A Relic from a Fire

Label from Newtown Canning Co.

Newtown Enterprise - Saturday, December 8, 1906 Newtown Has Two Fires

...The second alarm was at about 9:20 o'clock in the evening, when the storehouse of the Newtown Canning Company was discovered to be on fire. The blaze was first noticed by some of those employed at the electric light plant which is not far away. For sometime previous persons living in the vicinity had noticed a smell of burning wood in the air but could not located any fire. The firemen were on on the scene and through their efforts prevented the fire from communicating to the main cannery building. A large crowd collected to watch the work of destruction. 

The burned building was of frame, and extended in a southerly direction from the west end of the main building, the south-west corner of which it touched. The origin of this fire is a mystery and will probably ever remain so. Various theories have been advanced for it, one of which, of course, is incendiarism. Another is that mice may have ignited matches carelessly left lying about by some workman. It seems to be agreed that the fire started at the northwest corner of the building and on the inside thereof. There had been no fire about the place recently and the door was locked to keep out prowlers.

The contents of the storehouse included six or eight cases of 3 pound cans of corn, a remnant of the pack of 1905; also bean and pea sorting machines, which had never been unpacked, there having been no occasion to use them; and two apple parers and corers. The latter machines, we are told, were little, if any, injured by the fiery ordeal through which they passed. 

It is thought the damage will amount to about $500. The plant cost the canning company $12,000, and while the stock was stored there an insurance of $9,500 was carried on buildings and contents. This has been reduced, after the sale of the stock, to about $3,500 - in two policies - $2,000 in the Farmers' and Mechanics' Mutual Insurance Company of Bucks County and $1,500 in the North British and Mercantile.

Negotiations were in progress at the time of the fire for the sale of the property.

Mailed December 5th, 1906 the day after the fire

Prominent Newtown citizen W. Aubrey Merrick was sent this flame singed canning label with the note:

As you couldn't come to the fire I'm sending as much of it as I can to you. Elizabeth.

The fire happened on the 4th and the label was mailed the next day. The label shows a small portion of the building that burned.