Fire of 1907

Jan. 19, 1907, is the day three little boys almost burned down Beaufort. The Fire of 1907 ravaged the downtown area, causing about $150,000 in damage, which equals about $3.5 million in today's dollars. The fire had consumed 23 homes and 10 businesses, including several colonial homes that were considered historic at the time. The three boys were not charged.

The fire starts

A thick, brisk wind from the southwest rolled into downtown Beaufort early that Saturday morning as the three children -- all younger than 8 years old -- smoked cigarettes in a barn behind a large grocery store owned by F.W. Scheper at the corner of Carteret and Bay streets. At some point, the boys tossed a lit match into hay stored in the store's barn. It was a mistake that sparked the controversial killing of a black man, a surge of U.S. troops to the downtown area and the near-destruction of the city.

"It was the single most destructive disaster that the city has faced," said Evan Thompson, executive director of Historic Beaufort Foundation. "Pretty much everything it touched, it burned."

The fire broke out in the grocery store at 1:30 a.m., fanned by strong southwest winds, according to accounts at the time in The Beaufort Gazette and the Savannah Morning News. Firefighters struggled to battle the flames as the inferno spread quickly to the adjoining bank -- People's Bank, which Scheper also owned -- jumped the street and tore through N. Christensen & Sons, a hardware store, where Fordham Market now stands.

The aftermath

Later that afternoon, Beaufort officials requested the assistance of a small U.S. Army company from Fort Fremont to prevent possible looting. Gov. Martin Ansel also lend the city the state's naval militia. Early the next morning, however, the situation worsened. Shortly before 1 a.m., William Bennett, a well-known black musician with the Allen Brass Band, decided to go downtown after curfew, said Lawrence Rowland, a professor of history at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. When Bennett was seen loitering around the rubble, possibly trying to steal valuables from Scheper's bank, a miltiaman shot and killed Bennett, Rowland said. Bennett, who had a drinking problem, might have been drunk at the time, he said.

Newspaper accounts differ in their description of what happened following the shooting. Because Bennett had been killed after curfew during martial law, white authorities did not want to indict the militiaman; however, after angry black residents demanded that the death be investigated, the militiaman was eventually tried and acquitted, Rowland said. City officials grew worried that the black community would riot, Rowland said. In 1907, about 4,000 white people lived in Beaufort County -- compared to 30,000 black people, he said. When Beaufort's Intendent -- or mayor -- Capt. C.C. Townsend realized that many of city's valuables lay inside the burned homes and businesses, he requested U.S. Army troops from Fort Screven on Tybee Island in Georgia to help maintain order as the city tried to sort out the destruction, The Gazette reported. At 8:30 p.m. that Sunday, 45 more armed soldiers arrived in Beaufort.

The Savannah Morning News reported that the troops were needed to quell possible uprisings from the black community -- a fact that both prominent white and black residents disputed in several emergency public meetings. The city had fought the fire as a whole, Rowland said, and many residents didn't see a need for the troops.

Steps toward fire prevention

After the fire, the city passed new construction ordinances to help prevent uncontrollable fires, Thompson said. Tin roofs were placed over wood shake roofs throughout town. Buildings were built with brick instead of wood, such as the old Firehouse building on Scott Street, and was built as a working firehouse after the city's was destroyed in the fire. It took about five years to repair most of the damage the fire caused, Rowland said. The fire of 1907 destroyed more Beaufort structures than the Sea Islands hurricane of 1893, which killed about 2,000 people throughout the Lowcountry.

"It's one of the most important things that ever happened to the City of Beaufort," Rowland said. "It was the biggest fire that happened in Beaufort, probably Beaufort County."