The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1892-01-27
FORMER INDIANAPOLIS HORRORS.

FORMER INDIANAPOLIS HORRORS.
The Fair Grounds Disaster and the Bowens
Merrill Fire.
There is one frightful horror which will
linger IN the memory of most old
citizens now living as long as life shall
endure. This was the dreadful explosion
of the Sinker boiler at the state fair
grounds, Oct. l, 1862 while the fair was
in progress and the grounds filed with
an indiscriminate congregation Of
men. women and children. The
awful results Of that calamity, to
those who were there and who ara
now living must through the years
have been never-lessening night
mare. 1t was the fourth day of the faiE
and o'clock p. m. had been named aa
the hour for trying and testing portable
engines. Sinker & Co., engine builders
with Long, Joseph & Carter, sawyers, had
a combination of engine, boilers and mill
on the ground which was to pass through
the test, which was finally completed in a
run OF seven minutes, the mill being
strained TO its utmost tension. The
| fires had been allowed to subsids
and die down, when Sinker'a
| fireman concluded to saw up the surplua
| logs on hand. The engine was started and
with the exception of a couple of turns"
the task was completed. The pit undeA
| the saw was filled to its rim with dust. a
| large circle OF interested people sur
rounded the machinery. The races werG
| about to commence, and comparative
| quiet reigned throughout the great enclose
ure when tremendous report, as If of bat
terry of artillery in simultaneous discharge
was heard and the big boiler let 90 and
| burst to pieces. In an instant clouds OF
| binding steam, dust, etc, filled the air,
and broken timbers, fragments OF iron,
mutillsted fragments of human bodies,
legs and arms and even CHASTITY heads
almost instantly commenced to fall in
every direction. The bodies of men and
women blown into space fell here
and there among Mortified and
uninjured crowds. A desperate
| panic was only averted through
the energetic and systematic efforts of the
| officers of the state board who were on
the ground. The engine and boiler were
| blown to fragments. and heartrendina
| cries told OF the dreadful agony of numers
Gus suffering. 1t was horrible accident
| the worst, perhaps, up TO the pres
| ent Indianapolis has ever known.
The dead were gathered together
| and removed to Weaver's undertaking
establishment. AS far as could be asce--
tanned those killed were as follows: p. L.
| Davis and son, William Dunning, RueI
| Beverly, Ii. p Jackson, Philo NJ. BeDhsm.
| Lewis Wilson, Daniel Long, Ignatius L.
| Rossiter, John Wilson, John Gould, N.Y.
| ron b. McVey, Peter Kreutzer, jerome
| Sprague, Clara Dawson. John Kennedy,
four persons unidentified. eight re-
/ ported killed, but the same
unauthenticated. There were thirty-three
more or less injured. OF these ten were
taken for treatment and nursing to the
! surgica institute, the establishment which
| twenty-three years after has given to Inc
! dianapolis and the state OF Indiana the
most wretched horror that has ever
| shocked the sensibilities OF our citizens.
Another dreadful event which cast upon
Indianapolis a pail of deep, darkenin9
sorrow WAS rung in on March IL, 1890,
| when the alarm bells in the fire-house
towers called the department TO the burn
| ing of the Bowen-Merrill establishment
which, though a trivial affair at first,
| through the gross mismanagement
! of Chief Frank J.. Doughertv,
! became funeral pyre, which
/ only died out after twelve brave firemen
! had gone down in horrid melstrom of
| flame and smoke and death, and eighteen
men had entailed upon them days and
weeks and months of untold suffering.
! The day had taken on the semblance of a
! labor holiday. The streets were well filed
and at 3 p. m. little riffs of smoke coming
! from the gratiugs OF the Bowen-Merriu
| building were quickly seen and as quickly
the alarm sounded from box 45. lt
/ 4 49, Il
gathered slowly but regularly. Ii was 90
least an hour before an alarm was sent in
| calling out additional assistance, and even
| then much valuable time was wasted by
| Dougherty in leaving the engines idle at
the corner of Meridian and Washiugton-sts
| In the meantime the flames had commu>
nicated with the upper stories and were
progressing with frightful rapidity. The
| lire, which at first could have been ex-
inguished with single tank of chemi-
cal, was now fierce and persist
ent eating its way throughout
the building as if to gain
strength for the dreadful work that was to
follow. Dougherty had sent men to the roof
! exactly when they should not have been.
and it was comparatively brief space OK
| time when the dense throng in the
street below were startled by a crash
]
/ lapsed and through the gaping opening
down were hurled the brave. faithful
servitors of the city's interests into the
hot, seething cauldron beneath. Indi-
annapolis citizens will not forget the dread
ful occurrence that followed; the search
for and finding of the bodies; the burned
and disigured dead and dying or the
solemn tones of the church bells
which rang out requiem that caused the
public heart to throb with woe when the
fremen were borne to their resting places
in Gods acre. Over at Terre Haute,
suspended on carved brackets in the
chiefs office at department headquar-
ters is a rusty. broken fireman's
AK covered with drapery of black. 1t is
the ax taken from the hands OF poor Dick
Lowrey when his bruised and blackened
corpse was dug from the ruins OF the
Bowen-Merrill fire. The brave men sac
rifced on that awful day were the
following: Andrew o. Cherry,
George Faulkner, Espy Stormer, David
r. Lowrey, Henry ID. Woodruff, Ulysses
G. Glazier, George ID. Glenn, Albert HoffA
man and Anthony Vcitz. Thomas A.
Black and William +. Jones died latsf
- -. -