Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-02-13
.DU POINT POWDER
PLANT EXPLODES
AND KILLS FIVE
Bodies of KenviI Men Blown to
Atoms by $500 Pounds
of Explosive.
WERE WORKING OVERTIME
ON ORDER FROM MEXICO
No One Survives and Cause
May Never Be Known, but
Coroner investigates.
Especial TO the Newark star.


DOVER, Feb. 1s.-Five men we<s
niown 10 atoms when $500 pounds AZ
smokeiess powder exploded in ths
can-filling house of the Hercules
Powder Works. in Kenvil, near here.
late last night
The dead are:
John Ward, thirty years old.
foreman, Of Haskell.
john Lanterman. twenty-ona
Years old. workman, OF kenviI.
Philip Barth, twenty-four
Years old, workman, of Kenvil.
Raymond Schuman, twenty
years old, workman. of Kenvil.
The men were at work in q cof-
rngated steel building. IS by so feet.
This was one of thirty small struu.
lures that make up the plant, which
IS controlled by the Du Pont Powder
Company The company had re-
eeived rush order for $500 pounds
Of smokeless powder to be shipped to
the Mexican border. and employees
at the plant had been working uighk
ana day 10 get the explosive out.
Last night Ward and his four u1en
relieved the day shift of five men IN
the snokeless can-filling house.
oung Schuman had worked in
another department of the plant an
day, but was assigned to assist Ward
IN loading the cans when James III
rich, of Dover. a regular member Or
his staff reported sick
Flash uIumines Countryside
The foreman and his aides went i1lto
the house at p. m. shortly after 20
O'Clock workmen in other buildings
heard a low rumble. Then there was
a deafening explosion and a bright
fash illuminated the powder works
and the country for miles around
The frightened worknlen rushed out
to see the steel walls OF the can filling
house twisted and torn. Flames were
ileaping high from the building A
hundred feet away lay the steel roof
glowing and twisted and all about
the ground shattered powder cans
We're strewn.
Fearful Of approaching the wrecked
{ building the worlunen fed When the
flames that were rising from its wallis
had partially suosided workmen get
tesf their IRE apparatus and 5irccte1 q
/ la dozen streams Of water on The
+ building. Others got lanterns and
searched in the wreckage for the
bodiss ef the worknen.
I Wards body. headless and lirnblesz.
was found janmed in a window
frame Here and there the searcherS
4 picked up bits OF the bodies Of the
other men. None of the part was
1 recognized, although Wards ident ty
was esta ablished by marks on his
clothing.
Former Fatalities IN Families.
Two of the victims of last nights
/ explosion are sons Of men who also
+ died in mishaps in powder factories
Barths father was killed five years
/ ago in an explosion in the Here les
4 works. and Rumble's father died
about four years ago. when a powder
mill was blown up in Emporia, Pa
+ Coroner William B. Lewis, of Boom
/ ton, came to Dover today to begin an
J investigation of the disaster. There is
no way of determining the cause Of
/ the explosion. as the five men we're
alone in the building when it oe-
CURED, and none of the other work.
/ men in the plant had been near them
since they went to work.
There have been several explo ions
I in the Hercules plant, but last nights
/ is the most disastrous that has ever
I happened. The only other explos on
I in this section recently that ap-
preached last nights in mortalities
4 occurred in the Atlas Powder Works,
in Hopatcong. about a year ago
] Three men lost their lives in this dis
aster