Transcript

Introduction and upcoming episodes on disaster and disaster response

Music

Intro-Outro:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 82 disaster and disaster response in Boston.
Hi, I’m Jake. This week I want to talk about Boston’s worst disaster and Boston’s best disaster response.
I have back to back trips coming up with just two days since I posted our last episode about PT 109 to get our next episode together.
So I’m gonna end up sharing two classic stories from Boston history.
First, I’m going to share the story of the Coconut Grove fire in November 1942.
Boston was on a wartime footing.
Business was booming and the streets were packed with soldiers and sailors on their way to fronts around the world.

[0:56] On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a terrible fire broke out in the popular Coconut Grove nightclub in the moments that followed 492 people were killed making it Boston’s most deadly disaster.

[1:10] After that, we’re going to go back to December 1917 when another world war raged in Europe.
When confusing reports of a disaster to the north reached Boston.
This city sprang into action, loading a special train with doctors, nurses and medical supplies after the most massive explosion, before the advent of the atom bomb, Boston rushed relief to the town of Halifax.
And in return, they sent us a Christmas tree each year.
But before I share those stories of disaster, I want to talk about the reason that I have disasters on the brain.
These terrible wildfires in Maui for reasons, I won’t go into.
My family has close ties to Maui and especially to the region known as upcountry, which is one of the areas that was just devastated by the most deadly wildfires in over a century.
My mother’s been tracking down old friends and making sure they’re ok.
Well, just a few miles away, the historic town of Lahaina has been wiped completely off the map.

[2:12] I just replayed a story about how deeply connected Boston is to Lahaina and episode 280.
But if you want to hear that story on its own, you can go back to episode 2 20 to learn how the ancient royal dynasty of Maui had its seat in Lahaina.
How king the first moved his royal court to Lahaina after conquering Maui and how whalers, merchants and congregational missionaries from Boston gathered there during the colonial era.
All the colonial era structures have burned to the ground now, but the most important ancient Hawaiian sites are still safe under the ground.

[2:47] Before anyone decides how to rebuild. However, there are thousands of families in need of help.
As of this recording, 90 bodies have been recovered. But this search is just beginning.
The survivors need food, clean water and housing in the immediate short term and they’ll have to rebuild their lives from scratch in one of the most expensive places in the country.
Of course, it’s tempting to say that Maui is full of rich people and they don’t need our help.
But as with any disaster, it’s not the rich who bear the burden.
Oprah’s not gonna feel the pain of a fire at or near her upcountry compound.
But the people who clean her toilets and haul her garbage and quite frankly, fight wildfires are the ones who have truly lost everything.

[3:32] In the show notes this week, I’ll post a link to Maui New strong dot info where Maui County is posting a list of vetted charities that are helping with Maui relief.
I’d recommend starting with the Maui Food Bank to get help to families in immediate need or the Maui Humane Society who are reuniting lost pets with their families, feeding homeless animals and providing veterinary care to both pets and livestock.
Go to Maui New strong dot info or use the link in this week’s show notes to make a donation to the charity of your choice.
And I’ll get back to thanking our sponsors next week.
Ok. Time for this week’s first classic story. As part of this podcast’s first season, we heard an episode about the Coconut Grove fire just over six years ago.
Boston’s most deadly fire was made infinitely worse through a combination of ruthless mobsters, non-existent safety codes and simple bad luck.
In a matter of moments, nearly 500 lives were lost mostly due to smoke and toxic fumes.
At the time that this first aired, this was one of the most ambitious episodes that co-host Emerita Nicky and I had ever taken on telling the story through the eyes of a showgirl, a young singer and the Boston fire commissioner.

Boston’s wartime footing and German U-boat dominance

Cocoanut Grove:
[4:58] In November of 1942 Boston was a city on wartime footing.
The Boston Harbor islands bristled with artillery and the harbor itself was filled with underwater mines and submarine nets.
Germany had declared war on the USA year earlier just days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

[5:19] Throughout the summer and fall of 1942 German U boats dominated the waters off Massachusetts sinking over 500 ships at the peak.
They sank one ship every four hours.
Sometimes within sight of the Boston skyline, the mines and nets were meant to deter the German submarines and a blackout that summer was meant to prevent ships from being silhouetted against the bright coast in the crosshairs of a periscope.
As the holidays approached, it was a bittersweet season.
Many families had fathers, sons and brothers serving far away in the Atlantic or Pacific theaters, gas and heating oil were being rationed for civilian use and ration coupon books controlled the supply of household staples.
Stores couldn’t put up their usual elaborate window displays for holiday, shoppers and lighted public trees and window candles were strictly forbidden due to the blackout.
Civil defense posters hung in the streets reminding citizens about the potential for air raids saying this war is not like any other.
It may reach your street, your home at any moment.
You may be fighting in this war tomorrow or next week or next month.
Your government asks of you one simple thing but one very important thing.
Learn and remember what to do if enemy planes and bombs come.

[6:44] They tell you what to do if you’re at home when enemy planes come or at school or in a car and they warn critically not to take shelter in Boston subway tunnels as they are not safe from bombs.
Ironically, the national crisis meant that Boston like many industrial cities around the country was booming, factories in the city and suburbs were cranking out materials for the war while Hingham produced thousands of tons of ammunition and bombs for the Allies, shipyards in Charlestown, South Boston, Quincy and Hingham built new ships for the US Navy and Allies faster than German U boats could sink them.
It may have been a somber time in the country but young people are the same. In any era.
The city was full of young sailors and soldiers as well as factory workers, including young women who now had their own independent incomes to spend.
They were looking for drinking, dancing and a brief escape from the grim reality of war time.

Boston’s nightclubs as an escape from the grim reality

 

[7:40] They could find that escape in Boston’s nightclubs, many of which were located in Roxbury in the south end.
You had the Savoy Cafe, the high hat, the Roseland ballroom where a young Malcolm X worked shining shoes, the Cotton Club and of course, the Coconut Grove, as one article described it in the early forties.
The Coconut Grove was the brightest star in the Firmament of Boston nightclubs.
The grove was located in a former factory and parking garage between Broadway, Piedmont and Tremont streets near the theater district and just steps from Park Square, the club had been opened in 1927 by two local big band leaders, Mickey Alpert and Jacques Renard.
They weren’t able to make it profitable. And soon Charles King Solomon, leader of Boston’s Jewish organized crime syndicate stepped in to provide financing.
He took over ownership of the club in 1931 and it was soon profitable, on paper, at least Solomon slashed costs dramatically by bringing in underpaid teenage staff performing shoddy repairs on the building and by cracking down on the old dining dash by breaking up some exits and bolting others closed.
However, it’s hard to tell how much of the club’s newfound success was due to these measures and how much was because Boston Charlie was using the club to launder money from his vast criminal enterprise.

[8:58] In 1933 King Solomon was shot and killed in a nearby cotton club which he also owned.
At that point. Ownership of the Coconut Grove fell to one of his attorneys, Barney Wolanski who took over just as prohibition was ending, according to the Coconut Grove coalition, Wolanski brought in Ruben Boden Horn, a prominent Boston interior designer to redesign the interior to make the club more family oriented.
It was Boden Horn who brought in the tropical theme with artificial palm trees, blue satin ceilings, dance floor bandstand and rolling platform stage above was a retractable roof for warm starlet nights, island themed decorations installed in the Melody Lounge.
The caricature bar and the main dining room included blue satin cloth applied to the ceilings and walls with airspace between the cloth and wooden furring underneath the trunks of artificial palm trees were wrapped with loose vegetable fiber and the palm branches reached nearly to the ceiling.
The trees of course were equipped with electric lights.
A Boston Globe retrospective describes what an arriving club goer would have seen in November of 1942.

[10:05] Passing through revolving doors of the main entrance on Piedmont Street.
One came into a beautiful foyer with deep plush carpeting beyond this and to the right was the swank main dining room with its seven large realistically exotic artificial palm trees flanking the dance floor.

[10:24] Facing the dining room was the spacious caricature bar boasting the longest counter in Boston.
The new lounge at the Broadway side of the club was a popular retreat for businessmen.
And the latest structural addition just below the revolving doors on Piedmont Street was a basement bar called the Melody Lounge.

[10:43] While this might sound straightforward. In reality, the club was a confusing warren of bars, coat checks, storage, closets, dressing rooms, kitchens and stairwells with one of the levels located underground.
The establishment had a posted capacity of 460 people.
But on the night of November 28th, there were almost 1000 people packed into the many available dining rooms and bars.
It was Thanksgiving weekend and people were ready to celebrate.
Despite the wartime atmosphere at the time, there was a heated football rivalry between Holy Cross and Boston College and they played each other that day. At Fenway Park.
Holy Cross won in a surprise upset. So some sports fans were looking to drown their sorrows and to top it all off.
The new lounge on Broadway had opened just a week before and patrons were eager to check it out.
Just after 10. That evening, the house band was about to go on stage in the main dining room.
Coincidentally, the bandleader that night was Mickey Alpert, one of the original owners of the club downstairs in the Melody Lounge.
The atmosphere was intimate low wattage bulbs peaked out between the palm fronds and retain wrappings barely providing enough light to see.

[11:59] A young woman named Gorizia Goodell who went by the stage name Goodie was playing piano and crooning the hits of the day from a rotating stage, in her handwritten memories of that evening, she would say as the stage revolved, I looked at my watch 10:15 p.m.
Heard the bartender tell the 14 year old busboy to put the ball back in the tree as people wanted to be in the dark.

The Night at the Coconut Grove

 

[12:23] That bus boy who was actually all of 16 years old was Stanley Tomaszewski.
The New England Historical Society describes the scene in a packed basement lounge.
A serviceman in his date sat next to a fake palm tree with a 7.5 watt light bulb sticking out from a laminated coconut husk.
The soldier reached over and unscrewed the light bulb so he could kiss his date in the dark.
The bartender noticed and told Tomaszewski to go screw it back in Tomaszewski climbed a bar stool but couldn’t see much in the dark corner.
He lit a match, held it in his right hand and screwed in the light bulb with his left.
Then he climbed down from the bar stool, dropped the match on the floor and put it out with his foot. It was 10, 15 pm.
Within eight minutes. Nearly 500 people will be dead or about to die.

[13:10] While many in Boston would blame young Stanley for the ensuing fire.
The fire commissioner held him blameless. In the final report, a bus boy aged 16, employed by the coconut grove on the night of the fire testified to lighting a match in the process of replacing an electric light bulb in the corner of the Melody lounge where the fire started and dropping the match to the floor and stepping upon it, after a careful study of all the evidence and an analysis of all the facts presented before me.
I am unable to find the conduct of this boy was the cause of the fire.
Some newspapers seem to have been nostalgic for prohibition and blamed alcohol fumes for the fire.
They claimed that the alcohol coming from people’s breath and their glasses on the bar became concentrated enough to be an accelerant.

[13:53] However, a report from the National Fire Prevention Association contradicts this theory saying it does not seem possible that there could have been sufficient alcohol vapor in the breath to have created a flammable mixture in the Melody Lounge.
Evaporation from drinks on tables and sufficient quantity to furnish a flammable mixture is not theoretically possible.
The Coconut Grove coalition identifies another possible cause of the fire, faulty wiring, electrical work done in the Melody Lounge three years prior to the fire and to the new Broadway lounge in the two months prior was done by Raymond Baer, a pipe fitter who was not licensed as an electrician, bar, was interviewed and admitted that he had performed electrical work in the Coconut Grove in October and November of 1942 installing electrical fixtures in the New Broadway Lounge.
He also said that there was no permit issued for the electrical contracting.

[14:48] The fire commissioner’s report would be inconclusive saying I have investigated and carefully considered as possible causes of the fire.
The following suggested possibilities, alcoholic fumes, inflammable insecticides, motion picture film scraps, electrical wiring, gasoline or fuel, oil, fumes, refrigerant gasses and flameproofing chemicals.
There is no evidence before me to support a finding that any of these or any combination of them caused this fire.
This fire will be entered into the records of this department as being of unknown origin no matter the cause of the fire.

The Deadliest Moments in Boston History

 

[15:28] The next 5 to 10 minutes were the deadliest moments in Boston history.
And just as a side note here, we’re going to be quoting extensively from the original fire commissioner’s report.
A 1970 report in which Boston fire chief Bay revisited the Coconut Grove fire, Goody Goodell’s account and the globe’s 35th anniversary retrospective.

[15:51] The fire originated in the Melody Lounge. In my opinion, it started about 10, 15 pm.
It was first seen burning in a palm tree and in the suspended false ceiling in the northwest corner of that room, this prelude to disaster progressed unnoticed for a moment.
A few patrons viewed the curling flames as they danced through the satin layers above the leaping fire was a source of comedy for some. And they laughed.
The bartender squirted Seltzer water at the flames which provoked them to burn brighter.
The room temperature increased considerably. Then the leatherette wall boards and were tan burst into flames and it was no laughing matter.
Goodie Goodell saw the flames immediately writing my fingers froze on the piano keys. I kept saying, don’t panic, don’t panic.
I was up and down on the bench. Fire caught on the tufted ceiling and I ran from the piano to an opening in the bar to get out, grabbing the cashier behind me.
She didn’t want to leave the register. I told her you can come back if they put it out.

[16:48] We went into the kitchen which I found two nights before they were all busy.
I told them the lounge was on fire.
They thought I was pulling a joke from this point on the fire spread incredibly rapidly.
The fire immediately spread throughout the Melody lounge along the underside of the false ceiling. It reached and ascended the stairway.
As soon as the flames began to spread, the electric lights failed.
Plunging the building into darkness.
Hundreds of people jammed into the stairwell leading up from the underground Melody Lounge up to Piedmont Street.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Betty Coombs had been celebrating Charlie’s promotion that night just before the lights failed.
Charlie and Betty edged their way towards the concealed corridor door motivated by the busboy Stanley’s nod to come over seven or eight other patrons who had kept their heads were also looking around for possible escape.
And they followed the bar boy down the escape corridor into the kitchen.
Stanley directed all of them into the larger of the two walk-in refrigerators, as the door closed, prayers were said by most in hoped that eventually the firemen would rescue them.
Those hoping to make it out on the Piedmont Street were doomed by King Solomon’s cost cutting measures of a decade earlier.

[18:05] A considerable number of deaths were caused by the fact that the door opening on Piedmont street at the top of the stairway from the Melody Lounge could not be opened by persons who ascended the stairway from that room after the fire was first seen.
Although this store was provided with a so-called panic lock, such installation was rendered useless by the existence of another lock which was found in a locked position.
Flame appeared in the street floor lobby within 2 to 4 minutes after it was first seen in the basement room and within five minutes entirely traversed the street floor of the main building and had passed to the entrance to the Broadway lounge, as the fire rushed up the stairway leading from the Melody Lounge.
It traveled near the ceiling and above the heads of persons ascending the stairs to make their way out of the building.
Some of these persons later testified before me that they threw their coats over their heads to protect themselves against the fire as they ascended the stairway.

Chaos and Flames Engulf the First Floor

 

[19:00] When the flame appeared in the street floor lobby, it was described as traveling rapidly as a ball of fire below the ceiling.
Many witnesses described the flame as of yellowish or bluish color.
Goody Goodell was among the people trying to find a way out of the first floor as the room burst into flames around her.
We ran up behind the stage as a floor show was going on. Bartender was in front of us.
I saw them pulling at the blackout curtains, tearing at them door was in between the windows.
They tried to open the door but it was locked inside, couldn’t make it.
They tried with a huge two by four to no avail.
Then after the blackout curtains were down, I noticed iron bars going across almost hysterical.
I kept saying I’ll never fit, I’ll never fit through those bars.
Then I saw these people holding onto the bar’s feet first and sliding out.
Jeannette, the cashier went out ahead of me. Then I was outside falling on a pile of sand as they were using it for cement outside the new lounge in front.
Jeanette went hysterical saying if it wasn’t for you, I’d be in there.
Jackie Mayor was a showgirl at the club waiting in an upstairs dressing room for her cue to go on stage for her last set of the evening.
She was supposed to go on at 10 15 and she wondered why they were running late.
Charlie Milonas. A waiter burst into the room.

[20:19] Girls, there’s a bad fire downstairs. He cried. You can’t go down there now.
It’s too hot and the smoke is blinding.
He ran across the room and said, I’m going through this window to the adjoining roof. It’s our only chance.
Follow me. Girls, Jackie insisted it was possible to make it down the stairss.
They all grabbed hand towels and moistened them with each girl putting her right hand on the shoulder of the girl ahead. Jackie opened the door.
Heavy black smoke was creeping up the stairwell and the heat was almost unbearable.
They descended the narrow staircase gingerly, each girl holding a moist towel to her nostrils cupped with the left hand for partial breathing just three steps from the exit. Jackie glanced to the left and stiffened.
The dining room was a holocaust. Patrons struggled in the semi darkness, staggering into tables and falling over chairs.
It was bedlam, frenzied screams, shouts of frustration, crashing trays and shattering glass.

[21:15] They were among the last to escape. Exits from the foyer were through the revolving door to the street, through the office coatrooms to the street and this was obstructed by a coat rack and a lock, through the door to the street at the end of the corridor previously mentioned as being locked and through the other end of the lobby into the main dining room.
Some few persons including persons coming from the basement Melody Lounge passed through the revolving doors on Piedmont streets before the massive flames reached it.
The door then appears to have jammed there was a very great pouring of flames through the exit.
The great majority of persons on the street floor had no warning of the fire until flames actually appeared in the lobby.

[22:00] Within 2 to 5 minutes of the first appearance of the fire.
Most of the possible exits including all exits normally open to the public were useless.
Pouring a fire through such exits made it impossible for humans to pass simultaneously through these exits safely.
In the course of such pouring, the mass of burning gaseous material appears to have been depressed from its high elevation within the premises.
In order to pass through these exits, the finding of bodies piled up at many of the exits is attributable to this fact.

Firefighters Arrive and Begin Rescue Efforts

 

[22:32] At 10 15 pm, the first fire alarm call came into the fire department headquarters.
A truck responded and put out a small fire in a car at the corner of Broadway and Stewart Street as they packed up to return to the station.
Firefighters noticed smoke coming from the nearby coconut grove and started in that direction.

[22:50] Some of the first fire companies to respond had to abandon their trucks and walk to the club because of cars that were parked blocking the corners of nearby blocks upon reaching the nightclub premises.
Rescue work was immediately begun by the firemen who had responded to the automobile fire to facilitate this work.
Hose lines were introduced to reduce the intense heat.
Shortly after the firemen gained entrance to the premises, the fire was controlled and the intense heat was abated.
Firefighters, Reggie wise and Al Minahan used their axes to smash through glass blocks in the broadway wall and get inside in the main lobby.
Bodies that had been piled 8 ft high in front of the jam.
Revolving door were now laid out in neat rows on the sidewalk outside in the main dining room in the caricature bar, many had suffocated from the toxic smoke so quickly that they didn’t even have time to put down their drinks and stand up from their seats.
One woman stood in the middle of the dance floor with a wool coat over her head.
She was completely unharmed but staring blankly as shock rendered her unable to speak.

[23:50] Reggie and Al approached the Melody Lounge stairwell. A spectral horror confronted them as the two men started to descend the stairs, bodies were floating in 14 inches of water, ashen faced victims.
Many of them unscathed by fire hung over barstools and lay across tables going through a corridor.
The firemen entered the kitchen which had been untouched by fire.
They opened the large refrigerator door and saw eight bewildered and groggy patrons who had survived the 40 minutes of hell and the 38 degree temperature of their protective enclosure.

[24:22] In the end, 492 people would die.
And at least 100 66 more were gravely injured in a fire that lasted barely a half hour.
Infant victims were taken to Beth Israel, Boston City Hospital Mount Auburn, Cambridge City Hospital, Kearney Chelsea Naval Hospital, Faulkner Massachusetts General Massachusetts memorial, Peter Bent, Brigham, Saint Elizabeth’s Saint Margaret’s and US Marine Hospital.
The sudden influx of burn victims at local hospitals led to huge improvements in burn care especially at Mass General Hospital.
Two surgeons there pioneered the fluid resuscitation method of treating burns, large burns result in the loss of fluid from leaking capillaries which can keep the heart from providing enough fluid and oxygen to the body’s tissue in fluid resuscitation.
The burned areas are lightly wrapped with gauze and saturated in petroleum jelly to help stop fluid loss while large volume ivs replace the fluid that has already been lost at the time.
Penicillin was a barely known wonder drug mostly reserved for use by the military.
However, Merck delivered a supply of 32 liters to Mass General where it was used to fight the staph infections that are common among burn victims and skin graft patients.
The hospital’s brand new blood bank was also pressed into action allowing lost plasma and whole blood to be replaced.

[25:51] Every burn victim taken to Mass General survived compared to only 30% of those taken to Boston City Hospital.

[25:58] Less than two weeks before the Coconut Grove fire, six Boston firefighters had been killed fighting a fire at Luongo’s Restaurant in East Boston’s Maverick Square where the building they were working in, collapsed.
And another huge fire broke out in the five story. Salinger’s department store in Downtown Crossing.
Just over two weeks after the Coconut Grove, 600 firefighters and a contingent of coast guardsmen fought the fire for 10 hours.
65 people were hospitalized but nobody died.

Improved safety and fire codes implemented after tragic fire

 

[26:29] After this season of fire, Christmas of 1942 was a grim holiday in Boston and the city was ready to embrace improved safety and fire codes.
The fire commissioner made a series of recommendations that would be adopted in Boston and would provide the basis for federal fire codes.
Automatic sprinklers were required in any restaurant, nightclub or place of entertainment basements were prohibited as places of assembly unless they had at least two direct fire exits with approved fire doors.
Emergency exits were required to have panic locks now known as crash bars and no other locks and all fire exits were required to have illuminated exit signs.

[27:12] On December 1st, 1942 the city of Boston closed 52 restaurants and nightclubs until their fire protection systems were inspected.
Some clubs were able to reopen by December 5th. Others stayed closed for weeks or more making renovations to meet the new safety standards.
The legendary South End jazz club, the Savoy Cafe would stay closed until July 8th of the next year.
Finally reopening in a new larger location that conformed to the city’s fire code.

[27:39] Some venues never recovered. Steinert Hall was a stunning auditorium built in 18 96.
It had ornate plaster corinthian columns and impeccable acoustics.
Unfortunately, it was constructed some 40 ft underground under the Steiner Piano Company’s headquarters on Boylston Street across from Boston Common.
It is sat empty and slowly crumbling since the city shut it down on December 1st, 1942 club owner Barney Wolanski was convicted of multiple counts of willful manslaughter for the locked exit doors and other safety violations.
He was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison and released after serving four busboy Stanley Tomaszewski endured death threats, insults and ostracism for most of his life.
He graduated from Boston College and worked for the federal government until he retired.
By all accounts. He was a good and decent man.
He often visited the graves of those who had died in the fire but told reporters, I don’t have a sense of guilt because it wasn’t my fault.
If I felt guilty, I wouldn’t be talking to you.
My name would not be on the doorbell and in the telephone book, I never backed away.

[28:46] He died in 1994. Today.
Urban Renewal has altered the street girder on the site of the coconut grove and much of the site is occupied by the Revere Hotel in 1993 51 years later, a small bronze plaque was placed in the sidewalk on Piedmont street near the site of the jam revolving door that claimed so many lives.
It bears a floor plan of the club with the inscription, the Coconut Grove erected by the Bay Village Neighborhood Association 1993, in memory of the more than 490 people who died in the coconut grove fire on November 28th, 1942.
As a result of that terrible tragedy, major changes are made in the fire codes and improvements in the treatment of burn victims, not only in Boston but across the nation, Phoenix out of the ashes.

[29:39] In 2014, the plaque was removed while condos were built on Piedmont Street and in 2016, it was replaced, but it was moved down the block to a point that was a parking lot in 1942 to be farther away from the entrance to the condos.
Owner said we now occupy these homes with our families as part of the Bay Village neighborhood and would like to enjoy our homes in peace without tragic memories, hanging wreaths at our doors or tourists peeking into our houses.
Unfortunately, the most deadly single event in Boston history is memorialized by an 18 inch plaque in front of a former parking lot.

Intro-Outro:
[30:18] Next up is a story that I hope will provide inspiration to donate a small amount toward Mallia relief.
Back in episode 57 Nicky and I described a terrible tragedy, in December 1917, a munition ship exploded in Halifax Harbor leveling much of the town, killing or injuring over 11,000 and leaving 25,000 logons homeless in the face of a ruthless Canadian winter.
Within hours, Boston started relief operations sending a train loaded with supplies and personnel hurtling through the night and into the teeth of a blizzard to bring help to the stricken city.

Halifax:
[30:59] Harold J Connelly, nine years old at the time of the explosion describes his memories of that day.
It happened on a mild sunshine morning. The date was December 6th, 1917.
I was late for class that day and as was the custom, I knelt by my desk to say the class morning prayers.
As I got off my knees, I remember we were doing a Latin lesson.
I said to Parker Hickey, my seat mate, what page are we at?
As I did? So I glanced out the window and saw a huge ball of fire in the sky.
I yelled, look at the fire as the heads turned, there came a terrific blast that rocked and damage the building.
The glass was smashed in every window.
Our teacher had the unique habit of having his desk face. The window flying glass cost him the eye that was not turned away from the window.
Statues were knocked from their pedestals. Plaster filled the air like thick fog.
Brother mccartney ordered us to link hands and to head for the corridor.

[31:59] Another survivor remembers we could see the fire but could not tell what was burning.
Mrs Foran said that Agnes had better not start for school until they saw the fire apparatus going back.
She was afraid that the school might be burning and she did not want Agnes to go while there was any danger.
They were looking through the window. When according to Agnes, the sky opened, Mrs Foran screamed and said the end of the world’s here, they were knocked down on the floor, the windows were blown in and things smashed up a good deal, but the house did not collapse.

[32:39] She called up to her mother that the baby was all right. And Mrs Forin told her to come up and help her downstairs as she could not see.
Agnes went up and let her mother down. Then she got cloths and water for her mother and helped her bathe her eyes and cuts.
When Mrs Foran realized that she was really blind. She got Agnes to take her outdoors and she stood there and called for help while Agnes went into the house and got the baby.
Agnes left the baby with her mother and went about the neighborhood looking for someone to come to her mother’s aid.
About 10 o’clock violet for aged 17 came home from her working place.
There was nothing that she could do so they all stayed there together until Mr Forn came about 10 30.
He got a man with an automobile to take Agnes and Mrs Foran with the baby to Victoria General Hospital.
About the time that her father arrived, Agnes began to get sleepy.
They got a chair for her to sit on. Her father examined her and found that her stomach was all cut and her clothing all saturated with blood.
It was however, not until late in the afternoon that they discovered how badly she was hurt.
One piece of glass was taken out about half the size of a woman’s hand.

[34:00] When Doctor mcdougall discovered it, there was a tiny pinhead sticking out, he tried to pull it out but it had to be cut.
These are the recollections of two adults who remember experiencing and surviving the Halifax explosion on December 6th, 1917.
The blast which was the largest man made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons was caused by a collision between a French cargo ship carrying explosives and a Norwegian vessel.
The Ss Emo with 1950 confirmed deaths and approximately 9000 injured.
The disaster leveled structures within a half mile radius.
The destruction was unprecedented.
So how did this happen? Wikipedia actually has a very clear outline of the circumstances leading up to the collision.
So thank you to the anonymous editor of that page.

Norwegian ship Ss Emo’s journey to New York

 

[34:51] The Norwegian ship, Ss Emo had sailed from the Netherlands en route to New York to take on wartime relief supplies for Belgium under the command of Hacken from, she arrived in Halifax on December 3rd for neutral inspection and spent two days in Bedford Basin on the northwest end of the harbor awaiting refueling and supplies.
Emo’s departure cleared on December 5th, was delayed when her coal load did not arrive until late that afternoon.
The loading of fuel was not completed until after the antisubmarine nets had been raised for the night. Therefore, the vessel could not weigh anchor until the next morning.
The French cargo ship, Ss Mont Blanc arrived from New York late on December 5th.
The vessel was fully loaded with explosives, TNT and picric acid.
The highly flammable fuel, Benzo and gun cotton.
She intended to join a slow convoy readying to depart for Europe.
It was too late to enter the harbor before the nets were raised and prepared to spend the night in Bedford Basin.
Ships carrying dangerous cargo were not allowed into the harbor before the war.
But the risks posed by German submarines had resulted in a relaxation of regulations, navigating into or out of Bedford Basin required passage through a strait called the narrows.
Ships were expected to keep to the starboard side of the channel as they passed oncoming traffic.
As such vessels were required to pass port to port.
Ships were restricted to a speed of 5.8 MPH.

Departure and Speeding in Bedford Basin

 

[36:17] Was granted clearance to leave Bedford Basin by signals from the guard ship.
Hm CS Acadia at approximately 7 30 in the morning on December 6th with pilot William Hayes on board.
The ship entered the narrows well above the harbor speed limit in an attempt to make up for the delay, experienced in loading our cargo emo met American Tramp steamer Ss Clara being piloted up the wrong side of the harbor.
The western side, the pilots agreed to pass starboard to starboard.

[36:45] Soon afterwards though Emo was forced to head even farther to the wrong side of the channel.
After passing the tugboat, Stella Maris, which was traveling up the harbor to Bedford Basin near Midan Horatio Brannon.
The captain of the Stella Maris saw IO approaching at excessive speed and ordered his tugboat closer to the western shore to avoid an accident.
Francis Mackey, an experienced harbor pilot had boarded Montblanc the previous evening.
He asked about special protections such as a guard ship, given the Montblanc cargo, but no protections were put in place.
Mont Blanc started moving at 7:30 a.m. and was the second ship to enter the harbor as the antisubmarine net between Georgia’s Island and Pier 21 opened for the morning, Mont Blanc headed towards Bedford Basin in the opposite direction of the Emo.

[37:39] Mackey kept his eye on the ferry traffic between Halifax and Dartmouth and other small boats in the area.
He first spotted Emo when she was about three quarters of a mile away and became concerned as her path appeared to be heading towards his ship’s starboard side as if to cut him off his own course.
Mackay gave a short blast of his ship signal whistle to indicate that he had the right of way but was met with two short blasts from Emo indicating that the approaching vessel would not yield its position.
The captain ordered Montblanc to halt her engines and angle slightly to starboard closer to the Dartmouth side of the narrows.
He let out another single blast of his whistle hoping the other vessel would likewise move to starboard but was again met with a double blast in negation.

[38:29] Sailors and nearby ships heard the series of signals and realizing that a collision was imminent, gathered to watch as emo bore down on Mont Blanc.
Though both ships had cut their engines by this point, their momentum carried them right on top of each other at slow speed, unable to ground his ship for fear that a shock would set off his explosive cargo.
Mackey ordered Montblanc to steer hard to port and cross the Norwegian ship’s bow in a last ditch effort to avoid a collision.
The two ships were almost parallel to each other when Ibo suddenly sent out three signal blasts indicating the ship was reversing its engines.

Mont Blanc’s Reversal and Collision with Emo

 

[39:10] The combination of the empty ship’s height in the water and the traverse thrust of her right hand propeller caused the ship’s head to swing into Mont Blanc, IOS Pro pushed through the French vessel’s number one hold on her starboard side.

[39:25] The collision occurred at 8:45 a.m. while the damage to Mont Blanc was not severe.
It toppled Benzo barrels that broke open and flooded the deck.
The fuel quickly flowed into the hold. As Emo’s engines kicked in, she quickly disengaged which created sparks inside Mount Blanc’s Hall.
These ignited the vapors from the Benzel. A fire started at the water line and traveled quickly up the side of the ship.
As the Benzel spewed out from crushed drums on Mount block decks, the fire quickly became uncontrollable, surrounded by thick black smoke and fearing she would explode almost immediately.
The captain ordered the crew to abandon ship at this point.
The signal blasts coupled with billowing smoke, alerted residents that something was amiss.
Citizens gathered on the street or stood at the windows of their homes or businesses to watch the spectacular fire.
The frantic crew of Mont Blanc shouted from their two lifeboats to some of the other vessels that their ship was about to explode but they could not be heard above the noise and confusion.

[40:35] As the lifeboats made their way across the harbor to the Dartmouth Shore, the abandoned ship continued to drift and beached herself at Pier six near the foot of Richmond Street, towing two scows at the time of the collision.
The tugboat Stella Maris responded immediately to the fire, anchoring the barges and steaming back towards Pier six to spray the burning ship with their fire hose.
The tug’s captain Horatio Brannon and his crew realized that the fire was too intense for their single hose and they backed off from the burning Mont Blanc.
They were approached by a whaler from HMS High Flyer and later a steam pinna belonging to Hm CS Nabi.
Captain Brannon and Albert Matheson of Nabi agreed to secure a line to the French ship’s stern.
So as to pull it away from the pier to avoid setting it on fire, the five inch Houser initially produced was deemed too small and orders for a 10 inch Houser came down, it was at this point that the blast occurred.

[41:41] Gene holder experienced it. Thus a blinding light, crash bang rumble, rumble.
Oh, a thunderstorm, it’s worse than that, that big cloud up there frothing at the edges must mean it’s the end of the world.
Such were the thoughts of a six year old when the mot block exploded.
It was the end of the world for hundreds and hundreds of logons at 9:04 a.m.
The out of control fire on board Mont Blanc finally set off her highly explosive cargo.
The ship was completely blown apart and a powerful blast wave radiated away from the explosion at more than 3300 ft per second.
Temperatures of 9000 °F and pressures of thousands of atmospheres accompanied the moment of detonation at the center of the explosion.
White hot shards of iron fell down upon Halifax and Dartmouth, Mont Blanc’s forward 90 millimeter gun, its barrel melted away, landed approximately 3.5 miles north of the explosion site while the shank of her anchor weighing half a ton landed two miles south.

[42:46] A cloud of white smoke rose to over 11,800 ft.
The shockwave was felt 100 and 30 miles away at Cape Breton Island, an area of over 400 acres larger than Boston’s back Bay was completely destroyed by the explosion.
And the harbor floor itself was momentarily exposed by the volume of water that vaporized water rushing back in to fill the void formed a 60 ft tsunami that then slammed into Halifax.
Over 1600 people were killed almost instantly and 9000 were injured, more than 300 of whom were later died for a town of 47,000.
That was 23% of the population killed or injured.
An equivalent tragedy in Boston today would impact about 153,000 people.
Every building within a 1.6 mile radius. Over 12,000 in total was destroyed or badly damaged.

[43:40] Hundreds of people who have been watching the fire from their homes were blinded when the blast wave shattered the windows in front of them, stoves and lamps overturned by the force of the blast sparked fires throughout Halifax, particularly in the north end where entire city blocks were caught up in the inferno, trapping residents inside their houses.
Firefighter Billy Wells who was thrown away from the explosion and had his clothes torn from his body.
Described the devastation survivors faced the site was awful with people hanging out of the windows dead, some with their heads missing, some thrown onto the overhead telegraph wires.
He was the only surviving member of the eight man crew. The fire engine Patricia which responded to the pier with the intent of fighting the fire on the Mont Blanc.

Vince Coleman’s Heroic Act to Hold the Incoming Train

 

[44:25] It could have been even worse after the crash and initial fire, a railway dispatcher named Vince Coleman who had been operating at the railroad about 750 ft from Pier six began to flee with another worker while running away.
He remembered that an incoming passenger train from Saint John New Brunswick was due to arrive within minutes.
He returned to his post alone and sent telegrams down the wire to the surrounding towns telling them to hold the train.
His last telegram said, hold up the train, ammunition ship of fire and harbor making for Pier Six and will explode.
Guess this will be my last message. Goodbye boys.

The Rockingham Train Incident and Coleman’s Heroic Sacrifice

 

[45:07] The incoming train heeded the warning and stopped at Rockingham a safe distance from the blast, saving the lives of about 300 railway passengers.
Coleman was killed at his post instantly.
He was honored with a heritage minute in the 19 nineties and inducted into the Canadian Railway Hall of Fame.
In 2004, a letter from 17 year old Walter Hogenson of Halifax to 16 year old Harold Kennedy of Stoughton Massachusetts reads.
I was at work at the time in the newspaper office of the Daily Echo, a Halifax paper and about 905, the lights went out very slowly.
I was watching the lights going out when there was a short rumble and then a big crash, a terrific terrifying roar.
I got as low as I could and the glass and wood flew everywhere, but I didn’t get a scratch.
Herald our big steady building rocked like a little cradle.
I got out of the building and when I got on the street, everybody was running everywhere.
People with scratches, cuts and bruises were yelling the dirty huns.
They’re here at last and many other things thinking it was an air raid while getting clear of this.
My first thoughts were at home, getting home. I found everybody. All right.

[46:19] That night, a wild storm held snow sleet and wind. I was expecting our chimney to fall at any moment, but it lasted out. All right.
The next day, the work of relief started and thank God, the noble state of Massachusetts stood the same as ever ready to help us.
I tell you, I don’t know what we would have done without the Americans because we were left powerless by the explosion.
Survivors immediately sprang into action, pulling the victims from the rubble.
Policemen, firefighters and military personnel soon began to lead the efforts and anyone with a working vehicle was called upon to volunteer.
The city’s hospitals were quickly overwhelmed and the new military hospital, Camp Hill admitted approximately 1400 victims that day.

[47:06] Royal Navy cruisers in port sent some of the first organized rescue parties ashore and took wounded aboard American cruiser US S Tacoma and armed merchant cruiser US.
S Von Steuben were passing Halifax at the time of the explosion en route to the United States.
Tacoma was rocked so severely by the blast wave that her crew went to their battle stations, spotting the large and rising column of smoke.
Tacoma altered course and arrived to assist with the rescue. At two pm.
Von Steuben arrived about a half an hour later, the American steam ship old colony docked in Halifax for repairs, suffered little damage and was quickly converted to serve as a hospital ship staffed by doctors and orderlies from the British and American Navy vessels in the harbor, led by Lieutenant Governor mccallum Grant.
Leading citizens formed the Halifax Relief Commission at around no.

[48:05] They organized medical relief for both Halifax and Dartmouth, supplying transportation, food and shelter and covering medical and funeral costs for victims.
The commission continued until 1976 participating in reconstruction and relief efforts and later distributing pensions to survivors.
Rescue trains were dispatched from across Atlantic Canada as well as the northeastern United States.
The first arrived by noon carrying medical personnel and supplies.
Fortunately, Coleman’s telegrams and those sent immediately after the blast alerted other cities to the disaster within just minutes of the explosion.
A Boston banker received the following telegram on a private telegraph line, organize a relief train and send word to wolf and Windsor towns that were near Halifax to round up all doctors, nurses and Red Cross supplies.
Possible to obtain no time to explain details. But list of casualties is enormous.

[49:09] John U bacon. Author of the great Halifax explosion describes the action taken in Boston in those first hours within two hours of getting in the news about the explosion.
100 city leaders put together a committee, the Massachusetts Halifax relief committee and they sent two trains, two ships, 100 doctors, 300 nurses, a million dollars worth of supplies, cars with gas and chauffeurs enough to run several temporary hospitals.
However, traversing the 400 miles from Boston to Halifax proved challenging.
The report of the Halifax relief expedition to Massachusetts.
Governor Samuel mccall describes the efforts of one relief train to make its way through a severe blizzard.

[49:58] The first news of the disaster was received at the State House at about 11 a.m. on December 6th.
Immediately you sent a telegram to the mayor of Halifax, offering the unlimited assistance of the commonwealth and called a meeting of the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee composed of 100 men representing all parts of the state for 2 30 that afternoon to take action relative to handling the relief work.
Although short notice was given, the meeting was largely attended upon your request as to how soon and in what manner medical aid could be arranged.
Colonel William, a Brooks acting surgeon general of the Commonwealth stated that if a special train could be had, he would be able to dispatch a large core of surgeons, doctors and nurses and surgical and medical supplies in a few hours.
And at your suggestion, this plan was adopted by the committee and James H Houston receiver for the Boston and Maine Railroad.
And a member of the committee agreed to have a train ready by 10 o’clock that night, we left Boston at 10 o’clock on the evening of the disaster.
And at Portland Maine and at each station from there on until we reached Saint John New Brunswick.
The next morning, we wired continuously to the mayor of Halifax without receiving an answer.

[51:16] At mcadam Junction, we tried to get news from Halifax, but the most we obtained were rumors and the more we received the worse they sounded.
After consulting with major Giddings, I called a meeting of the doctors and nurses and Red Cross workers and requested that they take an inventory of the supplies to learn if there was anything else they might need in such an emergency as I believed existed in Halifax.
Although we knew nothing definite.

[51:44] After leaving mcadam junction, we were besieged at every stop with requests for accommodations on our train, for workers going to Halifax in various capacities.
I instructed those in charge of the train to fill every available space, giving doctors and nurses the preference, upon our arrival at Saint John, I instructed captains Hyde and Lapham of the quartermaster’s department to secure additional drugs and supplies.
They commandeered the services of King Kelly Esquire, a prominent lawyer of the city of Saint John who was waiting at the depot to go to Halifax as a member of the Saint John unit with his assistance.
We obtained large quantities of all kinds of medical supplies at Saint John.
We encountered a heavy snowstorm, one of the severest of the winter accompanied by a gale of terrible velocity.
The snow was piling up and progress was difficult. We lost considerable time between Saint John and Moncton at this point to ensure getting through to Halifax.
A large freight engine was attached to the train beyond Troo and Moncton.
The storm increased and was a veritable blizzard.
We were also delayed several hours while our engine which had broken down was repaired.

[53:04] The climax was reached when we came up Folly Mountain and the conductor in charge Ch Truman accompanied by CK Howard General agent Canadian Government Railways stated that as an enormous snow drift lay across the track, it was impossible to proceed further.
I then showed them the telegram from the official of the railroad in which orders were given for the right of way to the special train.
I picture these grizzled railroad men considering the storm, the drifts and the Americans with this telegram, they were proud Canadians.
And while they didn’t know exactly what had happened in Halifax, they had enough fragmentary information from the telegraph lines to know it was bad.
They threw all caution to the wind, ignored safety precautions and railroad regulations working all night.
They used a train as a snow plow and good old fashioned elbow grease to open the tracks, the train would get through.

[54:01] I pleaded with them to do everything in their power. Known to railroad.
Ben to clear the track under general conditions.
No attempt would have been made to keep the train moving but the need was tremendously urgent.
The men realizing this and knowing that every moment was precious, worked like Trojans within an hour by hard shoveling the use of steam and ramming.
And amid great cheers from all on board, we went through the drift which extended higher than the door of the baggage car.
We succeeded in reaching Truro and found another engine and crew waiting for the final haul to Halifax.

Setting up a Hospital in Halifax

 

[54:38] The train finally arrived in Halifax that morning, met with city officials and the crew got to work setting up a hospital.
By six o’clock that night, we had installed an operating room and had fitted up wards with 100 beds and medical supplies taken from our relief train.
On account of the urgency of the situation, we received about 60 patients at nine o’clock that night.
And by noon the next day after our arrival, the fully equipped American Bellevue hospital flying the American flag was carrying for 100 patients and in full running order, this hospital received the worst cases from the different hospitals which had become so overcrowded that proper attention could not be given to them as the hospitals became overwhelmed.
Many injured victims waited at home.
Some had chosen to yield their place to the more gravely injured.
Others didn’t realize how badly they were hurt due to the initial shock.
And then the hardship of surviving a snowstorm in a destroyed city.
Within days, teams of Massachusetts doctors started a house to house canvas of the injured six year old jean holder whose account we read earlier which began with a crash bang describedd her mother’s treatment.

Doctors examine family after explosion, find injuries

 

[55:47] A few days after the explosion. Mother answered a knock at the door to find a lady and two gentlemen, there, one of the gentlemen introduced themselves as a nurse and two doctors from Massachusetts.
He said that all the hospitals and clinics were well staffed and that they were now making a house to house canvas, looking for people who were injured and didn’t know it.
He asked permission to come in and examine us.
They pronounced us well and uninjured.
Having examined us. The doctor turned to mother. What about yourself?
Oh, I’m all right then why is your head wrapped up like that?
Mother? Felt her head and remarked, oh, gracious. I was dressing one of the Children when the explosion occurred and blood trickled down my neck.
So I grabbed a night dress and tied it around my head. I didn’t realize it was still there.

[56:32] Examination revealed that her ear had been almost completely torn off, her face had been paralyzed and was twisted out of shape.
The doctors knew to look at her that she had been injured on the day of the explosion.
Granddad had asked dad, where’s Gertie, who’s that crazy looking woman with the Children?
He hadn’t recognized her.
The doctor asked mother if she would like him to sew the ear back in place or would she prefer to go to her own doctor?
She said for them to do it. But first she would like to get a neighbor to come in and keep an eye on us in case she fainted, the neighbor came mother didn’t faint, no anesthetic was necessary as the paralysis prevented any feeling in that part of her head.
She was advised to go to her own doctor or clinic. After a few days.

[57:17] In episode 39 we discussed the ways in which the Coconut Grove fire improved the way hospitals treat burn injuries.
Similarly, the treatment of eye injuries was significantly advanced as a result of the Halifax explosion.
Doctor George H cox, an eye ear, nose and throat specialist from New Glasgow, a town 62 miles away joined the early relief effort.

[57:41] An article from the US National Library of Medicine details his experience.
Cox walked from the train to the Camp Hill Hospital, a private veterans hospital with 250 beds and found over 1500 men, women and Children lining the corridors.
He first worked at a kitchen table, setting bones and repairing wounds, but quickly realized that the large number of eye cases required his expertise, among the local physicians who responded immediately were four other ee and T specialists.
E A Kirkpatrick, E A Mathers A E Dole and A R Cunningham with the assistance of a sergeant, a nursing sister and an anesthetist.
Cox started operating and did not stop for several days.
Pieces of glass were driven clear through the eyeball he wrote and one found it was necessary to feel about in the orbital tissue before dressing the case.
Cox found pieces of glass as large as a square inch embedded into the orbit.
Eyelids were cut into literal fringes. And in addition to removal of the eyeball, one often had to hunt to find any material to reconstruct a set of lids.
In many cases, the eyes were completely destroyed. Cox went along the rows of patients examining eyes and marking those who required operations.
He then placed linen tags on his patients listing their name, address, injury, treatment and future needs.

[59:04] On the fifth day, the train from Montreal arrived with Captain TF Tuck, an EENT specialist with the Canadian Army Medical Corps.
Tuck found cox in the small back room at the Camp Hill Hospital operating by the light of a single bulb.
Cox had performed so many operations that his instruments would no longer cut, while the injured were being treated.

Halifax makes arrangements for the dead, implements identification system

 

[59:26] Halifax also had to make arrangements for the dead.
A mortuary committee chaired by Alderman RB Caldwell was quickly formed at Halifax City Hall on the morning of the disaster.
A company of the Royal Canadian engineers repaired and converted the basement of a school to serve as a morgue and classrooms to serve as offices for the Halifax coroner, Coroner Arthur S Barnstead took over from Caldwell as the morgue went into operation and implemented a system to carefully number and describe bodies in a surprising mashup of historic disasters.
His methods were based on the system developed by his father, John Henry Barnstead to identify titanic victims in 1912.

[1:00:13] It’s hard to know where this narrative should end. The initial Massachusetts contingency returned after two weeks but efforts continued for decades.
The Massachusetts Halifax Relief Committee oversaw the distribution of the relief fund for Massachusetts which contributed in goods and money.
A sum total of $750,000.
12.5 million today, Nova Scotia donated a large Christmas tree to the city of Boston the following year in thanks and remembrance for the state’s aid.
Another tree was sent in 1971 and the tradition then continued annually.
The annual gift was started by the Lunenberg County Christmas Tree Producers Association to promote Christmas tree exports as well as acknowledge the Boston support after the explosion.
The gift was taken over by the Nova Scotia government in 1976 to continue the goodwill gesture and to promote trade and tourism, this year in honor of the 100th anniversary of the explosion, Boston mayor Martin J Walsh Halifax, Mayor Michael Savage and Nova Scotia.
Premier Stephen mcneil unveiled a plaque on Boston Common near the site of the tree.

[1:01:29] The Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources has specific guidelines for selecting the tree.
It must be an attractive balsam fur white spruce or red spruce, 40 to 50 ft tall, healthy with good color, medium to heavy density, uniform and symmetrical and easy to access.
In addition to this large tree, smaller trees are gifted to Rosie’s Place and the Pine Street Inn before the tree is cut, each branch is individually tied to the trunk.
It takes two workers about a day and a half to prepare the tree to be cut.
A crane holds the tree at the top while it is cut at the base by a chainsaw.
The tree cutting ceremony features representatives from the province, the US consulate in Halifax, the Christmas tree council of Nova Scotia, hundreds of local school Children, a town crier Royal Canadian mounted police, Nova Scotia conservation officials, a bagpiper, the Nova Scotia mass choir and Santa Claus.
The tree travels over 750 miles to Boston with a stop at the grand parade in Halifax for a public sendo ceremony.
Attendees are invited to sign a thank you book for Boston. The tree then travels by truck across Nova Scotia then cruises on a ferry across the Bay of Fundy continuing by truck through Maine and New Hampshire to Boston.

[1:02:58] In 2013. The tree was led out of Halifax by a group of runners in honor of the victims of the Boston marathon bombings.
The tree arrives in Boston under police escort in the same way that schoolchildren see the tree off in Nova Scotia schoolchildren from Boston are on hand to welcome it to the common.
In 2016, the gifting of the tree cost to Nova Scotia about $242,000 which includes scouting and cutting the tree shipment and the ceremonies and advertising in both cities.
The Halifax explosion bonded Bostonians and Haledon ins with a lasting and meaningful connection.
After the marathon bombing. In 2013, Nova Scotia sent a donation of $50,000 to Massachusetts General Hospital’s pediatric palliative care program.
Premier Darrell Dexter wrote in a note to the hospital, while there is a border and a number of miles between us, we share a common heritage and ancestors Massachusetts was there for Nova Scotia 96 years ago during the tragedy of the Halifax explosion.
And many times since then, our hearts and minds are with the people of Boston now and in the future.

Wrapping up with historical resources and relief efforts

Intro-Outro:
[1:04:15] That about wraps it up for this week to learn more about the coconut grove fire or Boston’s relief mission to Halifax.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 282.
I’ll have the original show notes from both episodes for you.
So you can peruse historic maps, images and primary sources as well as a link to Maui New Strong dot info where I hope you’ll make a small donation to one of the many organizations that are providing much needed relief to the devastated island of Maui.
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Music

Intro-Outro:
[1:05:31] Stay safe out there listeners.

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