To the Plymouth Independent article on the 1900 forest fire that ravaged thousands of acres of Plymouth, I can add two photos of the fire that were taken by Edward and Charlotte Emery, owners of one of the houses that was left standing after the fire. One hundred and twenty five years later, that same house is owned by a great grandson.
One photo captures the fire’s huge smoke cloud approaching in the distance and the other photo shows a long cart path running through the fire blackened landscape.
That latter photo has a caption describing it as the “road to Long Pond.” Yes, the future Long Pond Road was then a narrow dirt wagon path. While it’s hard to identify the exact locations of the photos, they were just a horse and carriage ride away from Long Pond (note the horse’s head in the lower left corner). Family lore does not say how the family rode out the smoke and fire, but the path of forest fires is often hit-and-miss, and it missed the east side of Long Pond. Of course, in 1900, residents of Plymouth had no way of being warned about what was coming or how devastating an impending fire was until the last minute.
– Ed Russell