[Williston burned down on Sat Dec 22, 1917, which helps to date this letter.]Sat. night
Dear Dr. Clapp:-
Has the news reached you? Williston burned down late this afternoon. It went so fast. And you haven't one thing left. Maybe I ought to lead up to this gradually, but I don't know how to. Perhaps I could have gotten a few for you if I had thought fast enough, but 'twas Sat. afternoon, and vacation and though I happened to get there early, there wasn't anybody to do things - and it burned so devillishly fast.
It took somewhere in the rear end. I was at Gridley's when I heard the news - before the bell rang for the fire. As I ran over through the deep snow the back hall
beloon 1st and 2nd floors seemed all ablaze, and was. To me it seemed more in the hall than in Ann's office or the library, but 'twas a big fire then. I tore down to the basement and through for my beloved slide collection, but the banisters were all ablaze in the back basement hall and there was just so much smoke I banged the door of my lab. shut and made a line for my office. I got a few things into my couch cover and took a handful of something up - and then there were a few men. I hadn't seen a soul in the building before though some men were running for hose outside. The men got much from my office and Miss Stokey's - what I don't very well know. Then I bossed the moving of that lot to safety in Mary Lyon for it was uncertain where the sparks would go. Oh yes, I found a flashlight - 'twas pretty dark - and got two men to help me get a few explosive chemicals (they're all we have!) The men couldn't get into the north botany lab. at all - Mr. Kinney tried there first - nor upstairs. The lecture room was ablaze when I went up from my office about the third time - and after that of course I couldn't have gotten to your office, not to mention breaking doors &c. The doors must have been open from the back hall through the labs. on that floor. After Room E was on fire the men got a little apparatus from B & C, where it seemed perilous enough. There are a few microscopes - the models of the pregnant uterus flopped merrily around in the snow! They saved - the revolving bookcase! And some students' notebooks! The stuff we took over to Porter in a rain of sparks. They fell on our coats and our hair freely. 'Twas a stunning fire - the glorious, leaping kind The little streams of water - So. Hadley Falls got here after a while, but the roads are heavy with snow - made no impression at all. I knew 'twas doomed from the start.I have four possibilities. (1) Gas left on in the water-bath room. Improbable. I think it hasn't been used this fall. And the fire started higher up. (2) Electric wires. Also improbable, but yet it seemed to center near that back hall and telephone and of course electric light wires. (3) Some careless man around. Eg. there were matches in the telephone booth to use in finding numbers. Mrs. Moody says all was well in the building when she left at 4:20. 'Twas all going at 4:45 when I saw it! (4) Ann left this noon. She worked over there this forenoon I expect. Probably she had a fire in the fireplace for the building was cold. Maybe there was a defective flue in the chimney. No special reason to think it - but such things happen. Nobody knows!
We're to have a conference of heads of dep'ts as soon as possible to see what next. If there weren't a war we could have a new building in a year - but there is a war! This wasn't well-timed. I wanted you to do the history - now you haven't the stuff. Oh, I just grieve over that loss of yours! It's so irresponsible. I never counted on that - and I ought to have thought of those things instantly, for there was more time for mine - They could have waited five minutes, but yours couldn't. All those pictures of yours I loved so - and all those things nobody knew about but you. Oh that is dreadful. Mr. Hayes hasn't a scrap, Ann hasn't a scrap. Mignon has only two tracks. The others will be all split if not otherwise injured. Miss Starr probably has nothing. Miss Stokey and I have a little.
Of course the collections we can't replace - but there are other whales! I saved two cat skeletons from my office which are ready to wire and somebody pulled out a half dozen cat skulls bleaching on a window sill. That's all. Think of those slides I loved so - I can see those toadfish sections - all yours! And all Lu's and Ann's things. It's a job we have ahead! But I always knew it would come - it's like the end of the Russian help in the war - only it's a shock when it comes! Have you any insurance? I may have a little. I had some this summer, and I think I kept a little for I had a good many things still there - books &c &c. But I changed my mind forty times and I forget which was the final.
I wish you had seen it go. 'Twas worthy and magnificent. I'll take some pictures in the morning. Oh - I just remember that all my old films went. I have prints of most of my films, but not of all. But I have my camera down here. And I had brought down most of my pictures. Sorry the European summer pictures are all gone, for there'll never be another. I was going to look at those in my declining years. Were all your pictures there?
Oh, I wish you were here to give us counsel. We'll have to plan politics. We want a building now. But there's that war! Who can tend to his share in the war and yet give us a building - at war prices? We need to find that man right now.
The lights are on late - fortunate, for I have to write you. I'm going to get someone to mail this in Holyoke tomorrow a.m. if possible.
Must send a line to my assistants. What'll we do for those next weeks? Very exciting - but I'm not stopping, not at all.
But oh, how I wish I could write you I had your things all safe for you! I'll never stop regretting that! It would seem as if I must have them - but I haven't -