Report of tee Forest Commission. 47 



At 1 o'clock this afternoon a car came up from Pine City loaded with pro- 

 visions, bread, canned beef, etc. The car was guarded by soldiers of the 

 First Regiment, the men who had been working since yesterday in the ceme- 

 tery without food were first attended to . 



Then the crowd of homeless refugees who surged around the car were fed. 

 The caboose which came up on the train was started back to Pine Qity, and it 

 was crowded with refugees. Among them were Ira Smalling, wife and infant. 

 On Saturday morning last these " people started for Grindstone on a fishing 

 excursion . The fire overtook them and they put out into the lake and floated 

 around nearly all Saturday night and finally landed in North Shore. But the 

 fire followed them up and they went to an Indian camp and walked 14 miles 

 to Hinckley this morning. Of course their home was destroyed. 



Wells Delong and wife, who lived two miles east of the Great Northern 

 track, were driven from home by the fire . They ran down the bank from their 

 house and took to the creek. When they arrived at the creek there was a great 

 number of bears, wolves, skunks at the water's edge, but all were so frightened 

 that they did not attack the fugitives. 



The caboose going back to Pine City was crov* ded. Many were uncertain 

 as to loved relatives, and others knew but too well that all they loved on 

 earth had perished. It was pitiable scene. These people had loaves of dry 

 bread which they had got from the supply car, and these they ate ravenously. 

 Many of them had not eaten since noon last Saturday. 



The Present Situation. 



It is difficult to portray the situation at Hinckley. A few refugees, a half 

 score of searchers, a team of two transporting boxes containing dead bodies, 

 the place where a town had been — that is the picture. The biick veneer 

 which constituted the outer covering of some of the buildings has fallen into 

 the cellars. It is like looking over the tract of a cyclone. A few curious relic 

 hunters delve amoung the ruined household goods, but their quest receives 

 little reward. 



Probably 200 of them left town on foot or on vehicles plunging into the 

 woods to the north, across the Grindstone river, which skirts the town on the 

 north. Over the hill that rises beyond the Grindstone is a swamp, and to this 

 most of the people with teams headed, but it proved no protection. The fire 

 gave them no opportunity to go further. Some abandoned their teams and 

 ran into the lower portion of the morass, dug the fire sought them out. Not 

 one was left to tell the tale, and there yesterday morning, in a space of little 

 more than four or five acres, were counted over 130 corpses. 



There were families of five, six, and seven, and there they lay, the men 

 generally a little in advance, the mothers surrounded by their little ones, cut 

 off by the most horrible of deaths. 



Nearly all the bodies were nude, the fire having burned every vestige of 

 clothing and blackened and charred many of the corpses beyond recognition, 

 and whole families were wiped out as they were and some of the bodies com- 

 pltely incinerated. Identification is absolutely out of the question. 



As night closed in the people began to come out from their hiding places and 

 make their way over the hot embers of their town. They were absolutely 



