The Hartford Circus Fire

 

In 1871 the Ringling Brothers Circus was started. It ran for 146 years before closing in 2017. There have been lots of “circuses” over the years but Ringling Brothers will always be considered one of the biggest, if not the best. But, as it is in all things, time changes things. Most believe that the downfall of the circus as we all remember and consider it revolved around the treatment of animals. Over the years there were several reports about how the animals were kept and treated and allegations of abuse. To be fair circus animals are caged the majority of the time, even when the circus was not in season and as time went on the circus was less and less “in season.” This prevented the animals from thriving, put their health at risk and many believed amounted to abuse to the animals. Because of these things, as well as high prices and less interest in the circus, slowly they began to dwindle.

I cannot tell you when the circuses began using the train system to go from place to place or when they may have ended using that mode of transportation, if they ever did. But, what I can say is that in 1944 that is exactly what they were using. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus rolled into Hartford Connecticut on July 5, 1944. They got in late and had actually had to cancel one of the two shows they had scheduled for that day. World War II was going on and it was said no only did it cause a personnel and equipment shortage for the company, but it also meant that the audiences were full of women and children. But it was this shortage that caused them to be late that day. It is said that “in circus superstition, missing a show is considered extremely bad luck.” The circus is also where the saying “The show must go on” came from. It is believed that this missed show however caused more people to come to the circus the following day.

To erect the tents and unload everything is no small feat when it comes to the circus, especially in 1944. The Big Top tent “measured 200 feet wide by 450 feet long. The sides were fifteen feet high and at the highest point it was forty-eight feet at the roof.” Between bleachers and free standing chairs it could sit 9,000 people. That did not count the area and room inside that included three rings for performances. The tent itself is placed over freshly mowed grass and dirt that is first watered down and then covered with hay and wood shaving. These performances were always outside as the idea of stadiums or arenas were not really a thing then so they had to come up with a way to prevent the Big Top from leaking if it rained. The method in 1944 may seem asinine to us in 2021 but it was a common practice back then. Eighteen hundred pounds of paraffin wax would be dissolved in six thousand gallons (yes... I checked to make sure this was right) of gasoline. This was then put on the Big Top to make it waterproof. There was the main entrance/exit and then there were eight smaller exits out of the tent. However, oftentimes some of those smaller ones were blocked by wagons or other things pertaining to the circus. For instance, the wagons and/or cages for an animal performing would be at one and maybe at another would be another wagon for the next animal to perform.

It has been estimated that there were between six and eight thousand people that attended the circus at their first performance in the early afternoon of July 6^th. As I mentioned earlier, a large majority of the circus goers were women and children. About twenty minutes into the performance, the lions had just left the tent and the The Great Wallendas (aka The Flying Wallendas) were performing on the highwire when the bandleader, Merle Evans, who is believed to have been the first to see the fire, noticed flames at the southwest side wall of the tent. He immediately directed the band to play “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” This was basically an SOS signal to other circus personnel.

The Ringmaster, Fred Bradna attempted to speak and warn people without panic but no one could hear him because there had been a power failure due to the fire. Instead chaos ensued and panic kicked in. Witnesses would later say they saw people basically running in circles trying to find family members rather than trying to escape. Some people escaped only to go back in to look for people and not make it back out. Some simply stayed in their seats as if they were in shock and did not move until it was too late. Some were trampled upon; some were burnt from the fire; some were burnt from melting paraffin falling from above and, yes, some escaped. Eight minutes after the start of the fire the tent totally collapsed on top of the spectators still inside.

It is not completely certain exactly how many people died, nor how many were injured. The estimated guess is that between 167 to 169 people died. This number is uncertain because in some cases only body parts were found and no one could know if those parts belonged to a body already found, or another body in which no other parts were found. It was said more than 700 people were injured but that number too is not fully known. It was said that many were seen simply leaving and heading home while injured. Then there were cases of misplaced bodies.

The bodies of the severely injured were taken to two or three hospitals in the area and they were all overwhelmed. People were left in hallways, some on gurney's, some on the floor. In one case six year old Raymond Erickson was taken to the hospital by his uncle with severe burns. He was on a gurney in a hallway when the uncle went to find a priest to administer last rites. When the uncle returned Raymond was no longer in the spot where he left him and he was never found. It is unclear how many of those taken to the hospital later died.

A makeshift morgue was established across the street from the fire. Bodies were laid out and given a number. I want to be clear in the fact that I have no idea how they came up with the numbers or how they decided how to do that. As I stated earlier there were over 150 victims of this fire. Some did die in the hospital but presumably most of those were identified either right away or quickly. Family members would walk through the rows of bodies looking for loved ones. While there seemed to be little choice but to do it this way, it also was not very efficient. Some were too badly burned to be identified and those who walked through were under severe emotional distress and it is believed that many either failed to identify their loved one, or misidentified someone. Of course this was 1944, more than fifty years before the phrase “DNA” would be commonplace.

In some cases entire families were either killed or injured and so some bodies had to wait until a distant relative, who may or may not have been with them on that day came to identify them. I will touch on this later but one identity that has been in contention was “labeled” “Little Miss 1565.” She was named differently than some of the others because it was clearly a young girl as there were no damage or burns to her head area. Her picture circulated for years in newspapers.

It has been widely believed that bodies were misidentified by family members and essentially buried under other names, especially those of children. It was said that there was at least fifty-nine children under the age of nine that died on that horrible day.

The actual cause of the fire was never determined. Initially it was widely believed that a carelessly discarded cigarette started the fire, and really that still could be true. There were others that suspected that it was arson. Ringling Brothers accepted “full responsibility for financial damages, it did not accept responsibility for the disaster itself.” Things get a bit sticky for me here though. Apparently five men were arrested and brought to trial in 1944. One report stated that four of them were convicted and “although the four were given prison terms, they were allowed to continue with the circus to its next stop, Sarasota Florida to help the company set itself up again after the disaster. Shortly after their convictions were pardoned entirely.” It was also stated that one of those men was James Haley who would later serve in the U.S House of Representatives for twenty-four years. So then I did a search on Haley. In 1942 James Haley married the widow of a Richard Ringling. Richard was the son of Alf Ringling, one of the original Ringling Brothers. By 1944 he was all but apparently running the circus although again confusion exists as to his exact position. And, on the day of the fire he was “the highest ranking executive traveling with the circus.” But according to his biography he pleaded no contest to charges of involuntary manslaughter and served eight months in prison. It was then said that in 1945 he went back to Florida, where operations for the circus were maintained and the governor there pardoned him. Again, I find all of this confusing. Not only did I not hear who any of the other men were that were charged or convicted in connection with the fire but I am also confused how the governor of Florida was able to pardon anyone related to a fire in Connecticut. Either it was a state case, which would have been in Connecticut, or somehow became a federal case and in either case the governor of Florida would not have jurisdiction.

In 1950 a man named Robert Dale Segree confessed to starting the circus fire, he later recanted and was never charged. In 1944 Segree had been sixteen years old and worked as a “roustabout” (basically an unskilled laborer) from June 30^th to July 14^th in 1944, which was obviously during the fire. Segree apparently came on the radar in Ohio when he was charged with committing other acts of arson. There were questions made about Segree's mentality and this, combined with the fact that he was eventually sentenced to forty-four years in prison for other crimes and he recanted his confession is likely why he was never charged.

The fire devastated families that were touched by the deaths of loved ones, but it also affected survivors for the rest of their lives. Many were quoted decades later saying how large crowd were still difficult for them. One survivor, Eunice Groak was six years old in 1944. In 1991 she was elected the first female lieutenant governor of Connecticut. She recanted that day in 1944 where she was trapped inside and barely escaped with her life. She said “even sixty years later” she could not be in large crowds. Another survivor was a child named Charles Reilly. He would grow up to be a comedian and actor known as Charles Nelson Reilly. Reilly was thirteen at the time of the fire. He had gone with a friend. It was claimed that he never again sat in an audience although he had worked on stage plays and even directed a few. It was said when he was a director of a stage play he sat or located himself near an exit.

Another famous survivor was Emmett Kelly. His name may not ring a bell to you and to be fair it did not to me, even when my son who manages a Facebook page called Stories from the Stone that looks at graves of famous people and infamous cases. He posted Emmett Kelly's grave a while back as he is buried in Lafayette Indiana. However, if you do a Google search many of you will likely recognize him and if you do not then you will recognize the “type” of clown he created, “Weary Willie,” the hobo clown. Kelly was with Ringling Brothers circus from 1942 to 1956. A picture of Kelly at the scene of the fire holding a water bucket was circulated throughout newspapers across the country. Because of this picture The Hartford Circus Fire has also been known as “The Day the Clowns Cried.”

A while back I told you that I would get back to the issue of the identification of bodies, specifically that of “Little Miss 1565.” She is considered to be the “best known victim” although no-one really knew her at all. As I stated before they knew this was a little girl due to the fact that her face and head was almost unscathed by the fire. Due to this it seemed so unusual that she could not be identified. The knew she was a blonde girl in a white dress. She, along with five other bodies of unknown victims were buried under their “assigned” number. The only difference is that on the tombstone for #1565 was also the inscription “Little Miss.” If you were to go to the cemetery you will also see that another inscription was later added. It would say “March 8, 1991 she became known as Eleanor Emily Cook. She is now buried with her family.” But the question still lingers.... is she??

On the day of the circus fire eight year old Eleanor Emily Cook went to the circus with her mother, Mildred and her brother, Edward. Mildred was severely injured in the fire and could not go to the makeshift morgue to attempt to identify her children. It seems that Edward was easily identified by an aunt and uncle but they never identified or found Eleanor. In fact, it has been said that they were specifically shown the body of “Little Miss” and they stated that it was not her. In 1955 her oldest brother, Donald contacted authorities and told them he believed “Little Miss” was in fact Eleanor. However, by this time Mildred had been also shown a picture of “Little Miss” and she maintained that was not her daughter. This is likely why Donald's identification was not given a lot of merit. I am unsure how it came about but, “the Connecticut State Police forensics unit compared hair samples and determined they were 'probably' from the same person.” To be fair I have no idea how they had a hair sample or where because all indications were that the body was not exhumed until after the identification was made. At that point the body was re-buried next to Edward Cook in Massachusetts. It was said that the investigators involved in that identification had worked closely with Donald Cook. The main person behind this was an arson investigator named Rick Davey. It was also said that Mildred Cook was still alive at that time and maintained until her death in 1997 at the age of 91 that “Little Miss” was NOT her daughter.

In the year 2000 a book was published called “The Circus Fire: A True Story” by Stewart O'Nan was published and I have read this book. O'Nan addresses the issue of Eleanor Cook. He claimed, along with others, that there were several discrepancies in the identification of the body known as “Little Miss 1565” and Eleanor Emily Cook. He states that there were issues with the dental records that were presented against the body. He also claims that while the pictures of “Little Miss” showed and was stated that she had blonde hair, Eleanor was a brunette. There are claims that the shapes of the face and heights did not match.

I found an article dated July of 2020 that was titled “After 76 years and a DNA investigation, the identities of 5 victims from the Hartford Circus Fire remains a mystery. Two of the five remaining unidentified bodies were exhumed and it was said that DNA was attempted to be extracted but there was not enough viable DNA available to make any comparison. The DNA was kept for future purposes if and when technology advances. It appears they were looking to match DNA to a six year old girl named Judy Norris. She was never identified but she had gone to the circus with her twin sister, Agnes, and her parents, all who have been identified and given proper burials.

It seems that the overwhelming idea as far as the unidentified bodies, and some say as well as the body of “Little Miss” is that through the emotional trauma family members were going through, the conditions of the bodies and the way in which people were given to identify them, that many were misidentified and likely buried under other names. To exhume all of the bodies and do modern testing is not a reasonable solution.

Before I end this I want to point out one more thing. I found an article on a site called “Today I found Out.” It talked about several things with the Hartford fire where at first I thought it may have been “new” information to me or interesting. As I read through the article I learned that much of the information directly contradicted other things that I had learned. For example, the site claims that it was Stewart O'Nan, the author of the book “The Circus Fire” who had helped in identifying Eleanor Cook and this goes against everything else I discovered. I compared that to other information in which Donald Cook was quoted and talked about working with Rick Davey, the arson investigator who was the actual person to come to the conclusion, right or wrong, that Eleanor Cook was “Little Miss #1565.” The article also would say “nearly 700 people either died or were injured” which again contradicts the information I found and have presented here. The article went on to say that O'Nan believes that Mildred Cook “simply picked the wrong body among the many charred remains.” The problem with this statement is that a) Mildred Cook was said to be in the hospital with injuries at the time that an aunt and uncle went in to identify bodies; b) Mildred was shown a picture of “Little Miss” while in the hospital and affirmed that was not her daughter, and c) Mildred Cook did not identify anyone wrong because she did not identify anyone as being her daughter. This is one of the examples of things that I find when researching cases that I have to weed through and come to conclusions as to what I believe or can determine to be the truth. Sometimes it is quite difficult because misinformation is so easily found.