Photo courtesy of the Warren County Historical Society North Clarendon as it looked on July 4, 1877, the day of a 20 to 40 acre fire that decimated the town and left well over 1,000 of it’s 1,300 residents homeless.

And it would end with the vast majority of the town in ashes and its residents homeless.

I admit this sounds a bit like the introduction to one of those cheesy horror stories.

But in this case the horror was all too real.

The population of Clarendon at the start of the 1880s was a mere 295. But two years later — in 1882 — the Cherry Grove oil boom, well, boomed and by 1890 the population would grow by 1,000 up to 1,297, its highest ever. For reference sake, the current population of Clarendon Borough is about 425.

Photo courtesy of the Warren County Historical Society North Clarendon as it looked on July 4, 1877, the day of a 20 to 40 acre fire that decimated the town and left well over 1,000 of it’s 1,300 residents homeless.

In a lumber-rich region (there were several large mills in the immediate area), new buildings could spring up overnight and with the abundance of available lumber that sort of speed would be needed to accommodate such rapid population growth.

It wasn’t just residential construction. It was everything else that came with a boom town – hotels, livery stables, saloons, equipment supply stores and other shops, per an Times Observer file article written by local historian Ernest Miller.

But there’s an insidious side to such construction – it burns easily.

And it wouldn’t be until 1887 that the residents of Clarendon learned that lesson the hard way.

During this period, there was also a distinction between North Clarendon and Clarendon. The dividing line was, essentially, the railroad tracks. What we now typically refer to as Clarendon – including the intersection of US 6 and Railroad St. — would have been called North Clarendon at the time.

“Clarendon” would have been located south of the tracks that currently cross Railroad Streets a couple blocks southwest of the main intersection. (Now, it’s largely a distinction without a difference but it’s an important point to keep in mind when we get into the period accounts on this incident).

“Like other communities throughout the country, the streets were decorated for the Fourth of July, and the day was celebrated with picnics, parades and fireworks,” according to a Warren County Historical Society article.

“The plans for July 4, 1887,” per Miller, “called for North Clarendon to celebrate in a great scale and arches were erected over the street by the gas company and were illuminated at night. Stores and homes were decorated and the town was ready for a great time on a great day.”

And before you think you’ve put the story together, I could find no account of the incident which blame the gas-lighted arches for the fire that’s about to ravage the town.

But fire does come.

Sources vary on when the fire started (as well as what caused it and, to some degree, where it started).

Miller and the WCHS article indicate fire broke out about 9:30 p.m. and was first discovered in the engine room of a water company before spreading to the Weaver Hotel.

Miller wrote that the “fire alarm sounded and the volunteer firemen rushed to their stations” during the evening’s fireworks display and actually put the fire out at the waterworks before realizing that the Weaver House was ablaze.

An article published in the July 12, 1887 edition of The Weekly Constitution in Atlanta, Georgia (and preserved by the Digital Library of Georgia) was written on July 5 and filed at Erie, thus being some of the first original reporting done on the scene.

Referring to the fire as a “conflagration,” that initial report indicates the fire started about 11:30 p.m. “last night in Weaver’s hotel, in the middle of town, and in an old mill on the outskirts.”

That report erroneously indicates the town had no volunteer firefighters (one of the parade photos indicates clearly that was not the case) but notes that the “people are compelled to fight the flames with buckets of water.”

As you probably guessed by now, the fire wasn’t limited to the Weaver hotel and the waterworks.

Under the headline, “A Town Wiped Out,” here’s the lede from that initial report: “The town of Clarendon in the upper oil country, and on the Philadelphia and Erie railroad, was almost wiped out by a conflagration last night. Over 100 business houses and dwellings, including Weaver’s hotel, Logan’s hotel and the post office were consumed before 1 o’clock this morning, and the flames are still spreading.”