The Great Fire of New York

On the night of September 20, 1776, a fire broke out near Whitehall Slip on the west side of Lower Manhattan, just days after British troops occupied the city George Washington had abandoned. Fed by strong winds and blocks of tightly packed wooden buildings, it burned through the night and into the morning of September 21, destroying somewhere between 400 and 1,000 structures, as much as a quarter of the roughly 4,000 buildings then standing. Trinity Church was reduced to ashes while St. Paul's Chapel, just blocks away, made it through untouched. British officers were convinced patriots had torched the city on their way out, and General William Howe interrogated more than 200 suspects, but no one was ever formally charged. The cause has never been settled, and historians who have combed the record since agree that no accusation of arson has ever actually held up.