"Root Cellar Story"
Hinckley Fire September 1894
Published
in the Duluth News Tribune September
5, 1894
On
Tuesday, September 4, Minnie Samuelson and
John
Derosier continued the wedding that had been interrupted by the fire.
On that fateful Saturday Minnie, age seventeen, and John, age
twenty-eight, their families and guests were assembled at the Samuelson
home near Sandstone Junction for the wedding ceremony. When fire
surrounded the house everyone scurried for shelter to the stone root
cellar where milk was usually stored. As flames burned at the
wooden door they used milk to quench the fire and pour over themselves.
The house, belongings and the wedding gifts were destroyed, but
everyone in the wedding party was saved.
The
root cellar is still visible in a field east of
Old Highway 61
about six miles north of Hinckley, MN. At the time of the fire it
was near Skunk
Lake, but that body of water is no longer there.
Copyright
© 2014 Pine County Genealogical Society
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