’ Irishman, Thomas J. O’Neill, a Cavan native who with his family left for America to improve their fortunes.
Through Cavan Genealogical Centre, I learned that Thomas was one of eight siblings, born on November 11, 1849, to John O’Neill and Annie Lynch O’Neill in the town of Killeshandra, which as Slater’s Directory describes in 1846: Was ‘pleasantly situated on the Croghan, a tributary stream to the Erne.’
Thomas baptism took place on November 14, 1849. His siblings were: Francis born in 1851, Ann born in 1852, Joseph born 1855, Ellen born 1858, John born 1860, Elizabeth born 1861 and Ed in 1865. In Killeshandra, the children’s father John O’Neill was a merchant and ran a store. A mention of the shop appears in this newspaper on May 5, 1860, when it was put up for sale and the advertisement noted: ‘An excellent business house in Killeshandra, and immediate possession given, John O’Neill’s interest in the house occupied by him in Killeshandra. The House has been established in the Drapery trade for the last 70 years, and does not require one shilling outlay. Apply at the premises.’
In one account of O’Neill’s life, it is noted that following his brother Ed’s birth, the family emigrated in 1866 to Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. Just as we mention Baltimore, it is of interest to say that in Co Longford the first Lord Baltimore had ‘Irish property’ granted to him by King James II, and that the Baltimore’s on their arrival in America, became the ‘proprietors’ of Maryland where according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica the first Lord Baltimore helped found this ‘North American’ province ‘in an effort to find sanctuary for practising Roman Catholics’ escaping persecution.
A notable happening, which took place in Baltimore in the year that the O’Neill’s arrived, was the formation of the first National Labour Union in the United States, which took place in Baltimore on August 20, 1866, and subsequently called on Congress to introduce an eight-hour working day for ‘skilled and unskilled’ workers. The union was unsuccessful in its attempts to shorten the workday. However, Thomas O’Neill, later as a businessman knew the value of minding his number one asset, ‘his staff’, giving them fair working conditions and therefore obtained the best results from them.
Firstly, one of his sisters joined the Sisters of Charity; and, then like his father, Thomas decided to become a shopkeeper, at first hiring himself out as an apprentice to a ‘linen merchant’ with a premises in downtown Baltimore. Then, by the age of 33 years, in the early 1880s, O’Neill took on a partnership with the hope of setting-up his own dry goods store (clothing shop) on Charles and Lexington Streets, Baltimore. His acumen and finances were strong, and O’Neill soon bought out his partner’s shares and the store expanded to include the addition of three buildings next door. He employed 500 staff and, in time, opened branches in the European cities of Dublin, Paris and London.
The 1880s for Baltimore were economically rewarding times as manufacture replaced trade, its port began shipping out ever larger amounts of flour, grain, cotton and tobacco to Europe, new houses were being constructed for the growing populations, and consequently busines thrived making it the ideal time for O’Neill to have established his store. Nationally, Baltimore emerged as one of the United States most important industrial centres.
Thomas J. O’Neill was a well-known Batimorean and as Fred Rasmussan noted in the Baltimore Sun in 1998, ‘O’Neill was a familiar figure as he stood at the door each morning at 8:30am dressed in black frock coat striped trousers, welcoming the day’s customers … an imposing man with the pince-nez glasses and bright red moustache.’ Another report recalled him greeting customers by name and making sure that staff gave them first class service. His bright red hair earned him the nickname ‘Pinky’.
In 1890, he married Roberta LeBrou and they lived at 1731 Park Avenue, in Bolton Hill, Baltimore. Throughout his life, Thomas attended daily Mass, and the O’Neill’s were members of Corpus Christi parish. The important American Catholic leader, Archbishop James Gibbons, later appointed a Cardinal, was a close friend of Thomas and often walked up the street to call in for a chat at the store.
Flames
However, a freak fire in February 1904, almost wiped O’Neill’s store off the map when a massive conflagration developed soon after a cigarette had started a fire in the John E. Hurst & Co building, south of Redwood Street, Baltimore. The alarm was raised at 10:20am, but the flames were out of control in minutes; only 400 yards away, stood the O’Neill’s & Co store.
By afternoon the huge blaze had wiped every building in its track, all the time nearing O’Neill’s great store. A meeting was held in Mayor Robert McLane’s office where city engineers decided to dynamite buildings in the path of the fire, which would act as a firebreak. The first premises to fall having been laden with explosives was J.W. Putts Department Store. Next in line for the demolition squad was O’Neill’s and, as the firefighters arrived to lay the charges, O’Neill defiantly told them, ‘Gentlemen, you’ll have to blow me up, too.’
In next week’s edition, the story continues.
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