The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1911-02-02
THIRTY KILLED BY
DYNAMITE IN
NEW YORK
Damage To Property Estimated
At $750,O00
LIGHTER CARGO ExPLODES
Frightful Accident at Pier In Cum
mumpaw, N. J.-cause
Unknown.

New York, Feb. 2.2--A cargo of dy-
nomite in transit from a freight car
to the hold OF lighter moored at
pier No. z, Communipaw, N. j., let 90
at Just one minute past noon yester-
day, 100 yards south Of the Jersey
central terminal of the Central rail
road OF New Jersey and in the wide
spread ruin that followed seven men
are known to have been killed. seven
more are known to be missing. hun
dreds were wounded and varying re-
ports leave from fifteen to twenty nm.
accounted for. Thirty seems to be a
conservative estimate of the dead.
and property damage will hardly fall
below $4,000.
The explosion is variously attribut-
ed to the dropping of a case of dyna-
mite and to a boiler explosion on a
boat. Just what was the direct
cause will probably never be known.
The Jersey Central terminal was
wrecked; three ferry boats In the
Sips were torn and splintered: low
er Manhattan across the river was
shaken from the street level to The
top of the Singer tower; severe dan
age was done In Brooklyn, Staten Is
land and the immigrant detention sta
ton on Ellis Island; the shock
was felt on Long Island In Amity.
vile, 80 miles distant, and in New
Jersey at Long Branch, 40 miles dis.
tant. The damage is so widely scat
tered that 1t is impossible as vet to
estimate 1t more than roughly, but I'm
Manhattan alone it Is placed at 800.
600 on Ellis Island at from $4,000 to
$4,000 and in all three-Quarters of a
million appears to be fair estimate.
The lighter receiving the dynamite
the Katharine W., owned by James
Healing of Jersey City-vanished ut
terly with her crew of seven men, in
Guiding the master, Edward Trayer.
Alongside the lighter Whistler. own
ed by the American Storage and Deliy
cry company Of New York, was so
badly shattered that she sank with
her crew OF two, while the Swedish
steel barkentine Ingrid, a biscuits
toss TO the south, was stripped of her
rigging and the lives of two dock
hands aboard were shifted out. Frag-
ments of one mans head was found
swinging high os a tangled piece of
rope.
The Katherine w., was tied to the
outer end Of the pier and dock hands
were unloading consignment of IF
" pound boxes from two freight cars
to the lighter when the crash came.
The Katherine W.. simply disappear.
ed; not a splinter OF her has been
found, The Whistler dissolved into
wreckage. The freight car went up in
pun 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
that were also torn to bits.
Fifty yards back stood another car
of dynamite. The explosion ripped
the roof OF It, and broke in the doors.
but the dynamite did not explode
What might have happened had the
second car added its chained forces
to the first can hardly be guessed the
visible terrors Of the actually were
enough. On board the Ingrid
the steel mizzenmast snapped
on above the lower yard. Everything
abaft the mizzenmast was leveled
Hat but the steel plates OF the hull
showed not even q mark.
For 100 feet the pier end itself was
Utterly demolished. The planking
seemed to have been ground to pow
der. Orders, planking, cross stays,
all the massive frame work OF a pier
built to uphold locomotives and load
trains, were as nothing. A steel
gondola car on the southernmost track
looked like an old hat that had been
used for a foot ball