The Great Peshtigo Fire

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An Eyewitness Account

Peter Pernin

In no other testimony is the Great Peshtigo Fire so vividly recounted—an invaluable and enduring record for historians, scientists, and everyday citizens alike.

64 pages, 6 x 9, 19 b&w photos
Paperback: $14.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-310-7
Ebook: $9.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-684-8
Publication Date: 5/13/1999

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Description

On October 8, 1871—the same night that the Great Chicago Fire raged some 250 miles to the south—a massive firestorm engulfed the small village of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in the deadliest fire in US history. It destroyed far more than the village after which it is named: 2,400 square miles burned that night, killing families and livestock and burning whole communities to the ground.

Peter Pernin, a local parish priest, witnessed the fire, its devastation, and its aftermath. Just three years later, in 1874, Pernin published this dramatic eyewitness account of what happened that tragic day. In no other testimony is the Great Peshtigo Fire so vividly recounted. Pernin’s words offer an invaluable and enduring record for historians, scientists, and everyday citizens alike.

The late William Converse Haygood, who served as editor of the Wisconsin Magazine of History from 1957 to 1975, prepared this version of Father Pernin's account on the occasion of the Peshtigo fire's centennial in 1971. Foreword writer Stephen J. Pyne authored numerous books on wildland fire, including Fire in America.

Author Bio

Reverend Peter Pernin was the parish priest for Peshtigo and nearby Marinette, whose churches burned to the ground. He published his account of the fire in 1874.