‘Suspicious’ Blaze at Susan B. Anthony House Prompts Investigation

A fire that damaged the Susan B. Anthony Museum and House in New York has been labeled “suspicious” by the Rochester Fire Department after cameras picked up a human figure on the property shortly before the blaze began. The fire claimed the house’s back porch, where the unknown person was spotted, before firefighters responded and put it out around 1 a.m. on Sunday morning. The cause of the fire remains undetermined and an official investigation is underway, an RFD spokesperson said.

Anthony lived in the New York home from 1866 until her death in 1906; during that time, it also acted as the headquarters of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. On Sunday, firefighters were able to rescue valuable artifacts inside the house, stopping fire, smoke, and water damage from entering. The porch, which is more than a century old, was scrapped completely to secure the rest of the structure. The museum and house’s president, Deborah Hughes, said preparations to build a new back porch would begin straightaway.