VICTIM OF MOLASSES FLOOD
1908–1919
St. Michael Cemetery, Boston, Massachusetts
Maria Distasio, ten years old, was often sent out on her lunch break from Paul Revere Elementary on Prince Street to gather miscellaneous bits of wood or broken pallets to use as firewood from the loading docks of the busy commercial warehouse district next to her family’s home in Boston’s North End. Maria would often go to play with downstairs neighbors Pasquale and Vincenzo Iantosca. The trio would sometimes bring buckets to the base of the large molasses tank that leaked rivers of sticky liquid from its riveted steel plate enclosure, to the annoyance of the watchmen who guarded the tank from troublemakers.
The United States Industrial Alcohol Company operated a distilling plant in Cambridge, and molasses would be transported by ship from the Caribbean to Boston Harbor, where it would stay in a large holding tank that had been quickly constructed in advance of American entry into World War I, before being transported by elevated rail in smaller tanks to the distillery. The spirit produced was a neutral alcohol intended for industrial use in the production of munitions. By January 1919, the war was practically over, but the company was running full tilt, and some have speculated that the distillery was being run overtime in order to produce an inventory of rum before Prohibition.
Maria was in the middle of being lectured by two adults when the tank gave way. A tidal wave of 2.3 million gallons of molasses was probably twenty-five feet high and traveling thirty-five miles an hour when it hit her. A firefighter spotted Maria by a tangle of hair floating on the surface of the molasses. She had drowned, along with many others who had asphyxiated by drowning in molasses or were crushed by debris from buildings that had been reduced to sticks by the force of the flood.
Charles Cameron Burnap was a seventeen-year-old merchant marine, working aboard the Nantucket, which was docked near the molasses tank. He and his fellow crew members rushed to assist the victims in the aftermath of the flood, and he wrote the following in a letter to his mother:
There was no explosion; only a loud hissing as the tank burst and the two million gallons of molasses came flooding out. It swept houses and everything out into the middle of the park where we drill and piled them up in great wrecks. The molasses was from two to four feet deep and we had to wade around in this with all our clothes on, shoes leggings, jackets and sweaters for it was cold and we had time to take nothing off.
Lots of people were drowned in the street by being knocked down with the force of the first flood of molasses. Once down under three feet of molasses it was impossible to get up without help because the molasses was so thick and it acted just like quicksand. The fellows from the Nantucket were the first on the scene and went right to work clearing the houses of people who were caught in them when the flood came. Most of them were caught and pinned way at the bottom of the wreckage and we had to use axes and crowbars to get at them, and some of the sights we had to look at were enough to turn a fellow’s stomach, men and women with legs and arms gone insides squashed out. Eyes, ears, and jaws missing. They were all covered in molasses and so were we and it was hard to get any kind of hold on them to carry them away. Another fellow and I saw a pair of legs sticking up out of the molasses and we went to pull out what we thought was a person but nothing but two legs and a part of some hips came out when we pulled.
We worked over an hour getting one man out who was caught under a building but was up out of the molasses so that he was not smothered. There was a door and two or three beams over him and his legs were caught in a pair of stairs. He certainly was game because he was talking to us most of the time and telling us what to do. The doctor gave him two shots of dope and a lot of whiskey.
USIA blamed the tank’s failure on sabotage by anarchists, which was never proven nor seriously suspected. Maria Distasio’s family was compensated three thousand dollars for their loss.
A TOUR OF CAVE HILL CEMETERY
CAVE HILL CEMETERY in Louisville is the final resting place of many distillers. The Cemetery is a classical example of the rural cemetery model and is still Louisville’s premier cemetery. Founded in 1848, the cemetery is noted for its high concentration of military figures, whiskey distillers, and a particular fried-chicken personality.
1. GEORGE GARVIN BROWN
Founder of Brown-Forman (today makes Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve), first distiller to sell exclusively by the bottle
2. MERIWETHER LEWIS CLARK
Grandson of William Clark, the explorer, and founder of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby
3. WILLIAM LARUE WELLER
Louisville distiller and rectifier mostly selling wholesale whiskey
4. PAUL JONES
Founder of Four Roses, avid horseman
5. JULIAN VAN WINKLE
“Pappy” Van Winkle, distilled Old Fitzgerald and other whiskies at Stitzel-Weller; his son is buried here, too
6. COLONEL HARLAND SANDERS
Fried-chicken magnate, the “Jim Morrison” of Kentucky
7. T. JEREMIAH BEAM
Master distiller of Jim Beam immediately after Jim himself and before Booker Noe
8. ARTHUR PHILIP STITZEL
Son of Philip Stitzel, helped develop recipes at Stitzel-Weller with Elmo Beam, warehoused whiskey during Prohibition
9. FREDERICK STITZEL
Distillery builder, helped patent barrel rickhouses used throughout the industry
10. CAVE SPRING
This short limestone cave is where Cave Hill Cemetery derives its name, not open for spelunking
11. J. T. S. BROWN
Whiskey wholesaler and half-brother of George Garvin Brown
