Deadly Sweet in Boston

History is interesting, informative and often deadly. This past weekend we learned about one of the most unusual disasters in New England history. (Spoiler alert: This is a long post.)

As most folks know, we're not native New Englanders. What we knew about molasses was that it gave brown sugar its color and sweetness and was used in baking, especially at holiday time for gingerbread treats.

But, it's not just for baking, as molasses can be fermented to produce ethanol, the active ingredient in alcoholic beverages. It was used to make munitions and other weaponry used in WW I. 

After hearing a presentation at the Nashua Public Library this past weekend, we also know that molasses can be deadly.

Stephen Puleo, author of Dark Tide, the definitive book on the subject, has spent the last nearly 20 years telling how a massive wave of sweet dark syrup redefined a neighborhood, and was more gruesome than many people know, ourselves included.

It's a fascinating read, more so because it actually happened.

What's the book about?

Puleo has chronicled the events leading up to and the aftermath of the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster. It happened on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, MA. 

The location was the Purity Distilling Company facility on Commercial Street along Boston's waterfront. Purity was a subsidiary bought by United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA) in 1917. A large amount of molasses had been stored there by the company, which used the harborside  tank to offload molasses from ships and store it for later transfer by pipeline to the Purity ethanol plant in Cambridge.

The molasses tank before the collapse

The tank, built in 1915, was huge. It stood 50 feet tall, 90 feet wide and held as much as 2.3 million US gallons. Molasses had been poured into the tank 29 times, only four refills to near-capacity. The fourth top-off had been two days before the disaster, after a ship had arrived from Puerto Rico with a cargo of molasses. 

Puleo details what happened on that 1919 mid-January day, after temperatures rose to above 40°F, a rapid increase from frigid temperatures of days before. The new load of molasses that week had filled the tank to near capacity. It burst open and collapsed just after noon time. 

Headlines in the Boston Post, Boston Daily Globe  & Boston Herald a day after the disaster

When the tank burst it released a 15 foot-high, 160 foot-wide wave of over 2 million gallons of molasses. It flowed through the city's north end at 35 mph destroying everything in its path. The molasses flood covered one of the densest commercial sections of Boston which included a busy port and a railway terminal.

News of the impending disaster began with a phone message—Send all available rescue vehicles and personnel immediately! There’s a wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street—to Boston Police from Patrolman Frank McManus, who witnessed the tank splitting apart. McManus later told The Boston Post he was about 100 feet away and felt a “wet, sticky substance” on his back and shoulders.

What sounds like an improbable scenario soon became a destructive and deadly disaster that caused 21 deaths and injuries to 150. Humans were not the only victims. Public Works horses in a nearby stable were killed on impact; another 10 or 11 horses were shot that night by Boston Police. They had become too stuck in molasses to extricate. Numerous dogs also perished.

The scene after the molasses tank split discharging molasses in Boston's North End

The surge picked up carts, animals, wood, houses, and debris from an overhead train trestle, according to Puleo: That’s how a lot of these injuries happened—fractured skulls, broken pelvises, broken backs. People are kind of hit by this debris as it’s being swept by the wave. It’s just a very harrowing kind of disaster.

Why was the tank so big?

Industrial alcohol, made from fermented molasses, was very profitable. The tank’s immense size reflected the demand. Built quickly, the tank has isues from the start. Instead of inspecting and filling it with water first to test it, USIA ignored all warning signs including the rumbles every time it was filled. When it leaked, the company painted it brown. Residents and children were known to fill pails with the seeping molasses.

Witnesses reported they felt the ground shake and heard a roar as the tank collapsed describing it like the passing of an elevated train. Others reported a tremendous crash, a thunderclap-like bang, and a machine gun sound as rivets blew from the tank.

Boston firehouse leveled in 1919 molasses surge

The collapse translated this energy into a wave of molasses moving at 35 mph. It destroyed several city blocks and leveled buildings, including a fire station, and damaged an elevated railway and cars.

Boston Elevated Railway collapse

The wave was so strong that steel panels from the tank burst against girders of the nearby Boston Elevated Railway structure. Puleo described how nearby buildings were swept off foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet. According to a Boston Post report which Puleo quoted in Dark Tide: 

Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage …. Here and there struggled a form—whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was …. Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings—men and women—suffered likewise.

Rescue efforts included police, Red Cross, Navy cadets and citizens

The Boston Police, Red Cross, Army, and Navy cadets from a docked training ship arrived. Many worked through the night. Conditions worsened when temperatures dropped and caused the liquid to harden. It reportedly was a foot deep in places. 

Section of molasses tank after collapse

Another section of tank under collapsed railway

Rescuers found it difficult to help victims maneuver the syrupy sludge. Conditions worsened when temperatures dropped and caused the liquid to harden. After four days, the search ended; many of the dead were glazed with molasses making identification difficult. Others had been swept into Boston Harbor and found three to four months later.

Searching for victims in building collapse

Firemen constantly sprayed water, but wasn't until the city ordered powerful streams of salt water using city fire boats that progress was made. Salt water cut the molasses.

The harbor was brown until summer. Cleanup in the immediate area took weeks. Rescue workers, cleanup crews, and others had tracked molasses through the streets and spread it to many places. One paper reported: Everything that a Bostonian touched was sticky.

A welder cuts parts of the molasses tank after the disaster

After 5 days, welders began cutting up the tank with torches searching for bodies. After the salt water helped cut the molasses residue, welders could see the structure of the original tank to cut it and find bodies.

What happened later?

In the wake of the disaster, 119 residents brought a class-action lawsuit against USIA in one of the first class-action suits in Massachusetts. The trial set a precedent for expert witnesses; engineers, metallurgists and architects testified. The case is considered as a milestone that paced the way for modern corporate regulation.

Boston Herald reported os USIA's claim that anarchists blew up the tank

USIA claimed the tank had been blown up by anarchists described as  evilly disposed persons as some of the alcohol produced was used for munitions production. Bombings were common then so police checked out this claim which was later dismissed.

The theory was an anarchist climbed a ladder and dropped a pipe bomb into a fermentation vent, and that’s what caused the tank to explode, so therefore USIA should be absolved of responsibility because it was a terrorist act,” Puleo said, adding, There was no evidence. It’s very clear that the tank was built in a very substandard way.”

In 1925, six years after the disaster and three years after testimony began, a court-appointed auditor found USIA liable. The company paid out $628,000 in damages. Judge Hugh Ogden oversaw the years-long civil suit and took responsibility for distributing damages. If the death was horrific, the surviving family received more money. 

As terrible as the disaster was, there were positive results. Sites across the U.S. adopted stricter construction codes and improved the government’s oversight of corporations acording to Puleo, All the things we now take for granted in the business, that architects need to show their work, that engineers need to sign and seal their plans, that building inspectors need to come out and look at project—all of that comes about as a result of the great Boston molasses flood case.

How could molasses have been so deadly?

Questions followed for years later and even more recently. Several factors emerged: the tank may have leaked from the first day it was filled in 1915 because of poor construction and insufficient testing. Flawed rivet design was another issue with stresses too high on rivet holes, where cracks first formed. 

A  2019 analysis listed the cause as steel too thin to withstand the pressure of 2.3 million gallons of molasses. The steel had not been mixed with enough manganese, making it brittle and more likely to crack below 59°F (air temperature on the day of the disaster was about 40°F). Ironically, the ill-fated Titanic was reported to have used the same kind of steel in its construction.

Sole marker for the molasses disaster

USIA did not rebuild the tank. 

Property formerly occupied by the molasses tank later became a yard for the Boston Elevated Railway. It's now the site of a city-owned recreational complex. 

This small sign installed by the Bostonian Society is the first-ever, and sole, marker to honor the Great Boston Molasses Flood. 

According to Puleo, It certainly doesn’t do the tragedy justice. The marker is relatively new as for about 75 years, there was nothing to mark the disaster or its location in the city.

The author's appearance was in conjunction with the library's Nashua Great Reads program. Copies of Dark Tide were made available to library users and I had borrowed one. 

Then, as unlikely as it sounds, we found a copy of this nearly 20-year old book at a NJ wildlife refuge book sale on our recent road trip. It's  50 cents price was much less than the current paperback cost. We purchased it and made a donation too for the bargain find.

At the book signing after the library talk, we shared this story with the author and asked him to sign the copy to reflect this, which explains this inscription.

If you're a fan of historical non-fiction or just like a good read, Stephen Puleo has authored seven other narrative history books, an eighth is forthcoming. A former newspaper reporter and communications professional, he currently teaches at U-Mass in Boston. 

FYI — the phrase, You’re as slow as cold molasses in January, is said to have become popular from this disaster. It was also used in the 1941 film, Gone with the Wind.

Photo Credits: Historical photos used in this post are from online sources, including the Boston Daily Globe and Boston Herald newspaper, the Boston Public Library, Library of Congress photo archives and other photographers.

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And, it seems that I was very fortunate in being able to complete this post (with its many images) before Blogger starting having  issues. As of today, several bloggers posted that they were unable to add images in their posts. The same happened to me when tried to insert images in a draft post.