Dark Tide Read online

  For Kate

  Your eyes smile, my heart dances

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Prologue: Isaac’s Demons

  Part One: A Monster in Our Midst

  1. Deadline on the Waterfront

  2. Neighborhood Weeping

  3. Along the Gulf Stream

  4. War and Anarchy

  5. Heavy Load

  Part Two: Waves of Terror

  6. Before …

  7. Engulfed!

  8. “I Am Prepared to Meet my God”

  9. Darkening Skies

  Part Three: David vs. Goliath

  10. “One of the Worst Catastrophes”

  11. Factor of Safety

  12. “A Sordid Story”

  Epilogue

  List of Deceased

  Bibliographic Essay

  Acknowledgments

  Afterword

  Author’s Note

  THIS is the first full accounting of the Great Boston Molasses Flood. It was not simply a disaster that occurred on a mild January day in 1919, but rather a saga that spanned a decade, from the construction of the tank in 1915 through the conclusion of a huge civil lawsuit in 1925.

  There are no other books on the subject, and little has been written on the flood at all, save for a handful of magazine articles and newspaper retrospectives that have appeared sporadically through the years. A few works of children’s fiction allude to the event, but the story lines of these books generally focus on fun and adventure in a fanciful “world of molasses,” rather than depicting the event as the tragedy it was.

  It is probably not surprising, then, that the disaster—an event that knocked Prohibition and the League of Nations out of the headlines—is little more than a footnote on the pages of America’s past. Even in Boston, the flood today remains part of the city’s folklore, but not its heritage. A small plaque in the North End marks the site of the flood (placed there by the Bostonian Society in the mid-1990s), and tourist trolleys slow down when approaching the area so the driver can point out the location. One of the converted World War II amphibious vehicles that transport tourists through the downtown streets and into the Charles River, part of Boston’s renowned “Duck Tours,” is named “Molly Molasses,” but most who learn about the city’s famous landmarks leave with little actual knowledge about the molasses flood.

  Beyond these references, the story of the flood has remained elusive, surfacing occasionally in the folksy myth recounted by cab drivers and citizens alike that on hot summer days, for years after the flood, one could still smell the sweet, sticky aroma of molasses.

  There may be several reasons for this indifference.

  One is that, in a city defined by so much compelling and pivotal history, from the founding of Plymouth Colony to the Battle of Bunker Hill, from the Abolitionist movement to John F. Kennedy, perhaps it is difficult to make room for an event in which ordinary people were affected most. No prominent people were killed in the molasses flood, and the survivors did not go on to become famous; they were mostly immigrants and city workers who returned to their workaday lives, recovered from injuries, and provided for their families.

  Another reason the flood has never attained lofty historical significance may be because of its very essence—molasses. The substance itself gives the entire event an unusual, whimsical quality. Often, the first reaction of the uninformed when they hear the words “molasses flood” is a raised eyebrow, maybe a restrained giggle, followed by the incredulous, “What, you’re serious? It’s really true?”

  But perhaps the biggest reason the flood has not claimed its proper place in Boston’s history is because, until this book, the story—if known at all—has been mistakenly viewed as an isolated incident, unconnected with larger trends in American history. Dark Tide makes those connections.

  I have done presentations about the molasses flood to hundreds of people, and when they hear the entire story, wrapped in its full historical context, they are almost always fascinated and anxious to delve more deeply into the topic. Afterward, the inevitable response is: “Why didn’t I know about this and where can I learn more?”

  Undoubtedly, some of that interest comes from a visceral reaction to the disaster. The molasses flood was a tragedy (twenty-one killed, 150 injured), it occurred in a great city, contained a “whodunit” element (why did the tank collapse?), spawned in its aftermath a true David vs. Goliath courtroom drama, and created a collection of heroes that saved lives that day and sought justice afterward. These are crucial pieces of any good story, elements that grip the imagination and fuel additional interest.

  But the real power of the molasses flood story is what it exemplifies and represents, not just to Boston but to America. Nearly every watershed issue the country was dealing with at the time—immigration, anarchists, World War I, Prohibition, the relationship between labor and Big Business, and between the people and their government—also played a part in the decade-long story of the molasses flood. To understand the flood is to understand America of the early twentieth century.

  The flood, therefore, was a microcosm of America, a dramatic event that encapsulated something much bigger, a lens through which to view the major events that shaped a nation.

  That is why, when people hear snippets of the molasses flood story, they invariably want to hear more.

  That is why, finally, the full story needs to be told.

  Illustration shows close-up view of molasses tank and waterfront area, including the way molasses ships docked and pumped their cargo through a pipeline into the tank. Configuration of surface-level spur tracks showed how molasses was transported from tank to USIA’s distilling plant in East Cambridge. The proximity of the Clougherty house to the tank and the overhead railroad tracks is also shown.

  (Map by Sarah Gillis, adapted from map published in Engineering News-Record, May 15, 1919)

  PROLOGUE

  ISAAC’S DEMONS

  Boston, Late July 1918; 2:30 a.m.

  Isaac Gonzales knew what a terrible thing it was to be afraid at night. Night fear had robbed him of sleep and drained him of rational thought. Tossing and turning in the dark, his wife asleep beside him, he was unable to block out the horrible images that flooded his mind and wracked his body with terror. And, once again, his fear drove him from his bed, from his home, and into the night.

  Now he was running hard through the darkness of Boston’s North End, his heart pounding, sweat rolling between his shoulder blades even in the early morning hours. Summer was strangling the city this last week in July, and the cramped tenements and narrow streets threw off heat long after sunset. Isaac threw off fear—it pulsated from his body in waves—and he felt an odd mixture of shame for his inability to conquer it and satisfaction for his willingness to fight it.

  He could feel the buildings pressing in on him, his legs becoming heavier and his breathing more ragged. Sprawling warehouses, cheap wooden storefronts, and dilapidated tenements stood shoulder to shoulder, snuffing out the moonlight from Isaac’s path. He saw no other people, but he could hear scattered coughing from the flat rooftops where families had dragged their bedding, escaping the stifling confines of their tiny apartments in search of sleep. He could feel their presence, and he imagined these rooftop guardians watching him, as his rubber-soled boots thumped against the cobblestones.

  Isaac ran past Paul Revere’s house, into historic North Square, turned left and crossed Hanover Street. Then he stopped and bent over to catch his breath, his throat burning as he gulped the thick, humid air. The smell of oil, salt, and seawater filled his flaring nostrils, carried by a hot, wet wind that blew in from the harbor.

  Isaac had run more than two miles across town from his St. Germain Street home in the Back Bay, running to ov
ercome his fear by running toward the source of it. The vision had come to him again, not a dream, but what he called his “semi-conscious mind pictures,” terrible images that burrowed their way into his brain despite his best efforts to shut them out. This was the fifth time that Isaac had made the crosstown run in the middle of the night, and each time it was the mind pictures that had forced him to the streets. They had become his private demons, taunting him in the blackness of his own bedroom, the images too awful to ignore.

  Each time, the pictures flashing through his mind showed the monstrous steel tank near Boston Harbor collapsing, its more than 2 million gallons of molasses smashing into buildings and engulfing hundreds of people. He envisioned a huge molasses wave crashing against brick, splintering wood, and shattering glass. The tank, fifty feet high and ninety feet in diameter, stood in the middle of Boston’s busiest business district and at the edge of its most densely populated residential neighborhood, dominating the narrow strip of land between Commercial Street and the inner harbor. As a matter of commerce, Isaac knew that it was an excellent location. Ships from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the West Indies could conveniently off-load their thousands of gallons of cargo, and the molasses could be transported by railcar to the distilling plant in Cambridge, where it was converted into industrial alcohol. Isaac’s employer, the United States Industrial Alcohol Company, owned the tank and the distilling plant, and had agreements with the Boston Elevated Railway and the Bay State Railroad to ensure the swift movement of its molasses.

  Each day at work Isaac marveled at the efficiency of the operation, but his admiration for the logistical precision was overwhelmed by the fear that gnawed at him—that the tank would soon collapse. He had felt the tank vibrate and heard it groan each time a new shipment of molasses was pumped into it from one of the big tanker ships. He had watched flecks of steel peeling off the inside walls, falling into his hair and settling onto his jacket like brittle confetti as he climbed deep down into the tank to check the outflow pipes just prior to a molasses delivery. Isaac had seen molasses leaking from the tank in at least a dozen spots, pooling on the ground around the concrete foundation. Small children trespassed on his employer’s property to scoop up molasses with their pails or to dip their sticks and slurp the sweet liquid.

  He had reported the leaks to his supervisor, Mr. White, and to White’s boss, Mr. Jell, who twice ordered the tank recaulked shortly after its construction. After that, the leaks had continued, but White and Jell ignored Isaac’s pleas, accusing him of exaggerating and overreacting. Isaac had persisted, even traveling to the Cambridge headquarters to see Jell, a true risk for a lowly manual laborer with no union protection. He had carried rusty shards from the tank’s walls into Jell’s office to provide hard evidence of the potential danger. “I didn’t come here to make these complaints about the tank because I wanted you to consider me efficient, or to try to make myself any bigger or greater than I really am,” Isaac had said to Jell. “I am here from pure necessity.” Jell looked at the rusty steel flakes and had replied: “I don’t know what you want me to do. The tank still stands.”

  Jell and White had made it clear that any further complaints could lead to his dismissal, and he needed the job. He worked hard, was terribly overworked in fact, but he was well paid. He called himself a “general man,” and his responsibilities ranged from helping to off-load the molasses ships to checking gauges on the tank to filling train cars, trucks, and wagons with molasses for transportation to the distillery. He was good at his work, but it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.

  As he plodded up the hill in front of the Old North Church, Isaac wondered how much more he could take. The visions of the tank’s destruction came to him almost every night and he was frightened all the time now. He believed he had done all he could to prevent a disaster. Not only had he alerted his managers, he had even slept in the little office next to the tank for several months, believing he could sound a warning if the tank began crumbling. One of those nights he had received a phone call that still made him shudder. A man with a raspy voice had said that the tank would be blown up with dynamite and anyone who worked there would be killed.

  The call had terrified Isaac because he believed it was plausible, even likely. The tank and the surrounding property were designated as a federally protected area by the government since most of the molasses stored there was distilled into alcohol to produce munitions for America and her allies for the war in Europe. Isaac did not know much about politics, but he knew enough to deduce that the tank could be a prime target for the antiwar Italian anarchists who had been operating in the North End. After he received the phone call, Isaac reported the incident to Boston Police and decided that sleeping next to the tank would be a bad idea. He believed that the tank would eventually collapse under the weight of the molasses, but the thought that a bomb could hasten such a calamity was enough to scare him back into his own bed. Still, the visions continued, driving him to the streets in the wee hours to do something to prevent a catastrophe that he was convinced would occur soon.

  Isaac knew that if anything was to be done, he would have to be the one to do it, however inadequate his actions might be—and at whatever the cost. He had already risked his job, and his marriage was suffering, too. His wife was overwrought by his flailing and frightened cries when the images appeared to him in their bedroom, and equally perplexed by the reasons for his nighttime runs. “What good can you do?” she had asked him earlier as he dressed in the dark. “If it is going to collapse, what good can you do?” Isaac didn’t respond to her question directly. “I just don’t think the tank should be left alone,” he said. Then he had kissed her quickly and bolted out the door.

  Now, a half-hour after that kiss, he had reached the top of Copp’s Hill, the highest point in the North End, and, as the wind swirled around him, he surveyed the scene below. Silence everywhere. Tankers and freighters were moored in the inner harbor. No movement at the blacksmith shop, carpentry building, or stables in the city-operated North End Paving Yard. The elevated railroad trains that traveled over Commercial Street carrying people from South Station to North Station had finished their final trips for the night, as had the freight trains that ran directly beneath the trestle on Commercial Street. The Engine 31 firehouse was dark and peaceful, firefighters asleep inside, its fireboat tied alongside the pier, rocking gently with the swell of the harbor.

  And looming over all of them like a silent steel sentinel was the molasses tank. It reminded Isaac of a black mountain, towering above the landscape, its dark outline clearly visible against the starlit sky.

  That the tank was still standing was a relief to him, but he needed to take further precautions. He started down the other side of Copp’s Hill, crossed Commercial Street, and flashed his access pass to the security guard. Then he entered the property and made his way to the back of the tank to the pump-pit, where the inflow-outflow controls were located. He was alone and he remained motionless for a moment, adjusting to his surroundings. The only sound was the soft lapping of the waves against the retaining wall 150 feet away. The oily smell was stronger now and he caught the pungent whiff of decaying sea animals that had washed up under the nearby pier and dried out among the pilings.

  Working quickly, Isaac twisted open a valve and began releasing molasses into the harbor, and along with it, any gasses that had built up inside the tank. After ten minutes, he closed and tightened the valve. He had no idea how many gallons of molasses he had dumped, and practically speaking, knew it would make little difference in the overall capacity of the tank, which held more than 2 million gallons when it was full. Isaac also knew that he would be fired, prosecuted, and most likely sent to jail if Mr. Jell ever found out about these late-night visits. But dumping the molasses helped clear his head and made him feel less helpless.

  He slipped out of the pump-pit, bid goodnight to the guard, and walked quickly off the property. He turned once and looked up at the tank. Had it groaned, or
was that a foghorn from a tugboat in the harbor? The early-morning summer wind blew warm off the ocean, but Isaac shivered as he crossed Commercial Street and began the long run home.

  For another night at least, he had banished the demons.

  PART I

  A Monster in Our Midst

  Map shows Boston’s North End and proximity of the molasses tank, paving yard, and firehouse to Paul Revere’s House, the Old North Church, and the Salutation Street police station, which was firebombed by anarchists in December 1916. This was part of a pattern of violent anarchist activity in Boston that USIA argued was responsible for the destruction of the molasses tank. (Map by Sarah Gillis, based on Boston Redevelopment Authority maps)

  ONE

  DEADLINE ON THE WATERFRONT

  Boston, Late December 1915

  An icy wind roared across Boston’s inner harbor, scraping salt pebbles from the ocean-spray spilling over the seawall and flinging them into Arthur P. Jell’s face. Jell tasted the salty grit between his teeth and felt the sting against his cheeks. Shivering, he cursed the wind as it sliced through his topcoat and into his chest, and flexed his aching fingers inside his thin cloth gloves. December could be Boston’s cruel-est month down at the water, if only because it was so unpredictable. Bostonians expected the shocking cold that swept in from the Atlantic every January and February. December, though, was a seasonal tease, red-raw as a fresh wound some years, others as soft and muted as an early-morning drizzle with no indication of the deep winter to come.

  This year, to Jell’s annoyance, winter was not being cheated her first month, and the cold settled into his bones and his consciousness early. Every place he turned reminded him of the horrendous December weather: piles of grimy snow that workers had dumped against the freight sheds, puffs of frozen breath encircling the heads of crew members as they exhaled, relentless wind shrieking off the harbor. Winter had squeezed the color and depth from the world in front of him, leaving a series of flat, pale grays—water, sky, clouds, ships, the Bunker Hill monument across the bay in Charlestown, the seagulls that squealed overhead, dipping and gliding on the wind currents—all blending to form a bleak two-dimensional background painting.