Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-24
ANOTHER DYNAMITE DISASTER.
Train Struck Wagon Loaded With Elk
plosive-Killed and Injured.

A dispatch from Cumberland, Md, last
night says: Two men were killed and eight
person were injured at North Branch Md,
four miles west of Cumberland, at 1:3O
o'clock this afternoon by an explosion of
$50 pounds of dynamite. caused by Balti-
more and Ohio fast freight train running
into a wagon loaded with the explosive.
Many buildings in the town were wrecked
by the conclusion.
The dead-C. Walter Whitehair, front
brakeman. of Brunswick, formerly of Terra
Alta, w. Va; Nelson Pike of Martinsburg,
engineer, scalded all over and internally
injured: he lived two hours.
I The injured-A. r. Sanders. fireman.
North Mountain, w. Va, arm broken,
scalded on face, body and hands; Charles
Hamilton. Baltimore and Ohio operator
and postmaster at North Branch, cut on
face and body; Scott Hamilton, of Little
Orleans. Md, fifty cuts on face and body:
James Ashkettle, of Little Orleans, cut in
face; Mary Twigg, Of Oldtown, niece Of
Charles Hamilton, cut in face; Raymond,
aged three. son of Charles Hammond cut
In face; Maude Seibert. daughter of VIII
liam Sefbert, cut in face; James Laing,
aged twenty-one, driver of dynamite wagon,
cut on leg and ear drum fractured.
The Baltimore and Ohio tower was
wrecked. as were the residences Of Adam
Seibert, Charles Hamilton, Charles Bloss,
J. Lewis Seibert, Stephen A. Bloss and John
Wabash subcontractor, and the Wabash
temporary hospital, with other small build
ings, were demolished. The windows of
the school house and of the residence of c.
A. Zibberly, on the mountain half raile
away, were all broken out.
The dynamite was being hauled for Mike
Gilmore, contractor for the Wabash con-
struction work in progress near by. There
were hfteen cases on the wagon, aggregat-
Ing $50 pounds Laing was crossing the
track with the load. when he saw the train
coming. He became terrified when his
wagon stopped on the track and, accord
ing to the statement of eye-witnesses in
the tower, he deserted the team and ran
The train struck the tail end of the wagon,
which had but three feet to clear the track
put the engine continued some fifty feet
before the terrific explosion occurred
Inc engine was stripped of its trimmings
and was turned over a total wreck, while
seven freight cars following, loaded with
hlgh-grade merchandise, were smashed IN.
The track was torn and twisted in all d.
rections. 1t was given serpentine shape.
The conclusion snapped all telegraph wires
In the vicinity. Laing and his horses had
away and down In a ditch before the engine
struck the wagon. When he revived he
found himself against a telegraph pole The
horses were hardly scratched, although
hurled fifty yards into a field. All three
tracks were blocked with the debris
It required the strength of four or five
men to get Engineer Pike out of the wreck
age. He lay on top of the overturned boil
er. In a cloud of scaldng steam, his hands
gripped tightly to the throttle.
The house Of Charles Hamilton was torn
inside out. the furniture was wrecked, and
all the china and crockery broken.
The scene Is one Of perfect destruction.
Parts of the engine were hurled many yards
and pickles and whiskey, with which sew
eral of the cars were loaded, were scattered
In all directions.