From the New York Spectator, 2/25/1850, p. 4, c. 5

From the Richmond Whig of Wednesday.
Destructive Fire – Cotton Factory Burnt.

On Tuesday morning, about 2 o’clock, the large and extensive cotton factory known as the “Planter’s Factory,” and situated between Tredegar Iron Works and the river, was discovered to be on fire. The alarm was given, and persons living in the vicinity hastened to render every assistance in their power, but the fire spread with such rapidity that they only succeeded in removing the books and office furniture, two or three lathes, about forty or fifty bales of manufactured goods and a quantity of bundles of cotton yarn.

In a short time the building was enveloped in flames, and beyond the possibility of salvation. As soon as the alarm was communicated to the central part of the city, the firemen responded with their accustomed alacrity, and arrived on the ground with their apparatus in time to prevent the extension of the fire to the surrounding buildings, which for a time seemed threatened with destruction.

The factory was the property of a joint stock company and was valued together with the machinery, &c., at about $60,000, on which there is an insurance of $40,000, viz: $20,000 in the Fire Association, and Va. Fire and Marine offices of this city, and $20,000 in the Ætna and Hartford agencies.

By this calamity, about 200 operatives, male and female, are thrown out of employment.

• Prev
• Next