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Boston Phoenix
By Camille Dodero
January 16, 2004
The tale of the Great Boston Molasses Flood sounds like an urban
legend.
In 1919, a squat steel tank of molasses sitting low on the Boston
Harbor waterfront exploded. Filled with more than 2.3 million gallons
of the sticky substance, the seaside container burst, unleashing
a 15-foot-high tidal wave of gooey destruction, killing 21 people,
and devastating substantial parts of the North End. Ever since,
the catastrophe has been a mere comical footnote to local history,
quirky fodder for trivia quizzes and 10-year retrospectives. But
now author and historian Stephen Puleo has written Dark
Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 (Beacon Press), a meticulously
researched record of the glutinous deluge and the lives it indelibly
affected. Remembering the 85th anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses
Flood, Puleo — who is admittedly ‘a bit of a molasses
geek” —will be speaking at the Old South Meeting House
tonight. The Phoenix spoke with the former newspaper reporter over
the phone from his South Weymouth home.
Q: What led you to write Dark Tide?
A: My master’s thesis was on Italian immigration in the North
End. I came across the flood during that research and I filed it
away. I’d heard stories about the flood’s folklore,
but I realized there was no book on the subject. There were a couple
of children’s books, a couple of fictional accounts of the
flood, but they pretty much handled it in a whimsical way. So I
said, “Let me see what’s out there in the way of sources.”
There were a few newspaper accounts, a few retrospectives, a few
magazine articles, but really nothing in the way of primary-source
material.
Q: You mentioned the folklore of the flood. What specifically
had you heard?
A: The classic [myth] is that you can still smell molasses down
[on the waterfront] on a hot day. Anyone you talk to about the flood
mentions this.
Q: Is there truth to that?
A: I don’t think so. But I’ll tell you this: the cellars
on Commercial Street were filled all the way to the first-floor
level with molasses. I bet if you went down there years afterward,
you could smell molasses. As far as the smell along the waterfront?
There’s no evidence of that.
Q: What exactly attracted you to the story? Was it the
story’s absurdity?
A: Well, the book works on two levels. One is the saga
of the flood story, a 10-year story from when the tank is constructed
to when the lawsuits are settled after the case. But what really
gives the book its the depth is that the major events that America
faced in the early part of the 20th century — WWI, munitions
production, anarchist activity, the relationship of big business
to society — all of those really touched the flood in some
way.
Q: Would you have written the book if it wasn’t molasses?
What if it was an oil spill?
A: Oh yeah, I think so. I think the story would’ve been told
sooner [if it wasn’t molasses]. It would’ve been an
important piece of Boston’s history: 21 people died. But I
think the fact that it was molasses is one reason the story hasn’t
been told. Because it wasn’t really taken seriously ... the
absurdity of it does produce kind of a giggle.
Q: What were the causes of death for the 21 casualties?
A: Half of them died that first day, either from asphyxiation, smothering
in the molasses, or being crushed. And the others died from infections
or injuries. Most of them over the next several days, a few people
over the next months in the nearby hospital.
Q: What were the nastiest details of their deaths? There
were animals caught in the flood too, right?
A: About 20 horses were killed in the flood, several of them shot
by Boston police because they were enmeshed in the molasses and
couldn’t get out. There’s the firefighter, George Leahy,
who was trapped underneath the firehouse and kept his head above
molasses for three or four hours and then finally succumbed. There’s
John Barry, who was a stonecutter for the city, who’s also
trapped under that same firehouse and unable to move. But a couple
of rescue workers were able to get to him, crawl to him though this
little gully; three times they injected his spine with morphine
for the pain. And when he got taken to the [hospital], his daughters
visited him the next afternoon. He was unrecognizable because his
hair had turned from brown to a snowy white because of his ordeal
under the firehouse. Is that nasty enough for you?
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