The Penn's Grove record., 1907-03-08
EXPLOSION SHAKES STATES
Spark Sets Off Dynamite at Hud-
son Tunnel in Homestead, NJ.
Shock is Felt Severely in New York,
New Jersey and Connecticut
Many Thought 1t an Earthquake.

New York City.-Rigid investiga-
ton has been begun for the purpose
OF fixing the responsibility for the re-
markable dynamite magazine explo-
sion which shortly after midnight
swayed New York City to its founda-
lions and spread a tremor through
three States.
1t occurred near the portal of the
Pennsylvania Railroad tunnel. at
Homestead, N. J.. a small village in
the township of North Bergen, a mile
and a half back from the face of the
Palisades. Following the hard rock
strata, the vibrations wrecked many
light structures near the scene of the
accident and broke hundreds of plate
glass windows in Union Hill. Spread
ing fanlike eastward and northeast,
they awakened thousands from their
slumbers in the metropolis and in
outlying suburbs of Long Island and
Connecticut, nearly 100 miles dis
tant, yet were not felt in the populous
communities to the west across the
H~ackensack Meadows.
One Waterman has not been seen
since the explosion, and there are re-
ports that portions of a human body
were seen by n of the farmers in
the neighborhood. Only four persons
were officially reported as injured.
The terrific defamation, the fact that
the men in the tunnel were at the
time changing shifts and the great
damage done to property caused the
reports to spread that there had been
a great loss of life. These rumors,
however, proved to be unfounded.
The missing and injured are: Missing
George Johnson, general night
Waterman, fifty Egars old, lived in
Fulton street, Bergenline avenue,
Union Hill, N. J. Injured-Felice
Malberti, nineteen years old, Home
stead; face and chest lacerated by
fragments of glass; taken to North
Hudson Hospital; Henri Malberti,
seven years old; face and hands cut;
North Hudson Hospital; Josephine
Malberti, twenty-four years old; face
n arms lacerated by fragments of
glass and s%plinters; North Hudson
Hospital; Antonio Matchek, forty
years old, Waterman of magazine;
found unconscious, suffering from
bruises and shock; North Hudson
Hospital.
Although many buildings near
Homestead were wrecked some that
were close to where the magazine
was escaped ~unscathed, and the most
serious effects were noted more than
a mile away from the spot.
This was due to peculiar geologi-
cal formations as well as to the va
carries of air conclusion. The struc-
lures which surround the mouth of
the Pennsylvania tunnel are built
mostly on a marsh beneath which are
thirty to forty feet of red Jersey
clay. Their location is just beyond
the long ridge of rock which ends
abruptly at the Hudson River in the
Palisades, and through which the
bore is being driven.
The magazine was a wooden shan
ty ten feet square. 1t rested On bog
and clay.
To keep the dynamite from freez-
ing the employees had warmed the re-
pository with steam pipe, which was
led from the power house, 100 yards
distant. The effects of the upheaval
were violent enough in some parts of
the reservation. The magazine went
up in the air and the only trace of it
which has been found so far consists
of two bits of charred board. 1t left
a bowl shaped excavation ten feet
deep and twenty-five in width.