This account By Albert Dillard appeared in The Montgomery
Advertiser, Sunday, April
20, 1919, and is used by permission. Recess
bell had just finished ringing at noon on Friday, December 14,
1849, when nine-year-old Wade McBryde saw black curls of smoke
soaring heavenward from the vicinity of Goat Hill.
The youngster knew that the greatest sight of his life was being
pulled off, and he lost not a minute in getting to the scene,
lest it should be over before he could get there. The great State
House was on fire, and it was the most exciting event the village
of Montgomery had ever known.
Wade had a habit of going into his dinner bucket as soon as he
got out of sight of his mother and eating on his way to school,
leaving the dinner hour to take care of itself.
On this particular day, Wade had put on the reserve line a chunk
of cake and a leg of fried chicken. These two pieces of edibles
he rammed into his pockets with his pieces of colored glass,
nails, marbles, and other accessories of boys' indispensables,
and made one long slide to the scene of the conflagration.
When Wade got there old Dexter No. I was unraveling its hose, and
a hundred volunteer firemen were giving orders, each of a
different brand, through a kind of fog horn that not even the
speaker could understand himself what he was trying to say.
The firemen wore helmets that weighed about five pounds and had a
sloping portico on the rear of their hats that often extended
back as far as eighteen inches.
The old engine that is now stored in the city hall subterranean
passage did the best it could, but had about as much effect on
the fire as if it had been an ear syringe or a cane squirt gun.
In those days Montgomery did not have a water system, and fire
protection came from large underground cisterns that were built
of brick, stone and cement. These were scattered all about the
town, and the fire engine sent down a long snout, the end of
which was made of perforated brass which prevented the sucking up
of fish, reptiles, rocks and garbage. The water got into these
receptacles from the street ditches and would often remain
confined for years until pumped out to quench a neighboring fire.
Wade played hookey on this eventful day, but this fact was lost sight of in the excitement of the hour. Toward night Wade began to realize that "Old McDougall" was going to beat him good and proper, and that his father would finish the job, so the boy decided that he would get his money's worth and spend the night at the fire and he did not leave the scene until noon of the next day.
That Wade got two terrible whippings is undisputed history. The demerit system then was undiscovered punishment.
Among others whom McDougall did not overlook were Leon Wyman, Wm. S. Wyman, Nimrod Owen, Jim Wilkinson, Sam Holt, John W. Powell and Henry Ponder, all of whom have passed to the great beyond, except Wade McBryde.
One of the strange things about this State House fire was the great length of time it took to wear itself out. It was burning four or five days, the burning wood work of the windows resembling an old pine tree that has been known to burn a month.
The wood work of the building was from the heart of great pine trees and the smoke from the fire looked as though it came from a thousand tar kilns. The slowness of the fire enabled the villagers and slaves to save a large number of valuable records and a great deal of the furnniture.
It is a strange coincidence that the fire caught in the same place where Dr. Thos. M. Owen has stored now almost priceless treasures that tell the history of the State.
Governor Reuben Chapman was the State's chief executive at this time and the legislature was in session.
The burning of the building created some little talk of moving the Capital but this only proved a flash in the pan, and soon died out.
The legislature moved to the Exchange Hotel, the house resuming its sessions in the dining room of the hotel, while the Senate found a new home in the reading room of the hostelry. This reading room was the second floor ofthe building now occupied by George P. Haardt.