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The Wilsons' Home Burns to the Ground

ELEGANT HOME BURNS

Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Wilson's Elegant Residence on North Sangamon Avenue and all Its contents burned to ashes


About 9 o'clock Sunday night the Electric _____ plant fire bell called the people to North Sangamon Avenue where W. J. Wilson's elegant new home soon burned to the ground without saving anything but two chairs.  The family were part in bed and partly undressed and were driven out without a moment's warning, some of them hatless, some without shoes and some without clothes.  The fire was first noticed bursting through from a closet and in less than two minutes it had spread to the whole house.  The loss is estimated at $7,500 to $8,000, with insurance of only $2,700, in the Home Co., of New York, J. Will Jones, Agt.  The fire laddies were quickly on the scene and but for them the Rapp residence on the north would have burned.  The boys and little engine worked bravely, while many citizens by hard work saved the barn and thus saved other buildings and dwellings of W. S. Lamb and L. E. Rockwood just across the alley.  Mr. Wilson and family have the sympathy of the community for the loss of their home and clothing in the dead of winter.  They are at their son and daughter's home.  Mr. and Mrs. Evan Mattinson's where they went after the fire had done its work.

Source: Newspaper clipping from the Burwell/Tate Family Papers, 1850-1930 (K0233), Folder 1. Burwell family scrapbook and photo album, 1879-1908, photocopied.*  Mrs. W. J. Wilson nee Lydia Goodfellow was the sister of Isabella Goodfellow (Mrs. M. T. Burwell).
*BURWELL-TATE FAMILY PAPERS, 1850-1930 (K0233), The State Historical Society of Missouri, 800 East 51st Street, 306 Miller Nichols Library UMKC, Kansas City, MO 64110.
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Location: Gibson City, Illinois, USA

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