Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1891-05-22
About twenty Persons Killed by
Dynamite Explosion on
Freight Car.
There We're Twelve Hundred Pounds
Of Dynamite and Forty Ital-
ians on the Car.
The Mangled Bodies of the Victims
We're Hurled in Every
Direction,
The Number Killed Not Known,


TARRYTowN, N. Y, May 2O.-There
was horrible accident near here to-day
by which the loss of life is estimated at
between sixteen and twenty and the in
jured as many more. An engine and one
fiat car we're conveying load of Italians
and twenty-four cases of dynamite, each
containing fifty pounds. The Italians
we're being taken to section of road
where third track was being laid A
coil of rope lay in front OF the truck of
the engine. just as the train was pass
ing Holmes Point, midway between Tar
rytown and lrvington, a spark from the
locomotive ignited the coil of rope. The
moving train famed the flames and be-
fore the Italians realized their danger
one of the packages of dynamite ex-
ploded.
William Brannigan, engineer of the
derrick tram, happened to be $50 yards
from the train at the time. He tells the
following story: "When the coil of rope
set fire to the first package of dynamite,
one of the men, seeing it on fire, sprang
off the flat car. He fell under the wheels
and was killed. The next moment there
was a rumbling noise, a dense cloud of
oL1iCAO aIAA q l1S SuOU ~ lluO GUo
air. Before the explosion some of the
Italians had tumbled off, and saved their
lives by SO doing. The train had Just
about come to stop. Brannigan saw
one man blown fifty feet in the air. He
fell into the Hudson river Another man
was blown over on the bluff Others
were blown in various directions. Sev-
eral are supposed to have been blown
into the river"
James Niskern of Yonkers was one
the gang and went to Tarrytown to have
his TOOLS sharpened. The gang was
then working at Mount st. Vincent
While he was away in Tarrytown the
gang was moved. When Niskern was
returning from Tarrytown he saw the
wreck made by sthe explosion. He
says he counted sixteen dead men on the
track and sixteen wounded. He under
stood that twenty men had been blown
into the Hudson river. Most of them
were Italians. George Hecker, engineer
of the train, was cut on the head. So
was fireman Leonard Pam. Pam also
had three or four ribs broken and he was
badly shocked. John Smith, brakeman,
was killed. John Connors, conductor,
was badly injured and was sent to his
lone at Tlvoli. Jimmie Morrison, a boy
employed in carrying powder, was also
killed. John Mccarthy, time keeper,
was killed. The others killed were all
Italians. 1T is no. said that eighteen in
all were killed. The names of the Ital-
ians are not known. They are known
only by numbers Twenty men are
injured. Among them was Tom Finne-
gan, blacksmith and foreman, his leg be-
ing smashed. Two bodies have been
taken out OF the river. Nobody
knows how many more remain
there. Two Italians who were not
killed by the explosion we're so
badly frightened they ran to the river
wall and jumped into the river. They
have not been seen since. The waiting
room of the beautiful new station in Tar
rytown was turned into temporary hos
pital, where all the surgeons who could
The wounded men were stretched upon
the waiting-room floor, and there one of
them, an Italian, died. The floor, after
their removal, looked like the floor of an
abbatior. Blood lay about in great
pools. AS to the number of men on the
train, accounts differ Some say there
we're thirty-three. The lowest estimate
places the number at over thirty. Diss-
ton, the boss, thinks there were over forty
and, as matter of fact, the number of
those blown either to atoms or into the
river is to certain extent matter
of speculation. The train was torn to
atoms, the railway tracks ripped from
their beds and a great hole dug out Of
the earth, totally blocking traffic on the
railway for many hours. Up in Tarry-
town, over across the river in Nyack and
all up and down the stream, it was ter
rife, the ground trembled as though in
an earthquake, the walls of several Tar
rytown houses were shaken and cracked,
and in the Tarrytown streets window
glass fell in showers to the sidewalk.
Even over in Nyack heavy panes of glass
we're smashed. The beautiful houses
which line the bank for mile or more on
each side of the scene of the accident
suffered more or less. The hillside was
Escorched and blackened, and here and
there huge limbs of trees were wrenched
off as though by a thunderboIt. In Tar
rytown scores of clocks stopped, and tits
in this way that almost the exact hour OF
the explosion, II 40 O'Clock, can be- told.