Tag fire, Brooklyn Eagle, 1916

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this story.

The day after the tragic fire at the Tag house, an advertisement in the Brooklyn Standard Union announced, “Six Women Die in Brooklyn Blaze: It Could Be Your Home Tomorrow!” This half page ad was for the Pyrene Company, which manufactured fire extinguishers. The ad went on to say, “In Casimir Tag’s Brooklyn home this morning, six women were burned to death…Six out of ten fires are in homes. And yet the home, the place which guards our most precious possessions, is least protected from fire. Every home should have something to put out fires from the start…Until the Pyrene Fire Extinguisher was invented a couple of years ago, there was never any practical fire protection for the home…The holocaust in the Tag household may be re-enacted tomorrow in your home. This is a time for action. Put a Pyrene in your home today.” Talk about exploiting a tragedy for financial gain.

Part One of our story tells the tale of banker Casimir Tag and his family. He was one of Brooklyn’s wealthiest bankers in the early 20th century, a man who worked hard and became the president of not one, but two Manhattan banks. He and his wife Hannah raised a large family of six children. His death in 1913 left Hannah the wealthiest widow in Brooklyn, and head of the family home, a large five story brownstone at 243 Hancock Street, on the most impressive block in the upscale neighborhood of Bedford.

In the early frigid morning of February 4th, 1916, the Tag house mysteriously caught fire. The blaze quickly spread, consuming furniture, fabrics and woodwork, creating a smoky conflagration that would claim six lives. Of the seven women who slept under the roof of 243 Hancock that night, only Mrs. Tag survived, rescued by her daughter Caroline, who went back into the house to rescue her sister and others. She never came out. Part Two of this story recounts the night of the fire and the events that unfolded.

The story of the fire resonated throughout the country. It appeared on the front page of newspapers the next morning, in almost every paper in the state of New York, and far beyond. It was a personal and horrific tragedy, to be sure, plus it had journalistic gold in its telling: a very wealthy family, the brave and beautiful young heiress who saved her mother’s life, and lost her own trying to save her sister. There was the dutiful young nurse, the faithful servants, and the heroism of Dr. Charles Tag, the son who had torn the shutters from the windows of the house next door, and used them as a bridge to get from the neighbor’s roof to his own, and saved his mother’s life.

Finally, there was a mother’s anguish and grief. Hannah Tag was devastated. The night of the fire, after her son had gotten her off the roof, she could be seen in the street, wailing for her daughters and the other women. It broke people’s hearts. When even she could see that there was no way anyone could have survived, Hannah Tag had to be sedated, and taken to Charles’ home, which was on Jefferson Avenue, right behind the Tag house. She never laid eyes on the house again.

After the fire had been put out, and in the days that followed, the investigations and the funerals began. One of the victims had been Jennie Stedman, the young nurse who had been hired only the day before the fire to take care of elderly Mrs. Henrietta Suarley, Hannah Tag’s cousin. She was visiting the family, intending to be at the house for the wedding of Caroline and her fiancé, which would have taken place at the end of February. Jennie had tried and failed to save herself and Mrs. Suarley, and both of their bodies had been found in Mrs. Suarley’s bedroom on the fourth floor.

Jennie’s family was devastated. She had been the family success story, and was also a source of income for her large family of seven siblings and her parents. The Stedmans told the papers that Jennie had a premonition of danger, and didn’t want to take on any new clients that week, but Dr. Charles Tag, the eldest son, and head of the hospital Jennie had trained in, had begged her to take care of his own family member. She had finally agreed to take the job. That premonition had proved real. Now the large family had to plan a funeral. It was held in their home two days later, officiated by their Episcopal priest. She’s buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery.

The family had also lost two long time faithful servants. Ann and Lizzie Cash, sisters, had worked for the Tags most of their lives. Ann Cash had been the nursemaid for all of the Tag children, who were now all grown. She and her sister were considered by the family to be a part of their family. The sisters had been asleep in their rooms on the top floor of the house. The smoke and fire had raced to the roof, and they died in their beds. A double funeral for Ann and Lizzie Cash was held several days later, as well. They were buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Queens.

A triple funeral was held for Caroline and her sister Helen, as well as for Henrietta Suarley. The services were held at St. Matthew’s Protestant Episcopal Church, at nearby Tompkins Avenue and MacDonough Street. The sisters joined their father in the family plot in Green-Wood Cemetery. Mrs. Suarley’s body was shipped back to her home in Pennsylvania. Mrs. Tag went to live with her other son on St. Marks Avenue, many blocks from the tragic fire that changed her life forever.

In the coming weeks, the good folk of Hancock Street began to think about fire prevention and their fancy homes. John C. Kelley, whose large mansion stood next door to the Tags, had seen his fence torn down by firemen trying to get to the side and back of the Tag house. He and the Tregarthens, who lived in the twin townhouse to the Tag family, were contemplating getting fire escapes put on the backs of their homes, and establishing other means of egress from their houses. They were also wondering if it was really worth it to have impregnable locks on their doors and extremely heavy and dense doors. The locks on the Tag house had prevented rescuers from entering the house while they still could have saved at least some of the occupants.

People began to think that perhaps it was better to mar the back of their houses with fire escapes, or the interiors with sprinklers, rather than burn up like the Tags. The same day the headline about the Tag fire appeared, it shared the front page of the papers with stories about the Parliament Building in Ottawa, Canada burning to the ground, as well as five people dying in a hotel fire in Atlantic City. Fire was not something that just happened to other people. The rather tacky ad from the Pyrene Fire Extinguisher Company did have a very valid point.

An investigation was launched almost immediately to determine the cause of the fire. It didn’t take long to figure out that it had been electrical. Even though there was nothing but a charred shell left, investigators were able to trace the origin of the fire to wiring in the front of the parlor floor. Initially, a critical eye was turned to the electricians who had been in the house doing work only weeks before the fire. Mrs. Tag’s brother, H. A. Ockershausen, had an electrical company. His men did some work rewiring the house in places. It was not clear if the fire’s origin involved this new wiring. Ockershausen was horrified to think that he may have indirectly caused the fire that killed his two nieces and four other people.

A coroner’s inquest and investigation was ordered. All kinds of people were subpoenaed, including Mrs. Tag, although no one thought she would appear, and she didn’t. Dr. Charles Tag, the neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Tregarthan and two of their servants, other neighbors, members of the police and fire department, as well as the block’s security guard, H.A. Ockershausen and others. Many people had also held the police and fire department at fault for not saving anyone from the house.

In the end, it was determined that the fire had been caused not by human error, but by mice. Fire investigators had found mouse traps around the point of origin, and elsewhere in the house. The rich folk had a mouse infestation. They also found matches and pieces of chewed wire coverings. It was determined that the mice had been chewing on the wires, exposing them, and probably causing a short. Mice had also been in the kitchen and elsewhere taking matches and eating them. The ground floor of the house had been the least damaged, and there, they found half eaten matches in the walls.

In a series of horrible coincidences, the mice had exposed the wires in the walls and their stash of matches had caught fire. The fire had smoldered behind the woodwork, fed by the wood and flammable materials and the usual drafts in the walls. There it had reached a flashpoint, and burst forth into the room. By then, it was already well established, and a fire extinguisher probably would not have done much. Mice, according to the papers, had been the cause of over 29 fires in Brooklyn that winter. The fire was deemed “inevitable” and not the fault of human error or delay.

Dr. Tag was praised for his bravery in rescuing his mother, and several members of the fire department and police were also cited for bravery. Although the Tag fire did not result in any specific change in residential fire laws or regulations at that time, it was a factor in later changes involving means of exit and egress, fire extinguishers in residences, and the need for sprinkler systems or fire escapes. Most of the rules were specifically for multiple-unit dwellings, but certainly could apply to multi-story single family houses. Especially since so many of these houses were now being divided into apartments.

Mrs. Tag sold the house immediately. She had no desire to ever restore it, or look at it again. The new owner bought a shell, which he told the papers he was going to restore as a single family house. He totally lied, probably to placate the homeowner’s association of this block, which was filled with nothing but single family houses, with the exception of a flats building near the corner of Tompkins Avenue, not the poshest end of the block, anyway. The new owner removed the stoop, and turned the building into twelve units, consisting of studios and one bedroom apartments. It’s been thus ever since.

Charles Tag took his mother in, at 248 Jefferson Avenue, right behind his old home. It must have been hard for everyone to look out the back window towards the place where one’s children and loved ones lost their lives so horribly. Two months later, in April, Hannah Tag moved into a new home at 904 St. Marks Avenue, in the St. Marks District, now Crown Heights North. Her new home was between Brooklyn and Kingston Avenues, at the edge of Bedford (now Brower) Park, where the elementary school stands today. Her new house was almost as large as the old. It was a four story house with an extension on the back. The lot measured 30×150 feet.

Hannah Tag lived until the ripe old age of 80. She died in 1929. By that time, she no longer lived on St. Marks Avenue, and was then living in Flatbush, on Ocean Avenue, in a rather modest suburban style home. She died at her summer home in Avon, NJ. She had outlived her husband and four of her six children. Dr. Charles was dead, in 1927, as was her second son, Frederick, who died ten months later.

Sometime before his death, Charles had retired from his position as Assistant Chief Surgeon at the Eastern District Hospital. He had moved with his wife and family to Belmar, New Jersey. Only her oldest daughter Agnes, and her youngest son Albert were still living. When Casimir had died, he left Hannah almost $2 million. Hannah left her children an estate of $1.5 million. Typical of the Tags, Hannah had a simple, quiet funeral, and is buried with the rest of her family at Green-Wood Cemetery. You can find most of them in Section 114. With the exception of Agnes, the family is together at last

GMAP

(Newspaper photo: Brooklyn Eagle, February 4, 1916)

Photo: Securitypest.com
Photo: Securitypest.com

What's Your Take? Leave a Comment