St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1861-05-30
at(isttlIanp.
From the Buffalo Colrie,
EXPLOSION OF AN OIL WILL.
TERRIBLE LOSS OF Ii

| IsRhiBLE LOSS OF LIFE
On the Buchanan farm, Warren
county, Pennsylvania, II miles from
Tidioutc, where large number of oil
wells have been sunk, within the past
4 months with great success, on We'd
nesday, April 18th, occurred one of
the most frightful accidents that it
has ever been the province of news
paper to record. The telegraph has
furnished skeleton of the accident
but the details have not yet been
made public.
\ well which had been drilled over
two hundred feet by Hawley & Myr-
rick, had struck oil, but the yield be-
ing less than expected, the pumping
was abandoned, and drilling recon-
mcnccd. Over 100 feet further was
drilled, when at half past S o'clock on
Wednesday evening, sudden rush
of oil through the FIVE and half inch
tubing threw out the drills and gushed
up in the air forty feet above the sur.
face of the ground. At the least COM
putation it was throwing from 10 to
100 barrels an hour. Above this mass
of oil, the gas or benzoine rose in a
cloud, for fifty or sixty feet. As soon
as the oil commenced gushing forth
all the fires Of the engines in the
ncighborhood were Immediately ex-
tinguished. At about half past seven
as q large number of men and boys
were around the well engaged in
saving the oil, the gas from the well
which had spread in every direction,
took fire from the engine of well
over 40 rods distant, when in a Sec
ond the whole air was in flames, with
crash and roar like discharges
from park Of artillery.
AS soon as the gas took fire, the
head of the jet of oil was in a furious
blaze, and falling like water from a
fountain over space of one hundred
feet in diameter each drop came
down a blazing globe of boiling oil.
Instantly the ground was a flame,
constantly increased and augmented
by the falling oil. At once a scene
of indescribable horror took place.
Scores of persons, some twenty feet
distant, were thrown fiat, and num-
bers horribly burned, rushed blazing
from their hell of misfortune, shrek
ing and screaming in their anguish.
just within the circle of flame,
could be seen four bodies boiling in
the seething oil, and one man who had
been digging a ditch to convey away
the oil to a lower part of the ground,
was killed as he dug, and could be
seen, as he fell over the handle of the
spade, roasting in the fierce element.
Mr.. ii. r. Rouse, of the firm of
Rouse, Mitchell Il Brown, of the vii
lage of Enterprise, Warren county, a
gentleman largely interested in wells
in that locality, and whose income
from them amounted to $1,000 a day,
was standing near the pit and was
blown twenty feet by the explosion. |
He got up and ran about ten or fif-
teen feet further, and was dragged
out by two men, and conveyed to
shanty some distance from the well. |
When he arrived not a vestige of
clothing was left upon him except his
stockings and boots His hair was
burned off as well as his finger nails,
his ears and his eye-lids. while the
balls of his eyes were crisped up to |
nothingncss. In this condition he
lived nine hours--madc his will, leav-
ing 100000 to the poor of Warren
county; the same amount to repair
the roads of Warren county-to be
disbursed by the county commission
crs, and $500 year to his father
his only living relation-for life. He
died, however, without signing the
will. His body was taken to West
field, Chautauqua county, and buried |
as he requested. by the side of his |
mother.
In addition to Mr.. Rouse, the follow
ing were taken from the flames dead:
Two Messrs. Walker, brothers, of
Clarion county, Pa.
Wesley Skinner, engineer of Dobb's |
we'll, from Wattsburg, Pa.
A man named Stevens, from Catta-
raugus county, N. Y.
A Mr.. Judd Mason, residence un-
known.
A boy named Albert Gardner, from |
Michigan.
The above were recognized. In ad-
dition there are the skeletons of five
others visible within the circle of
iiame, and as many are missing
strangers who came to witness the op.
Grafton of the wells. 1t is supposed
that number Of others were burned