Great Fire in Boston — About half-past two o’clock Friday afternoon, a fire broke out in a wooden building on Battery Wharf, used for the storage of cotton. The wind was blowing a gale from the Northwest, and the flames spread with great rapidity. The buildings on the wharf, some twenty-five or thirty in number, were all of wood, and in a short time were tottaly destroyed with their contents, including about 600 bales of cotton, and large quantities of provisions, salt, &c. …………..The whole amount of property destroyed was nearly half a million dollars, about half of which was insured.
(Liberator, May 4, 1855, pg 3)
