The Albany, New York City Hall burned on February 10, 1880. However, historians and genealogists alike can thank fire chief James McQuade and Wheeler B. Melius for “saving 700 volumes of records weighing between 12 and 16 pounds each” by throwing them out a narrow window. Following is a teaser from an article in the Feb 10, 2010 edition of the Times Union.
By first light, one of the greatest calamities and perhaps most dastardly crimes in the city’s 324-year history was at
hand — and a middle-aged bureaucrat by the name of Wheeler B. Melius was well into his finest hour.
Not long after 4 a.m., 130 years ago this morning, flames were spotted leaping in the County Clerk’s Office on the south side of City Hall — a stately domed structure designed and built not 50 years earlier according to the plans of architect Philip Hooker.
The alarm sounded at 4:12 from a box at the corner of State and Eagle streets and citizens and fire crews began descending on the scene at the foot of Washington Avenue.
So began a desperate, see-saw struggle to first save the seat of government, the pride of the city and, if not that, then at least the treasure trove of historical records inside. At stake was more than 200 years of history dating to the earliest Dutch settlement here on the shores of the Hudson River.
Read the full article by Jordan Carleo-Evangelist.
Thanks to Pat Morrow for alerting me to this very interesting article.
