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Archiver > MAHAMPDE > 2001-04 > 0986319155


From: "Laurel O'Donnell" <>
Subject: New Hampden County Resource
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 13:32:35 -0400


Hi everyone,

After hibernating for a few months working on a major CD project and some
new resources for the Hampden County site I am pleased to announce the
following resource is now available:

Tragedy of the Precious Blood Fire, Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1875.

During a Corpus Christi celebration on May 27, 1875, Precious Blood Church,
a French Catholic Church located in Holyoke, MA, caught fire and burned to
the ground. Along with the church a multitude of lives were lost . This
event was headline news and ran on the front page of the New York Times for
a couple of days as well as other major newspapers. Many of the dead were
interred in a mass grave at Precious Blood Cemetery, South Hadley, Mass.
To this day, the grave remains unmarked, though that was clearly never the
original intent.

This is a fascinating incident because there are conflicting reports of the
number of dead and injured and plenty of questions remain regarding the
event itself and the lack of a monument marking the site.

Unlike my usual resources, this is actually a compilation of many original
materials: newspaper articles, published images, and an article by Art
Corbiel (with his gracious permission), who has researched this topic
endlessly. Additionally I have put together a comparative chart of the
dead and injured (as reported by the newspapers of the time) and have
transcribed the death records from the Holyoke City Clerk's office. This
is a must-read if you have French-Canadian ancestry.

As always there is a direct link to this new resource on the Hampden County
web site, available at:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~mahampde/

Cheers,

Laurel

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