# Catharine McLaughlin (tenant of the front part of the O'Leary house) -- CONDENSED (reported-speech) summary of testimony before the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners, Chicago, Nov. 1871
# Source: Sheahan & Upton, The Great Conflagration: Chicago (1871), Appendix 'The Origin of the Fire', pp. 419-439 (testimony 'thus far (Nov. 27) taken').
# Internet Archive item greatconflagrati0000shea, OCR lines 16702-16751 of greatconflagrati0000shea_djvu.txt (https://archive.org/download/greatconflagrati0000shea/greatconflagrati0000shea_djvu.txt). Uncorrected OCR. Fetched 2026-09-14T06:03Z; written 2026-09-14T06:26:37Z.
# STATUS: extract/summary in reported speech (not verbatim transcript), with a few direct quotations.

Catharine McLaughlin,

Of No. 137 DeKoven street, testified that she had
lived in the front part of O’Leary’s house, but did
not reside there now. She knew nothing about the
origin of the fire. Some one cried out “ Fire,” and
she looked around the side of the house and saw
O’Leary’s barn was burning, and the rear part of
Mr. Dalton’s house was just igniting. There were
five young men and two young women at her house
that night. A “ greenhorn” cousin of hers, had just
arrived from Ireland and her friends and cousins
came in to see him. Her husband played two tunes
on his fiddle, and one of the women danced a
“bout” and another a polka. That was all the
dancing that was done. One of the company went
out once or twice during the evening, and brought
in half a gallon of beer. They didn’t eat anything,
and she didn’t cook anything — did not start the
stove. “Before God, this day,” she didn’t cook
anything. The company was in the house at ,the
time the fire broke out. She got along pleasantly
with Mrs. O’Leary, and assisted in saving the house
from being destroyed. Boys could go into the alley
near the barn, as there was nothing to prevent

426 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION - CHICAGO:

them. She did not notice any engines when she
went to look where the fire was ; but a few min¬
utes afterward there was a steamer on the corner of
Jefferson and DeKoven streets. She could not tell
exactly how long a time elapsed between the dis¬
covery of the fire and the arrival of the engines ;
but she thought about ten minutes. She did not
know whether Mrs. O’Leary was in the habit of
milking her cows at night. She lived in the front
part of the house, and the barn could have been
turned upside down and she would not have known
it. Mrs. O’Leary generally did the milking about
5 o’clock. The barn was about forty feet from the
house. None of the company went out to get milk
for punch. She never had such a thing in the
house. She did not know, of her own knowledge

O “

that Mrs. O’Leary had saved a calf from the barn.