# Daniel Sullivan, of No. 134 DeKoven street (drayman, wooden leg) -- 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 16794-16865 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.

Daniel Sullivan, of No. 134 DeKoven street, was
in O’Leary’s house about eight o’clock in the even¬
ing, and remained there about one hour. O’Leary,
and all his “ young ones,” except two, were in bed.
He asked the “ old woman” why she went to bed so
early, and she said she didn’t feel well. While he
was there O’Leary told the two children who were up
to go to bed. He left the house, and, while on the
opposite side of the street, at twenty or twenty-five
minutes past nine o’clock, he saw fire in O’Leary’s
barn. He ran across the street as fast as he could—
he has a wooden leg— and cried out “ Lire” as loud

428 THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION - CHICAGO:

as he could, which was very loud, as he has strong
lungs. He entered the barn, intending to cut the
ropes with which the cows were tied. He cut two
of them loose, but as they did not seem inclined to
leave, and the fire was increasing, he thought he
had better depart. As he was making for the door,
his wooden leg went between two boards, and he
half fell over, catching himself on his sound leg.
He caught hold of the wall and pulled himself out,
and just then saw a calf with a rope around its
neck. The hair on its back was on fire, and when
he caught hold of the l'ope it jumped six feet into
the air. He pulled it out of the barn ; and, when
he reached tlm yard, he looked back and felt like a
“ whipped dog,” because he hadn’t saved the cows.
O’Leary’s house was, by this time, on fire, and
a man named Ragin came along and shoved in the
door, and awoke the inmates. Leary came to the
door, and scratched his head as “ if there was a foot
of lice in it.” His wife came out also, and clapped
her hands for grief on account of her cows being
burned up. The fire appeared to be on the right
side of the barn [where O’Leary said the shavings
were kept — Rep.] He did not notice any one
leaving McLaughlin’s house. If any one had left he
would have seen him. His mother kept a cow, and
he frequently went to O’Leary’s barn to get feed;
and thus knew how the cows were tied. He had
never noticed shavings on the right side of the barn.
Wood and shavings were kept in the shed adjoin¬
ing the barn. There was no fire in the shed when

APPENDIX.

429

he got there. Quite a time elapsed before the
engines arrived — from ten to fifteen minutes. There
was any quantity of shavings in the houses of the
Bohemians in the vicinity. The barn door was
open. The fire did not spread very rapidly. Two
barns were on fire when the engines came. There
might have been more, but he was positive two were
burning. The O’Leary barn was 16x20 feet and
14 feet high. There was a vacant shed, fronting on
the alley, opposite O’Leary’s barn, in which the boys
of the neighborhood were in the habit of congre¬
gating. In front of it, facing Taylor street, was a
vacant house, which, he understood, was often occu¬
pied by vagrants and loafers as a lodging place. The
alley between the shed and barn was about twelve
feet wide.