An estimated 200-300 people are dead. 17,450 buildings destroyed. Over 100,000 homeless. 2,000 acres of a city burned. And there is over $4 billion in damages (in today’s currency). This all happened, starting on this day in 1871 with fires raging for two days in the city of Chicago. And it all started with a cow kicking over a lantern.
Or did it?
For 126 years, the O’Leary family name was soiled by accusation, insinuation, and a hatred for these Irishmen. Allegedly, she was milking one of her five cows when it kicked over a lantern, setting the barn on fire, a fire which quickly spread to surrounding buildings amidst a bit of a dry spell and 30 mph winds. This is a story Mrs. O’Leary denied.
“During an inquiry held by the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners to determine the cause of the blaze, Catherine testified that she went to bed sometime between eight o’clock and eight-thirty, and was sleeping when her husband roused her with the words, “Cate, the barn is afire!” She ran outside to see it for herself, and watched as dozens of neighbors worked to save adjacent homes, fixing two washtubs to fire hydrants and running back and forth with buckets of water. One of them had thrown a party that night—Catherine recalled hearing fiddle music as she prepared for bed—and a woman named Mrs. White told her that someone had wandered away from the gathering and slipped into her barn. “She mentioned a man was in my barn milking my cows,” Catherine said. “I could not tell, for I didn’t see it.”1
People, though, will believe what they want to believe. The rumor that Catherine had been present when the fire started originated from a group of children, perhaps those who had been at the party nearby. Like the Chicago fire, the rumor spread due to the press wanting to scoop the story.
“Even before the fire died out on the city’s northern edges, the Chicago Evening Journal implicated her, reporting that it began “on the corner of DeKoven and Twelfth Streets, at about 9 o’clock on Sunday evening, being caused by a cow kicking over a lamp in a stable in which a woman was milking”—a scenario that originated with children in the neighborhood. Similar articles followed, many perpetuating ethnic stereotypes and underscoring nativist fears about the city’s growing immigrant population. The Chicago Times, for one, depicted the 44-year-old Catherine as “an old Irish woman” who was “bent almost double with the weight of many years of toil, trouble and privation” and concluded that she deliberately set fire to her barn out of bitterness: “The old hag swore she would be revenged on a city that would deny her a bit of wood or a pound of bacon.”2
Forget the evidence. Forget the unanswered questions. In spite of inconclusive proof, Mrs. O’Leary was guilty in the public eye. “In 1894, the year before Catherine died, her physician did what she’d always refused to do and gave a comment to the press: “It would be impossible for me to describe to you the grief and indignation with which Mrs. O’Leary views the place that has been assigned her in history. That she is regarded as the cause, even accidentally, of the Great Chicago Fire is the grief of her life. She is shocked at the levity with which the subject is treated and at the satirical use of her name in connection with it…. She admits no reporters to her presence, and she is determined that whatever ridicule history may heap on her it will have to do it without the aid of her likeness. Many are the devices that have been tried to procure a picture of her, but she has been too sharp for any of them. No cartoon will ever make any sport of her features. She has not a likeness in the world and will never have one.”3
Twenty-four years were spent bearing the shame and reproach that would be lifted posthumously by the Chicago City Council in 1997 when they issued a proclamation exonerating Mrs. O’Leary – and her cow.4
Would people have been so quick to accuse Mrs. O’Leary if she wasn’t an Irish immigrant? Many of us have Irish heritage. Imagine what it was like for them in the 19th century as they came to America. They were “stereotyped as ignorant bogtrotters loyal only to the pope and ill-suited for democracy…The refugees seeking haven in America were poor and disease-ridden. They threatened to take jobs away from Americans and strain welfare budgets. They practiced an alien religion and pledged allegiance to a foreign leader. They were bringing with them crime. They were accused of being rapists.”5 That’s a hard stigma to shake!
Christians, though, have suffered a similar stigma through the ages. 1 Peter 3:15-17 tells us, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” Why is this necessary? “(16) Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. (17) For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.”
Mrs. O’Leary went into hiding, which couldn’t have done anything but fuel the rumors. Christians can’t go into hiding. We have to respond – not with anger but with a confident faith. We KNOW that we’ve done nothing wrong by having and sharing faith in Jesus. Let’s not hang our heads in shame. Let’s boldly live and proclaim the truth that stands in defense of the Gospel.
“In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, (8) Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.” (Titus 2:7-8)
1https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-or-who-caused-the-great-chicago-fire-61481977/
2Ibid.
3Ibid.
4https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/great-chicago-fire-begins
5https://www.history.com/news/when-america-despised-the-irish-the-19th-centurys-refugee-crisis
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