Jackson man witnessed circus disaster

On July 5, 1944, in Hartford, Connecticut, the worst fires in circus history struck the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, killing more than 150 people.

Among those who witnessed the blaze from the bandstand inside the big top was Jackson native Clarence Lee Bennett, a musician. Clarence was born Oct. 5, 1916, the son of Jesse Lee and Rachel E. Wells Bennett. He attended Jackson High School, where he played on the football team and in the school band.

Missourian articles show that at the time of the fire, Clarence was 27 years old and had been playing for the circus since he was about 22.

The conflagration was front-page, headline news throughout the United States, including Cape Girardeau. Clarence, wanting to alleviate his mother's concern, sent her a telegram the same afternoon of the fire, assuring her that he was unhurt. A brief item in the next day's Missourian noted, "When the band in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus played the disaster march during the fire Thursday afternoon at Hartford, Connecticut, Clarence Bennett of Jackson was one of the musicians. In a telegram received by his mother, Mrs. Jesse Bennett, Thursday afternoon, he said that he was all right. He has been with the circus band five years."

Here's how the disaster was reported in the Southeast Missourian.

Published July 6, 1944:

MANY REPORTED DEAD IN BIG CIRCUS FIRE

Flames Sweep Big Top of Ringling Show in Hartford, Connecticut; Confusion Is Rampant.

(By The Associated Press)

HARTFORD, Conn. -- An undetermined number of persons, among them three performers, were reported to have perished this afternoon as fire enveloped the big tent of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Various officials at a late hour estimated the death toll at between 50 and 100. An accurate check was impossible immediately.

While first reports conflicted as to the seriousness of the fire and effects, later reports said a number of persons were believed to have died in the flames in the rush to leave the big top before it collapsed in fiery ruins. The fire broke out just after the first act of the afternoon performance.

Some eyewitnesses said the circus lot on Barbour Street quickly became a scene of wildest confusion. They reported women without shoes, their stockings torn, wandered in a daze on the lot, frantically calling for their children.

Every drug store in the neighborhood was mobbed with persons calling for first-aid or seeking to use telephone lines.

One report was that a busload of injured had been taken to a hospital.

The circus animals appeared to have been rescued. They were tethered on the grounds some distance from the burning tent.

Pandemonium Reigns

As people recovered from the first shock of the fire, the pandemonium increased.

They clustered against policy lines, and as each body was brought out of the ruins, the mob surged forward vainly trying to learn the identity of the victim.

At least 12 persons were carried out three-quarters of an hour after the fire began.

Mrs. Sophie Shaw of Newington said her shoulder and top of her hair had been burned, and her 3-year-old boy was burned on the legs and shoulders. She was sitting in the reserved section.

"I saw a flash and then I heard yelling," she said. "Then there was a rush down the seats."

The Red Cross was on the scene to administer first aid.

"We are too busy to talk about it -- we have nothing to say now," said a spokesman for St. Francis Hospital when queried for information on casualties resulting from the fire.

Published July 7, 1944:

CIRCUS FIRE TOLL INCREASES TO 152

Many Unidentified After Blaze Sweeps Big Top of Ringling Show in Hartford, Connecticut

By The Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. -- As the death toll from the burning of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey big top reached 152 today, anguished parents and relatives still sought to identify charred bodies of victims at the temporary morgue in the state armory drill shed.

The fire, acknowledged to be the greatest disaster in American circus history, reduced the show's main tent to ashes within less than an hour yesterday afternoon and brought injury to at least 225 of the estimated 6,000 spectators at the afternoon performance.

State police on duty at the temporary morgue estimated that two-thirds of the dead were children and said most of the adult victims were women.

Rescue Work Orderly

Confusion was absent in the rescue work and at the morgue. The State Civilian Defense organization was prepared.

Gov. Raymond E. Baldwin was at the scene quickly and remained until late in the night. Nurses aides and volunteer workers toiled through the night, aiding both the injured and the grief-stricken survivors.

Cause of the blaze remained undetermined today, but an investigation was started immediately under the governor's direction.

Warrants charging four circus officials with manslaughter were issued last night by Police Court Prosecutor S. Burr Leikind, who said other arrests might be made today. The four named in the warrants were J.A. Haley, vice president of the circus company; George Smith, general manager; John Brice, chief of circus police, and Leonard Aylesworth, listed as chief canvas man.

First Act Finished

Only the first act, the performance of the trained animals, had been completed when the blaze, at first so small that, as one witness said, it could have been extinguished with a bucket of water, was seen near the main entrance of the big top.

Survivors agreed that the circus staff had tried valiantly to prevent panic. The first move toward the exits was orderly and many of the children making their way from the tiers of seats were seen laughing excitedly.

But when the flames roared with terrifying speed to consume the entire canvas roof, the audience became a fighting screaming, terror-stricken mass.

Show Future Doubtful

The circus' future remained doubtful today, although most of its staff agreed that it would return to its Sarasota, Florida, winter quarters as soon as authorities here would permit removal of the remaining equipment.

Herbert Duval, circus adjuster, declared, "We're out of business." But Roland Butler, general press representative, predicted that the show would return to the road later this summer, perhaps using last year's tent which he said "still is in pretty good shape."

Butler reported that all the show's animals were saved and that none of the performers had been injured seriously.

Estimates of the fire loss ranged from $75,000 to $300,000, but no authoritative report on damage had been issued by the management.

Identification Difficult

The problem of identifying the dead was great. Many, if not most of the bodies were charred beyond recognition and the flimsy garments worn by women and children offered little immediate hope of establishing identity. Only through a long and tragic process of elimination were many expected to be given names.

Thomas E. Murphy, and editorial writer of the Hartford Courant, who was attending the circus with his 5-year-old son, gave this account:

"The Wallendas, aerial artists, had just climbed up the rope ladder to their perch above, when behind me I heard a woman gasp, 'Look -- Fire.' There, near the main entrance to the tent, a tiny tongue of flames crept up the sidewall.

Excitement Subsided at First

"Almost automatically people rose to their feet. Several men shouted, 'Take it easy. Take it easy. Walk out quietly.'

"The crowd seemed to subside for an instant, but then, with almost unbelievable speed, the tiny flame spread into a devouring curtain of fire that rushed toward to top. All semblance of order was gone now. Women screamed, children cried. I saw one woman in the top row take her flaxen-haired little girl in one arm, grab a rope in the other and slide to the ground. Her arm was raw and red. But there was little time now for observation.

Sees Woman Fall

"Preceding the Wallenda act, the main cages had been filled with lions, tigers and leopards. Running from the animal cages in back to the exhibition cages were two steel runways 3 feet high. These were still in place as the crowd surged forward. They had to climb over this steel barrier. I saw one woman fail to make it, sliding back and slump to the ground. A man tried to fend the crowd back from her, but the pressure was too great.

"I was slammed against the steel barrier and my knee caught momentarily between the bars. Then, taking my 5-year-old son in my hands, I tossed him over the barrier to the ground beyond. The flames at this point were nearly overhead and the heat was becoming unbearable.

"I looked back over my shoulder as I left the tent and saw people still struggling madly to get over the barrier. Outside children were running around crying. Men and women had the vacant look of shock. Some were just sitting on the grass, staring into space.

"I would say that it was less than 45 seconds from the time the first sign of fire appeared until the top of the tent had been consumed.

Finds Four Children

"I saw one woman standing moaning and saying: 'My four children! My four children! Where are they?' Then she spied a 6-year-old coming to her, crying, and she ran and threw her arms around him. Then another, then another. Finally she had all four, ages 6, 7, 8 and 9. They were all crying and embracing each other. The woman was shouting. 'Thank God, thank God!'

"There were others who were not so fortunate."

Children Dropped

As accounts continued to be pieced together many poignant details of the frenzied minutes when thousands tried to flee possible cremation came to light.

One man said the din of shouting and shrieking as crescendo of fear welled from the throng was deafening. It mingled, he said, with the crash of falling grandstand chairs.

Scores of men, women and children tried with varying success to jump from high seats. Many children were dropped from elevated seats to make their way as best they could to safety.

"Their cries," said a reporter who was himself almost caught in the mass, "were awful to hear."

For many of these children, however, there was no escape as fire enveloped them.

The book, "Mr. Tuba," by Harvey Phillips, c. 2012, indicates Bennett played with the circus band after the fire, at least through the 1950 season. The book lists him as one of two euphonium players. Whether his time with Ringling Brothers, et al., continued after that isn't known. Online records show he died in San Bernardino, California, in 1992.

All but five of the victims of the Hartford fire were, miraculously, identified. Just recently, perhaps prodded by the 75th anniversary of the tragedy, an effort has been launched to exhume the remains of two of the victims in order to run DNA tests. That decision rests with the courts.