BOSTON MOLASSES FLOOD MODERN FREE

Yet never had the quantity released in the 1919 spill been seen before. On Christmas Eve in 1911, more than one million gallons of molasses owned by the Boston Molasses Company was destroyed in a fire in South Boston, the cause of which was slow, if ever, to be determined. The cities of Albany, Hoboken, and New Orleans housed tanks that burst prior to and following the Boston disaster. In 1921, a molasses tank burst at a mill in Oakland, California.

BOSTON MOLASSES FLOOD MODERN FREE

Nearly three years to the day before the 1919 flood, and only two weeks after the North End tank was constructed, 1,200 gallons broke free from a wagon tank in the West End section of Boston, flooding Leverett and Charles Streets. Molasses tank disasters were not uncommon. And its scarcity in our day adds to the quandary in picturing a sea of it, barreling down Commercial Street in the North End carrying debris, carriages, houses, and humans in its rogue rage. Molasses is simply not as much a part of our culture as it once was. In 2019, we have many different sugars to use in our baking and in morning libations, from stevia to coconut sugar – with various forms of non-GMO and organic varietals. It is painfully difficult to picture this, although it actually happened. The makeshift lifeboat turned out to be his bed frame. As he struggled to stay afloat, Martin grabbed onto a raft that drifted by him. To comprehend that the Cloughertys’ timber home was demolished in the flood is less difficult than the truth that Martin, who was sleeping in on the morning of the flood after closing his bar at 4 a.m., was propelled out in the sea of molasses after it swallowed his home. I ascended the steps of Copps Hill Terrace nearly every day for the five years I lived on Charter Street in the North End, unaware of what had befallen others who ascended the same steps decades before me. The occupants inside had no early warning before the molasses tide enveloped their house, completely demolishing it from top to bottom. They lived in a house on Copps Hill Terrace, directly across from the tank. She was the mother of Martin Clougherty, owner of a nearby bar called The Pen and Pencil. Īnother victim was a woman in her sixties who is described as being elderly. Two of the victims were 10-year-old children, a boy and a girl who were regulars at the base of the tank collecting leaked molasses. Out of the 21 dead, eighteen were men, mostly Irish laborers. The charts showed the victims’ names, ages, occupations, and, in some cases, their places of origin. When I began looking for information on the molasses disaster, and before I read Stephen Puleo’s Dark Tide, I came across a few websites memorializing the flood victims. No seer nor sage predicted the destructive deluge that compromised brick buildings and steel train tracks, drowned horses, and eventually claimed the lives of 21 people. Today marks the centennial of the Great Molasses Flood of Boston – when a tank housing 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst open on one of the busiest commercial wharves in the city.

Right? But how slow would 10 gallons of molasses be? Or 100? In appearance, molasses seems predictable. You have to make sure you allocate more than what the recipe calls for because it will cling to the measuring apparatus and mixing utensils creating an epic cleanup. I’ve made my share of gingerbread, and using molasses is a bit of a battle. The expression, however, does make logical sense. I’ve never used the phrase, or typed it … until now. I’ve heard the adage about the substance probably more often than I’ve tasted it.

Boston molasses flood modern