[Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women in the arts in Virginia and beyond.

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner at Monumental Church in Richmond.

Now this is the site of the theater fire that killed 72 people in 1811.

We're here with Rachel Beanland, the author of the book, The House is on Fire , a true account of what happened that night, and what came behind it, and what followed.

Rachel, welcome to Write Around The Corner .

-Thank you so much for having me back.

-Well, this is an amazing location that you brought us to, so let's do the story of this first.

-Yeah, so this is Monumental Church, which was built in 1814.

It was designed by Robert Mills, the same architect who designed the Washington Monument, and it was built as a monument to the 72 people who died in the Richmond theater fire.

The theater was located in this exact location on Broad Street in Richmond.

And the church operated for 150 years as an Episcopal Church, bu t was de-consecrated in 1965.

And now it's owned and maintained by Historic Richmond, a wonderful nonprofit in the city.

[Rose] Well, I love the fact that you chose this place to tell the story, The House is on Fire , which was an amazing book.

So first, let's back up a little bit.

Congratulations on all of the success for Florence Adler Swims Forever .

-Thank you.

-It was a-- that was a great story.

And this sophomore novel was so compelling.

I can't wait to get to the story of exactly what happened, and the research that you did behind it.

But before that, let's tell people a little bit about you.

-Yeah, so I'm Rachel.

I have lived in Richmond since 2007.

I'm married, I have three kids.

So I've been raising my family and working.

I worked for about 15 years in public relations, before writing my first novel, and was always kind of writing something on the side.

I loved to write.

I had, I had written a lot when I was a kid.

And so, once I, you know, came into adulthood, and had to pay my bills, you know, I found public relations, it felt like the next natural thing, you know, that I can do with my writing.

And, but there was always kind of a part of me that was thinking, "What else could I do with this?"

You know, "How could I write some of the books that I loved to read when I was growing up?"

And, and so, I was very lucky that, you know, in my mid-30s, I wrote Florence Adler Swims Forever , and it sold and was published.

And it's been a wild ride ever since then.

And so, this was my, this book, The House Is On Fire , is my second novel.

And so, now I'm, I'm writing full time.

-Oh, great.

So the other job is behind you.

-Yeah, no more PR.

-But that's perfect.

So, I love the story that you and your husband, when you first moved to Richmond, you were getting ready to close on the house, and the realtor just is driving you around.

-Yeah.

So I, you know, my husband had taken a job at VCU.

And so, that was really what brought us to Richmond.

And we came down a couple of weekends, house hunting, I was also interviewing for jobs, and we were just trying to get the lay of the land.

And so, someone at VCU had hooked us up with a realtor.

And he was driving us around to different neighborhoods, you know, just trying to give us a feel.

We knew we wanted to be downtown somewhere.

And so, one day, we're driving in, down Broad Street towards Church Hill.

And this realtor, you know, points out the window at Monumental Church and says, there used to be a theater in this location.

And he gave me just the-- the barest of bones, right?

Like that, that there was this fire, that people were trapped inside, that there have been many deaths, including the death of the governor.

And, you know, it wasn't a lot to go on, but it was enough to where I, I always paid attention to the story after that.

I, I wasn't a novelist at that point.

But I was always a reader and always a writer.

And so I was, as soon as I heard that story, I thought, "Wow, that, that's a story."

So you know, over the years, you know, we moved, got settled in, right?

And I was working and raising kids, but whenever the fire would come up, I would always, you know, my ears would always perk up.

-Well, and I was amazed that you had said some time that it's not really a well-known story.

So even people who are native Richmonders are like, you know, what?

-Yeah, that's kind of the strange thing.

Of course, now the book has come out and so, there are many more Richmonders who know about the book but, or who know about the fire.

But yeah, I would say that, you know, when I-- when I give book talks, if-- if I ask people, you know, "Hey, before you read this book, did, did you know about the Richmond theater fire?"

You know what, maybe 40 percent of Richmonders know.

I mean, one thing is, Richmond really is a very diverse city, and it's got a lot of people who've moved here, you know, fairly recently, and maybe aren't as familiar with the city's history.

But I even think for people who are born and raised here, the fire, you know, it happened 200 years ago.

And so, it's just not front of mind for a lot of people.

And I know, you know, Historic Richmond and the Ballantine Museum and a lot of other nonprofits in the city are-- are trying to change that.

-Well, and we're glad they did.

And we're glad you kind of found this story.

And even though it was a while ago when you learned about it, it stayed as a nugget that I just kind of want to talk about.

So, how was the research for this book different from Florence Adler Swims Forever ?

-You know, I mean, the research, in many ways, was the same.

You know, Florence Adler, as you know, was based on a family story, but it was a family story that took place in Atlantic City, in the '20s, really.

And so I still, even though my family had originated in Atlantic City, I had to go back and research everything and try to figure out what Atlantic City was like in that era, right?

With this book, I had to go much further back.

And I realized what a gift it had been researching Atlantic City and what ended up being the '30s, I set the book in the '30s.

Because there were so many documents that survived, there were so many postcards and visual images that I could use.

Whereas with this, with this book, 1811, Richmond, and of course, Richmond's had a few fires since then.

-Yeah.

-And a little Civil War, right?

So-- so there, there were a lot fewer documents that I could rely on.

But, that being said, there was a surprising amount of material about the Richmond theater fire.

The Virginia Museum of History and Culture, and the Library of Virginia, have great archives about the fire.

And I always feel like it's important at this kind of point to note that, you know, when the fire happened, it was a seriously big deal, not just in the city of Richmond, but nationally.

So there are archives about the fire, not just in Richmond and not just in Virginia, but in cities all up and down the eastern seaboard.

There are documents in London, like there are documents everywhere, because people across the United States and beyond were so fascinated by the fire.

It was really at-- at this time, you know, at this time in 1811, it was the single biggest calamity in terms of like a one-day casualty, you know, loss of life that the-- that the US had ever experienced.

-And when I read that, I paused for a moment to think, "Oh, my gosh, that's true."

You know?

-Yeah.

-And then, you were, you're first thinking about, "Well, how did people get the word out?"

And then, something, the sermons.

-Yes.

-Like I hadn't really thought about that.

-Right.

-So, how were they conveying that to everyone around the country, and for everything?

Because when you said Richmond was a hub, so people were congregating here kind of for the party time, right?

-Yes.

-Around the holidays.

-Yes.

-And they're all gathered.

-Yeah.

So Richmond was on the map, Virginia was on the map, and then this fire was on the map.

And everyone is talking about it.

You know, it shows up in newspaper articles, it shows up in sermons, it shows up, you know, it was, it was kind of the 9/11 of its day.

-Yeah.

-So, so everyone wanted commemorative artifacts, they wanted engravings, they wanted documentation of this event, and kind of something they could keep as a-- as a keepsake, right?

-Yeah.

-But yeah, to your point about-- about Richmond in that era, and this particular time of year that the fire happened, it happened in-- in December, December 26, of 1811.

So, you know, we think of that as being the day after Christmas.

Christmas was less of a big deal in 1811 than it is now.

Just the whole industry surrounding Christmas, had not grown into what it has become, right?

But it was still a festive time of year, people still celebrated.

And-- but moreover, they would come to Richmond in the winter, because most of Virginia is agrarian at this point.

And it was too cold to do much on your farm.

So, it was the one time of year when you could come to the Capitol, you could see family and friends.

Everyone would kind of converge on the city.

And you, this was also when the General Assembly was in session, and of course, that remains the case to this day.

That is a very short session, right?

And so, you could do your politicking, and you could do your partying.

And partying often looked like card parties, cockfights, and plays.

And you know, the dances, of course, as well.

But so, the-- the theater was really at the heart of the social, you know, season for Richmonders, and for people beyond Richmond.

But it was also worth noting that the theater at this time, you know, there's only one building-- the theater structure that sat in this location where we are today.

But the theater company that operated it was actually from Charleston.

And they had been in Richmond for several months.

They'd come in August.

And they had put on a wide range of plays over the course of that four-month period.

And they were about to leave and go home.

So it was kind of the end of this raucous theater season.

And they decide to stay for one extra week, they're gonna put on another show because they had been waiting on an actor to arrive from-- from the north.

He was coming down to rendezvous with them so that they could go on to Charleston.

And he didn't show.

He didn't-- wasn't in the stagecoach.

And so, they said, "Okay, well, we'll, we'll stay for a few more days and hope that he arrives."

And, and so, they decide to stage The Father , which is by Diderot.

It's, it had been translated from the French by a local French teacher here in Richmond.

And, of course, at this time, plays, there were usually two plays a night.

And so, we'd have a drama and then a pantomime, or something funny, you know, light-hearted.

And, and they-- they sit down and decide, "Okay, we're going to-- we're going to do this one more play."

And they put it on that night.

And everything, of course, goes terribly wrong.

But-- but the theater is packed because, of course, it's the middle of this festive season.

-And let's talk about how the theater was packed.

Because depending on where you were, really had quite an impact on how you were able to escape or leave that fire.

-[Rachel] Yes.

-So, create a picture for us.

-[Rachel] Yeah.

So, the theater-- the theater was a pretty simple building.

It was brick construction, three stories.

They had cut a lot of corners building it.

The-- there had been an original theater in this location.

It was called Quesnay's Academy.

But it was a larger structure that had kind of, ideally been intended for many things, but theater ended up being one of the things it was used for.

-Mm-hm.

-And that building had burnt down at around the turn of the century.

And the-- the theater company had, you know, they knew they had to rebuild.

Back then, no one's got fire insurance.

So, they were going to have to spend the money upfront and-- and, you know, rebuild, you know, out of their own pocket.

And they had all these grand plans.

They reached out to Benjamin Latrobe, who was the nation's foremost architect at the time.

And, and he designed a building for them, and was in fact, designed a fireproof construction building, you know, a theater that would have been fireproof or supposedly fireproof, right.

And, and they would have loved to have constructed that, but they just didn't have the funds.

So, they built this building, eventually, it had opened in like 1807, so it hadn't been-- hadn't been open for very long, that was brick, dirt floor, you know, the first floor, except for maybe the lobby, was planked.

One staircase going up to the second and third floors, where there were balconies.

The balconies were the highest-priced seats in the building.

And they had windows up on the second and third floor.

But because it was wintertime and there were, the draft was, drafts were very bad, they had boarded those up.

One door to get into and out of the lobby, the pit, which was the-- the kind of first-floor seating, and then to get up the staircase.

The pit was-- typically people would just stand in the pit and kind of mingle.

The doors open the wrong way into the pit.

Right now, we know that doors should not open in that direction.

-Right.

-But-- but they opened the wrong way.

And the crew, you know, stage crew, they had a stage door.

So they were in a different circumstance than the rest of the people in the theater.

And then, there was a gallery for free and enslaved Blacks as well as, I always put quotations around this because I just think it's a funny way of saying it, "drunks and prostitutes" were the other two groups that could sit in that gallery.

And the gallery had its own entrance.

So that-- that changed the dynamic for people who were sitting in that space a little.

So that's kind of the, that's the picture of what it looked like.

-Yeah, so as we're getting that.

You can just visualize, you know, the 1811.

-Yeah.

-The people coming in, you know, the social event, the last night.

-Mm-hm.

-So, it's packed.

-Mm-hm.

Yeah.

-And 600 people capacity?

-Six hundred people.

I mean, probably the capacity was closer to 500 but there were about 600 people there that night.

I mean, you know, fire codes don't exist.

-Right, right.

-So, if you can sell extra seats, you do.

And yeah, it was very, very crowded.

And so, when the-- when the fire breaks loose, you know, when the fire starts, it's complete pandemonium, you know.

Initially, when the fire starts, the audience can't see what's happening.

It's happening backstage.

And it's, it's happening kind of up in the fly space above the stage.

So it's really, it's visible to the actors, but not to the audience.

-Mm-hm.

-And then, eventually, they figure out what's going on, and they start to flee.

But you know, any opportunity they had to escape, I mean, it's just the stairs are narrow, there's only one set, the doors are narrow, there aren't enough of them.

They really, their options were not good.

-Well, and we think about what happens when panic sets in.

-Mm-hm.

-And how you react in times of stress, or in times of life-threatening, you know, events.

-Yeah.

-So, we had classes of people, from the women who came to the enslaved people, the-- the men who were here, and people did not, it wasn't an orderly evacuation.

But it also was an evacuation that we find that more women died than men that evening, So 54 out of 72 were women.

-Many, many more women died.

So then, you begin to think to yourself, "Well-- obviously, what happened?"

-What happened?

-There were a lot of men leaving that place in, or a lot of women who were left behind.

-Yeah.

That, I mean, that's where the story was, for me, really, you know.

There is a wonderful nonfiction book about the fire that was written by Meredith Honey Baker, about 11 years ago, and it's just titled The Richmond Theater Fire .

And for anyone who loves nonfiction, I would say start, start there.

It's a really great source.

But you know, one of the things that, you know, becomes very apparent if you start reading about the fire is that what your race was, what your class was, what your gender was, had a very big impact on whether you lived or died that night.

And so, for me, as I was researching about the fire, and then trying to figure out, you know, whether I would, write a novel and how I could write that novel, I was interested in that space, you know, where, where people's identities had such a strong effect on-- on their outcomes.

-And the characters, as you wrote this with a point of view, four main characters.

-Mm-hm.

[Rose] So, you have someone representative from each of those.

Describe those people.

Tell us about the four people that we follow, and we get to know and we're in their lives in the book.

[Rachel] Yeah.

So, I follow four people, they're all based on real people who lived and breathed.

But we know much more about some of them than others.

So I follow Sally Henry Campbell, who is the daughter of Patrick Henry.

At the time of the fire, she was a 31-year-old widow.

And she, we know through family legend that she was in the theater that night.

We don't know a lot more than that.

We, we know that she was rescued, that's-- that's something that has kind of passed down through the family tree, and that she ended up marrying the-- the guy who rescued her.

So-- so that, that got passed down.

I was intrigued with her because of the fact that I knew it was at least very likely she would have been in the boxes, you know, which were those high-priced seats.

And so, for me, that was a-- that was a nice kind of representation of-- of what it would be like to be one of the more elite women who was up there in the boxes, and maybe didn't have a great chance of escaping.

I follow a young boy named Jack Gibson, who's based on the records we have of a stagehand, who appears in the inquest reports as having something to do with the start of the fire.

And I won't give too much away about that.

-And he's back-- We don't want to give-- But, he's backstage.

-He's backstage.

-And he has a desire to be an actor and to be part of this.

-Yes, yes.

-And his character, as it evolves through all the way through, and I think with each of them, this theme of conscience, and how, you know, conscience is so prevalent in each of them and each of their decision making.

So bring us to Gilbert.

-Yes.

So then we go to Gilbert.

Gilbert is the, he's an enslaved blacksmith, who we actually have a lot of documentation on, because he lived a very long and full life in Richmond.

We, without giving too much away, he, the night of the fire, he was not at the theater, but he ran to the theater to help.

And he ended up saving the lives of about a dozen white women from-- from the blaze.

And so, I've-- -And the way that happens.

People are going to read that part of the book and think "Wow."

-They're not going to believe it.

Right?

Yeah.

-What a guy.

-So yeah, so you know, we've got a good amount of documentation on how-- on how he, you know, how he did that.

But what fascinated me was what happened afterwards because, you know, you've got all of these people who owe their lives to him.

And I wondered, "Wow, did anything change for him?"

And so, that became something that I really wanted to investigate.

-And Cecily.

-And then the last person, Cecily Patterson, she's an enslaved young woman, she's 19, she is probably the character that we know the least about from the historical record.

But what we do know is that on the list of the dead, there are six Black or multiracial names that appear.

They appear separately than the list of the white victims.

And what's peculiar about that portion of the list is that some of the names have notations next to them.

So next to one enslaved person's name, there's the word "missing."

Next to another is the phrase "supposed to have perished," and that "supposed to have perished" appeared next to the name of a woman named Nancy Patterson.

And, you know, we think to ourselves like, "Well, if this is a list of the dead, aren't they all just dead," right?

Like is, are there shades of being dead?

Like, it doesn't make sense, right?

Why would there be extra notations?

But historians believe that, at least at the time, there were those who suspected that some of the people who appear on the list of the dead in that category of Black and multiracial victims may not have died in the fire.

They may have used the fire as a very convenient alibi to escape their conditions.

-And with her character, and what she endures, where she lives and how she's treated, and what she's thinking she might have to endure in the future, I can definitely see she found an opening.

-That you might take it, right?

-You just might take it.

Absolutely.

-You might take it.

-And I think the other important thing is for people to realize that 1811, it's a different time for slavery than it was when we're looking at the Civil War period.

And so, you did have enslaved people who could read and write.

-Yeah.

[Rose] And you had some that weren't.

So, researching this with those four characters, you had to carefully balance, okay, the, what it was like slavery, what it was like in 1811.

-[Rachel] Mm-hm.

-And then, what was the impact of women who were just seen as, not really, as important, we can tell, by many more dying in the fire, right?

And then, the impact of how the story was told, communicated afterwards with some things that were, frankly, I was reading and thinking, well, they kind of made that up, you know, that, that's not really what happened.

-Right.

-As we did it.

So that had to be such a careful way for you to have to develop all of those characters, tell us those stories to the point that it is a page-turner.

-[Rachel] Mm-hm.

-And I do have a favorite.

I mean, I loved Gilbert, right?

Loved Gilbert, but also this, there's a secondary character, Mrs. Cowley, that, you know, because you had to find a way that people could, someone was going to help all the people that got hurt.

-Yeah.

So I mean, one of the things that I quickly discovered, as I was doing my research was that in 1811, there aren't any hospitals in Richmond.

So anyone who was treated, you know, in the aftermath of the fire, was treated in somebody's home, either theirs or someone else's.

And so, you get people like Mrs. Cowley, who we actually know about her because in her obituary, which is not published until I think, 1849, or 1846, I can't remember.

She, she died at 95 years old.

And when she died, they indicate in her obituary that she helped many, many people in the aftermath of the fire.

And so, she became a really fascinating character for me.

-And when I think about the story sitting here, and visualizing the space as you did a great job telling us, and then introducing us to the four characters.

And as we follow their path through before, it's about three and a half days before, what happened during the fire, and then the aftermath.

Would you be willing to read something for us?

-Yes, absolutely.

I thought that what I would do is read the, um, this is... We start, you know, we-- we visit each character once as the fire is kind of about to begin, and everyone is headed into the theater.

And so, this is Jack's first chapter, the stagehand, and we are at the end of that chapter, and the fire is really, unfortunately, about-- about to get started here, so... All right, I'm gonna just start.

[reading] "Jack climbs out onto the nearest rafter, "shimmying over the heads of the two carpenters.

"Splinters of wood slice into the meat of his hands.

"When he is as close to the chandelier as he can get, "he takes a deep breath and tries to blow the candles out.

"But the chandelier is too far away "for the flames to even flicker.

"So he licks the pads of his thumb and forefinger "and stretches his hand into the air "as far as it will go.

"The chandelier is just out of his reach.

"But the way the thing is spinning, "it's like a pendulum.

"Jack just has to be patient "and eventually, it will arrive in his hand.

"He wants to try to get Roy's and Perry's attention, "wants to tell them that he has the situation under control.

"But the second act is underway, "and everyone is in their places.

"Perry begins to jostle the rope, "a different kind of movement "that Jack immediately realizes is no good.

"'Stop,' he yells down to him, not caring who hears him, "but it is too late.

"The chandelier has tipped sideways, "and Jack watches in horror "as it kisses the edge of the nearest backdrop.

"What happens next is all sound and light.

"Jack inches backward along the rafter "and away from the flame as fast as he can.

"By the time he has made it back to the carpenter's gallery, "Perry is up there waving at the backdrop "and shouting instructions at Jack, "'Help me cut this down.'

"Perry has a knife but Jack has none, "and he watches as the carpenter saws "at one rope and then another.

"The fire licks its way to the top of the backdrop "and threatens to touch the ceiling "which is nothing but timber and sap.

"'Do something, kid,' says Perry, "a tangle of ropes in his hands.

"But Jack can't move, "can't think of a single thing to do.

"He barely knows how to make himself useful "when everything is going right.

"Below him on stage, "Robertson looks up into the fly space, "his eyes widening into orbs.

"The man's bottom lip trembles "as if he is trying to make words, "but can't force them past his lips.

"Finally, he pulls his eyes away from Jack and Perry "and the flames that rage behind them, "turns to the audience and flaps his arms.

"'The house,' he yells, finding his voice at last.

'The house is on fire.'"

-Mm.

-And that's how we get the title of the book.

-Perfect.

And the cover of this book, it's amazing, the cover of the book is amazing.

-Thank you.

-Congratulations, Rachel, on this book because it is a wonderful read.

-Oh, thank you so much.

-And it's a wonderful story that I think needs to be told.

My special thanks to the folks here, the staff at Monumental Church, for inviting us into this beautiful space to hear from Rachel Beanland herself about her fabulous book, The House is on Fire .

Make sure that you get a copy and join us online for our extended conversation.

And why don't you just tell your friends about us?

I'm Rose Martin, and I will see you next time, Write Around The Corner.

-♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [Announcer] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society, advancing the interests of women in the arts in Virginia and beyond.