Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1842-1843

pg 58             The college was built with the view of being heated in all 
             parts by means of a large furnace enclosed in the sand under the 
             building.  It was through one of the pipes that a partition took 
             fire.  For two years this furnace was the only fire in the 
             building.  At last, no one having the satisfaction of getting 
             even a smell of the heat that it diffused all around, it became 
             necessary to put up stoves.
                  The following year all came near burning down through the 
             imprudence of a boy in meddling with one of those stoves.  There 
             was great alarm, and the danger was really imminent.
                  A third fire threatened to reduce everything to ashes in 
             1846, and this time it was due to the imprudence of F. Sorin 
             himself.  He wanted to have the stoves in the rooms along the 
             corridor replaced by little chimneys, and had too readily trusted 
             the word of a mason.  After eight or ten days one of these 
             chimneys started afire, and once more the college was within an 
             inch of becoming a total ruin.  God be praised for not having 
             more severely punished the thoughtlessness of its head.
                  The question was often raised, even from the very