The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1883-09-26
TERRIBLE HAVOC BY A BURST
BOILER

Three Men ana Fifteen Persons Injur-
ed, Some Of Them Fatally, At the
sligo Mills, in Pittsburg-Names OF
the Dead aud Wounded.
PIrTsBURG, September 2O.-This af-
ternoon three men were killed and
fifteen more Injured by boiler ex-
plosion at the Sligo Mills, South
Side. About 1.30 o'clock the resi-
dents or the entire lower portion of
Pittsburg were startled by a dull,
heavy report, which caused windows
to rattle and break and which, for
the instant, conveyed the impression
of in earthquake. A moment later
an alarm of fire was turned in from
box 124, located at the Lake Erie
Depot on the South Side, followed
shortly by second alarm; but it
was not until some time afterward
that it became known that the boiler
at the flange works ofPhillips, Mer-
rick &Co., at the Sligo Mills, had ex-
ploded. The establishment in
which tbs explosion occurred was
hemmed in by narrow alleyways,
railway tracks and manufactures,
and the surging of the crowds
toward the scene choked the alleys
with terrified women, excited men
and screaming children, all bent up
on learning the extent ofthe disaster
or whether any of their loved ones
had been injured.
A SCENE OF INTENSE EXCITEMENT.
The clerk in the offices connected
with the works promptly telephoned
for police assistance, and as the pa
trolmen of the First district, under
Lieutenant o Brien, double-quicked
to the locality the excitement in
creased and the widest rumors were
circulated among the excited people.
AS soon as the police arrived some
system was inaugurated and those
who had pressed forward could get
full view of the utter wreck which
had been made. The fiange shop,
at one end of which the boiler had
been located, was demolished as
thoroughly as if it had been razed
Intentionally. The machine shop,
adjoining, was shattered into mass
of rubbish, While the only portion
of the ill-tated boiler remaining in
its original location was the heavy
iron bottom, which remained i'm
bedded in the masonry.
There were comparatively few men
employed, but emerging from the
debris could be seen soot-begrimed
beings, go thoroughly changed as to
be unrecognizable even by their most
intimate friends. Those who could
walk were hurried to the nearest
houses, while those who had fract-
ured limbs or those who had been
scalded we're carried as tenderly as
possible to the warehouse, where a
half dozen physicians had been
promptly summoned. There were
willing hands at work removing the
mass of timbers. AS the work pro-
gressed it was watched with intense
anxiety.
A THRILLING INCIDENT.
While this was going on the fire.
men were battling with the flames,
which had been caused by the show
er of red-hot cinders, and a thrilling
incident, involving the rescuing of
four little children named Douglass
from horrible death, was transpir-
ing. They had been imprisoned
beneath heavy door in a shed ad-
joining the fiange department and
slowly being roasted to death when
they were accidentally discovered
and rescued, but not until after they
had been cruelty and one of them
fatally burned.
In every direction huge pieces of
the ruptured boiler could be found.
Guy rods, which had been wrenched
from their fastenings, were twisted
in every imaginable shape and de-
posted on roofs of sheds or lodged
in the sickly-looking trees. which
had been subjected to the shower of
hot steam and burning dust. Here
and there were portions of the steam
pipe, some embedded in heavy tim
Der, while crate bars and huge Sec
tions of the iron sheeting which had
formed the roof of the structure had
been hurled hundreds of feet. One
section, nearly three-quarters of the
boiler, was thrown six hundred feet
into the Monongahela river.
THE DEAD TERRIBLY MUTILATED.
Coroner Dressler was promptly
upon the scene and Immediately set
to work recovering the dead bodies
and placing them in as presentable
appearance as possible. There was
deep cut on the side of Charles
Douglass face, extending from the
lower part of the left eye to the ear
the cut was sewed while the body
lay in the warehouse and several
wounds on the limbs and body were
bandaged. The scalp of John Wal
lens head, which was completely
blown off, was put in place and the
remains of the two removed to
Wards undertaking establishment,
on Carson street. John McGairgan
was unloading coal near the boiler
and was 80 badly injured that he
did within an hour. Douglass was
the foreman and Allen the fireman
in the flange-shop. They never
knew what hurt them.
All afternoon and until after dark
tonight thousands thronged to the
South Side to look at the wrecked
buildings. Though the list of killed
is not as large as some other explo-
sions the wreck in this instance is
the worst known here for half de-
cade.
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