Perth Amboy evening news., 1903-07-30
POWDER EXPLODED.
Disaster at Lowell Causes
Twenty Deaths.
MANY WERE BLOWN TO PIECES.
Seventy Pieces of Property Were
Destroyed by COncussiOn-Win-
dOws six Miles Away
Demolished.


! Demolished.
LOWELL, Mass. July 30.-Two
small gunpowder magazines situated
in the very midst of the humble resi-
dences of fifty mill operatives, mostly
of French extraction, exploded with
| frightful conclusion. The resultant
| wave of death cut off the lives of more
than a score of human beings and in
| jured nearly fifty others. Half dozen
men who were loading kegs of powder
from one of the magazines were blown
to pieces, four boys 200 yards away
were killed by the force of the explo-
sion and fourteen frame houses with
in radius of 400 yards went down as
| if they had been built of cards. Seven
of these houses Immediately caught
fire, probably from the kitchen stoves,
and were completely consumed. At
least three persons were caught in the
ruins and burned to death, while seven
or eight others who were rescued died
subsequently of their injuries.
1t is estimated that seventy separate
pieces of property, including those al
ready mentioned, were destroyed, while
the force of the explosion wrecked
windows for five or six miles around,
and its thunder could be heard dis
tinctly more than fifty miles away.
The magazines were the property of
the United States Cartridge company
of this city, but fortunately were stu
ated more than a mile away from the
factory itself They were built of
brick, about ten feet high, with a
rounded roof of corrugated iron.
One of the magazines was just with
in the roadside fence, while the other
was about hundred feet behind 1t,
near the banks of the river. Both mag
azines ordinarily contained two or
three tons of gunpowder in tin kegs,
each keg being about eighteen inches
high and q foot in diameter. The COM
| pany has for some time been desirous
of strengthening the floor of the maga-
zine nearest the street, and eight men,
three of them employees of the compa-
nv, three eXpressmen and two carpen-
ters, were sent there with three large
express teams to take out the powder
and mend the floor Two of the teams
had been loaded and the other was al
most full when at six minutes past 8
o'clock the explosion occurred
| 1t was a long time before the actual
cause of the explosion could be ascer-
tanned 1t was thought at first that
every one within a radius of fifty feet
of the magazines had been killed, but
later it was found that Mr.. Clarendon
Goodwin, the foreman of the men who
were loading the powder on the teams,
had survived, together with one of his
assistants, Amadee Boulanger, and the
latter was later seen in the hospital.
He said that the men went down to
the magazine nearest the street to fix
the floor, and after the teams had been
loaded with the powder which was in
| the magazine it was discovered that a
can of nitroglycerin which was stored
In the magazine was leaking Mr.. Good
win picked up what he thought was
! jug of water and began pouring it on
the nitroglycerin with the idea of di-
luting and washing it up. AS soon as
the fluid from the jug struck the floor
he found that it was nitric acid. The
floor at once began to smoke, and when
the men saw it they rushed from the
building, but had not gone ten feet
when the explosion occurred This mag
aZine was therefore the first to go up,
followed Immediately by the gunpow
der in the three teams and several sec
onds later by the second magazine.
To those who heard the crash it SEEM
ed as if there were two distinct explo-
sions, with continuous roar between
them. There are, however, five holes in
the ground, which seems to clearly in
dicate five explosions.
| The entire catastrophe, however, oc-
cupied the space of scarcely five sec
onds, but in that time the surrounding
property was swept as if small vol
cano had broken forth in it's midst. Ev-
cry house within 200 yards collapsed
Trees were blown down, the grass with
in q hundred yards moved as if by a
lawn mower while bricks from the two
magazines were hurled far across the
river and all over the neighborhood.
Several of the injured were terribly
manned and burned. One man was
suffering such intense agony that upon
his arrival at the hospital he begged
the surgeons to shoot him and end his
misery
| A large number, however, who were
treated at the hospital and by outside
physicians sustained only cut hands
and faces, caused by glass.
Maiden Lady's Death on Track.
i pATT CrUON N TI1Iv RTiar