History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield ...

330 ANNALS OF LYNN 1882.
Glen Lewis was consecrated, May 30.
Barnum's " greatest show on earth" visited Lynn, July 22.
Some half a score of elephants appeared in the street parade.
The giant elephant Jumbo and the nursing baby elephant
were both members of the caravan. Some 25,000 persons
attended the exhibition, and the amount of money received
for admission reached nearly $11,000. The show consisted
of a large collecton of animals, equestrian, acrobatic, and
other circus and semi-dramatic performances. It was, no
doubt, the grandest and most costly show ever in Lynn.
An explosion of a part of the underground equipment of
the Citizens' Steam Heating Company, at the corner of Washington
and Munroe streets, took place, July 27, injuring the
street somewhat, and throwing up stones and gravel to the
danger and fright of persons in the vicinity. And subsequently
other explosions took place inducing an appeal to the
city authorities for protection.
Nickerson's oil-clothing factory, in Swampscott, was burned
August 4. Miss Emma Stone, employed in the establishment,
lost her life, and the loss of property amounted to about
$9,000.
An extraordinary drought prevailed during the latter part
of the summer. Most of the crops about Lynn were absolutely
ruined, the unripe fruit dropped from the trees, and
much of the shrubbery and many of the trees had the appearance
of having been exposed to fire blasts. Yet the springs
and wells did not indicate any very marked deficiency of
moisture somewhat below the surface. We had an uncommonly
long succession of very warm days, with westerly
winds and clear skies. And the peculiar effect on vegetation
was, no doubt, attributable rather to the burning sun than the
lack of moisture. The spring was backward by full two
weeks, and the weather was on the whole anomalous, most
of the year.
The Ocean House, in Swampscott, a summer hotel of considerable
note, was destroyed by fire on the evening of September
6. It was a large wooden building, six stories in
front and five in the rear. The loss was about $65,000.
In October, the fare to or from Boston was reduced to five
cents on all the trains of the Narrow-gauge Rail-road, and
on a part of those of the Eastern.
Mayor Lovering was, on the 7th of November, elected a
member of the U.S. Congress — the second L3'nn man ever
chosen for that honorable position.