[3] However, it quickly spread up the tower containing the building's staircase, rendering it unusable to those on the fifth and sixth floors, where the mill's youngest employees worked.
[3] Many of those trapped on the sixth floor suffered fatal injuries jumping the 60 feet (18 m) from the windows and missing the straw and mattresses provided by people on the ground.
As a result, fire engines did not arrive until 15 minutes after the blaze began, by which time the mill was completely engulfed in flames.
[7] On September 21, 1874, coroner Andrew W. M. White convened a jury for an inquest into the deaths that occurred in Granite Mill No.
It also found that on the day of the fire, the mill's tanks, pumps, pipes, and hoses were lacking water.
They also criticized the male employees working on the sixth floor, as the jurors believed that if they had not become so panic-stricken that they would have been able to properly lead all of the women and children out of the building before the stairs caught fire.
Lastly, the jury found that the loss of life would have been avoided if the sixth floor had been constructed with an adequate amount of escapes.