Emily Chan
Two months later, the board still couldn’t say how exactly the fire began. The only thing they knew for sure was that it started in the barn.
Still, the declaration did not save Mrs. O’Leary from the accusations or prevent the story about her cow from spreading.
Catherine O’Leary’s reputation was ruined beyond repair. She lived out the rest of her life in isolation and did not leave her home unless it was to attend church.
She died in 1895 from acute pneumonia, but her friends and neighbors said that the real cause of her death was a “broken heart” due to the way she was shunned by society.
A century later, Mrs. O’Leary and her cow were finally absolved of responsibility for the fire. An insurance map documenting the fire’s path showed that it wasn’t the fault of Mrs. O’Leary or her cow.
Richard Bales, an assistant regional counsel at the Chicago Title Insurance Company, did some digging into the Great Chicago Fire in college for an assignment.
He discovered that the fire had not been set on purpose. At the time, the O’Learys’ barn had contained five cows, a calf, and a horse.
A new wagon sat nearby, and none of their property had been insured. Several reporters also admitted that the story about the cow had been fabricated or came from unreliable sources.
Bales suspected that the fire was started by Daniel Sullivan, the man who had noticed it in the first place. In his testimony to the board, he had stated that he visited the O’Learys around eight p.m.
They were getting ready for bed, so he headed home. On the way, he stopped in front of a neighbor’s house to smoke a pipe. When he looked up, he saw flames shooting out from the O’Learys’ barn and ran straight over.
After studying the map and the locations of the properties in the area, Bales didn’t buy Sullivan’s story.
