George Lemmon's death in a fire near Retreat

A house set alight from the outside

The Burlington County Library System's index to the New Jersey Mirror includes a record for an item headlined "Burned to Death in a House He Fired," dated April 14, 1920, page 4, column 5. According to the index's summary, George Lemmon, aged sixty, lived near Retreat with his brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. James Lemmon. He had "been suffering from melancholia for some time" but was not thought to be in a serious condition. The summary places the fire on a Saturday afternoon; the issue is dated Wednesday, April 14, 1920, so that Saturday was April 10 — a date the record itself does not print. While James and his wife were away helping fight a separate woods fire, the summary says, George gathered dead grass around the outside of the house, set it alight, went inside, and locked the door.

Two young children were in the house. By the summary's account they afterwards described their uncle piling grass around the building before setting it alight; the elder, a girl of seven, ran down the road for her parents when the fire could not be put out. The house was burning fiercely by the time they arrived, the barn caught as well, and Lemmon's remains were found in the ruins once the fire had burned itself out. Every detail in the two paragraphs above comes from that one index summary and from no other source.

What the index record does and does not establish

This is a library finding-aid's summary of a 1920 news item, written by an indexer, not a transcription of the article and not the newspaper's own wording. It should be read as a record that such a report was published, not as proof of what happened. The summary's length and its detail suggest a substantive contemporary report rather than a filler line, but the underlying article was not read and the microfilm page was not examined.

Two characterisations in particular are the report's, not a finding. The summary says Lemmon set the fire deliberately and locked himself in, and mentions that he had been suffering from what it calls melancholia while not being thought seriously affected; no coroner's verdict, inquest return, police conclusion, or arson charge appears anywhere in the record. Describing this as arson or as a suicide is therefore an interpretation of one newspaper account relayed by an indexer, however plainly that account reads. The only stated witnesses were two small children, and their account reaches us third-hand.

Nothing else was confirmed independently. No obituary, death notice, burial record, or family record was found this session to verify Lemmon's full name, his stated age of sixty, or his relationship to James Lemmon beyond the summary's own statement. On location the record says only "near Retreat." The Burlington County hamlet of Retreat lies in Southampton Township, west of the pine country proper and near Vincentown; the house itself is not placed any more precisely than that, and the index does not name the township.