Heppner gazette. [volume] (Heppner, Morrow County, Or.) 1892-1912, 1911-02-09
EXPLOSION KILLS 80
New York HaPbOP and Waterfront
Wrecked By Blast.
Dynamite on Lighter in Harbor Blows
Up Without Warning, Spread
ing Awful Destruction.

New York, Feb. 2. 2.-Dynamite ir
transit from freight car to the hold
of a lighter moored at pier No. Z,
Communipaw, N. j., exploded at one
minute past noon today and in the
widespread ruin that followed seven
men are known to have been killed,
seven fatally wounded and hundreds
less seriously injured. Various reports
place the number unaccounted for at
from Is to 80.
Thirty seems to be conservative
estimate of the dead, and $3.50, 900 Of
property loss.
The explosion occurred $50 yards
south of the Jersey City terminal of
the Central Railroad of New Jersey,
and is variously attributed to the drop
ping of a case of dynamite and the
blowing up of boiler of boat.
The Jersey Central terminal was
wrecked; three ferryboats in the slip
were damaged; lower Manhattan,
across the river, was shaken from
street level to the top of the Singer
tower; severe damage was done in
Brooklyn and Staten Island and to the
immigration detention station on Ellis
Island; the shock was felt at Amity-
vile, N. j., 35 miles distant.
The damage is so widely scattered
that it is impossible to more than esti-
mate it, but in Manhattan alone it is
placed at 500, 900; on Ellis Island
from $40, 900 to $25, 900, and in all
other quarters of 100000.
The lighter receiving the dynamite
the Katherine W., owned by James
Healing, of Jersey City - vanished
utterly with her crew of seven men, in
cluding the master, Edward Traver.
Alongside was the lighter Whistler,
which was 30 badly shattered that she
sank with her crew of two, while the
British steam barkentine Ingrid was
stripped of her rigging and two deck
hands aboard were killed.
Fragments of one mans head were
found swinging high on tangled piece
of rope.
The Katherine W was tied to the
outer end of the pier, and the crew of
deckLands was unloading a consign.
ment of 50-pound boxes from two
freight cars to the lighter when the
crash came.
Only the Whistler's flagstaff has
been found. The freight car went up
in puff of dust. On the rear deck of
the barkentine Ingrid were found a
pair of iron trucks. They may be the
trucks of the dynamite car or of one of
the other four cars standing near,
which were also torn to bits.
Fifty yards back stood another car
of dynamite. The explosion blew the
doors in, but the dynamite itself did
not explode.
On board the Ingrid, the steel miz-
zenmast snapped off above the lower
yards, and the tangled wreckage came
tumbling about the decks. Everything
aloft was leveled fiat, but the steel
plates of the hull held.
For 100 feet the pier end was de-
molished. The planking seemed to
have been ground to powder. Over
the broken edges twisted steel rails of
tracks projected. A steel gondola car
on the southermost track looked like
an old hat used for football.
All about were strange freaks of the
explosion. One freight car had the
roof blown inward, as if it had been
crushed by falling boulder, but the
sides were undamaged.
In the trainshed of the terminal,
nearly the whole southern exposure of
the glass roof collapsed, showering the
passengers with broken glass. One
man was struck by 2O-pound frsg-
ment and so severely cut that he died.
An engineer in shunting locomotive
was blown from his cab and died of
fractured skull A tugboat captain
was hurled from his wheelhouse and
fshed out of the water Is minutes