Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1872-02-22
For the REPUBLICAN.
COMMUNICATION.
SPRINGFIELD, OHIo,l
Feb. 18th. 1872

| SPRINGFIELD, OHIO,l
Feb. 18th, 1925
MESsRs. EDITORS: 1t may be of in
terest 10 some of your readers to peruse
a notice of the explosion of the Miami
Valley Powder Mills, with some of the
connecting circumstances.
1t was on a January Monday that
was riding in train from Xenia, up
the valley. The snow-f1akes were
whitening the earth and bushes and
woods, and the very air itself, as they
thickly crowded down from above. On
the opposite side of the car sat two
ladies who had unexpectedly met on the
train. They engaged in conversation,
and the elderly lady showed, in her
plain, outspoken words, disposition to
bring religious truth to bear upon what
ever she conyersed.
Lost in my own reflections, l was fire.
quently attracted by some exclamation
or pointed assertion in the talk over the
way, until, as the train rolled ON, we
entered belt of woods where the road
overlooked a little stream and narrow
valley, far below us. allow many lives
have been lost there?" asked the elder
ly lady, and looked out into the snow
carpeted forest. There was nothing
strange, nothing about at all, except
few rude houses scattered along the
foot OF the hill, and which seemed like
blacksmith-shops or sugar-camp build
ings. l wondered how lives could be
lost at blacksmith-shops, rode on, for
got my wonder and the place.
On the morning of Monday, Feb. 9Th |
l was in my room, at Springfield, busted |
in writing. Of sudden, my window
ratified, as though some one had shut to |
a door, with violence. looked up, and |
there was another shake and rattle,
louder than before, and heard uneasy |
footsteps in the rooms below. The hour |
was after ten. l supposed some heavy
weight had fallen and made an unusual
conclusion, and then, remembering the
earthquake shock of last year, suspect
ell it might be another tremor in this
part of the country. At this there came
Il third rattle, and the assistant in the |
house grew alarmed, and, in the recent
notoriety of Springfield for burglars,
called out and ran through the house
with terror, expecting that some one
had forced an entrance and carried off
some valuable. At length, fears sub
sided. By one o'clock, started for col
lege, mile and half away. Passing
through Main ST., noticed the bulletin
board OF one of the daily papers was
out, and read "Powder Mill explosion.
Five men killed and one missing" This
explained.
l visited the room of 4 class-mate and
ascertained the effects in Wittenberg.
The classes reciting, at the time of the
shock, heard the first two effects i'm
quiet, but at the third, rushed out of
rooms and building to find every stu
dent of the one hundred and fifty or
more rOoming in college, standing on
the outside and looking to see whether
the building was tumbling down.
As dispatches came up, many took the
train for the scene of wreck. The place
of disaster was those temporary houses
[ had seen the month before, where
the lady had asked "How many lives
have been lost there?" 1t is fourteen
miles from here. In Antioch College,
six miles away, nearly every window
was broken. At Columbus, over forty {
miles distant, the shock was felt and
dispatches came over the telegraphic =
ines inquiring the cause. +
Four men have been killed, and one !
has been severely injured. One hand
missed the morning train from Spring. i
ield to his work, and was thus saved. C
vt the time of the explosion, passen-
,er train from the south was due mt the
,lace, and it seems providential that it 9
vas delayed far down the railroad, at p
he dangerous moment. And, more u
than all, the mills have been
he means of the destruction of twenty a
light lives, since their first erection,
nd, to-day, the company begin again b
With new hands to rebuild the old en- u
line of death. How like death-ravages
very where, both in body and in spirit,
There new hands take up the instru-
lents that killed some other one, and =
ew lips sing the same song that dead y
mes have sung, and new hearts beat out R
fe in the same aoay that cold ones have Q
one, caring nothing. profiting nothing e
a the eagerness for pleasure and gold F
L. L. UHL. p