100 years ago in The Saratogian
Sunday, Dec. 8, 1918. An electrical fire causes an estimated $7,000 worth of damage to the Atheneum building on Broadway this morning, The Saratogian reports.
The Atheneum houses a library, a Christian Science reading room, the Skidmore Tea Room, and third floor apartments. Tenant James S. Allen calls in an alarm after seeing smoke rise past his front window around 7:30 a.m.
“The fire was a difficult one to fight,” a reporter writes, “Starting in the cellar in the region of the furnace room, it spread upward through the partitions, which were of hollow construction, to the roof. The dense smoke which filled the building made it extremely bad for the firemen to work. The only way in which the flames could be fought was by chopping holes in the walls and drenching the partitions from the inside.”
All the tenants are safely evacuated, but Mary Woodbridge tells firemen that her jewelry and money had been stolen in the confusion. Investigators find a bag Woodbridge described, but “the money and jewelry seemed to have disappeared. As the doors were open and almost anyone might have had access to the building, it was difficult to find any clue to the missing property.”
The Atheneuem’s library suffers only slight water damage, but the Christian Science reading room is drenched, forcing the congregation to hold services in the Arcade building.
Tribute Paid to 26 Saratogians
Casualty reports from Europe remain incomplete, but as of this weekend 26 soldiers from Saratoga Springs are known to have died during the world war.
Bethesda Episcopal Church hosts a union memorial service today, with relatives of fallen occupying positions of honor in the middle aisle. Rev. Irving G. Rouillard delivers the memorial address, “Our Heroes, Not Dead, But Glorified.”
“Our soldiers went over there to establish for all time the solid fact and condition, that never again would an imperial ruler start a flame going which took twenty millions of the strongest and healthiest men of the world from the work of creation and set them to the work of destruction,” Rouillard says, “That shall never happen again!
“Our soldiers went over there to make sure of ending a condition of things where happy homes were wrecked, cathedrals shattered, the nobles works of art stolen or mutilated, factories and commercial buildings burned, schools closed or destroyed, cities looted, men enslaved , women and children suffering violent wrong … That is ended forever!
“We recognize that no good cause has ever succeeded unless someone suffered and sacrificed for it…. That was not true of Christ alone; it is true of all the saviors of the world.”