Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1878 — Six Men Killed by a Boiler Explosion. [ARTICLE]

Six Men Killed by a Boiler Explosion.

The boiler explosion at the coal works of Iteid Bros., near Uniontown, Pa., was a horrible affair. Two men were instantly killed, and one died within an hour. Their names were Richard Evans, J. J. Miller, and Daniel McGarvey. Three more, John Mowey, Joseph Vayone, and Morgan McGill, died the next day. John Dougherty, the pit boss, was seriously hurt, both externally and internally, and his recovery is considered improbable. Seven other men are suffering from wounds, scalds, and bums, but none of them are thought to be fatally injured. The disaster occurred in this way: Eight men were on the roof the boilerhouse, and, with the assistance of a number below, were erecting a new smokestack. The steam, penetrating through the roof, annoyed the men above, and Vayone, the yard boss, ordered the escape valve to be closed. This was done, and within two minutes the boiler exploded with terrific force. Daniel McGarvey, the engineer, was thrown 100 feet in the air and 150 feet distant, into an adjoining field. He alighted on his head in a beaten-clay foot path, in which his head half buried itself. The force of the fall ruptured his abdomen. John Mowey was scalded to death. His flesh was cooked. Richard Evans was killed by a bar of iron striking him across the forehead and imbedding itself in his brain. The boiler was torn into shreds. Hardly a fragment as large as a man’s hat could be found. Of the boiler-house nothing could be found, except here and there a stick of wood. The general demolition could not have been more complete. With the exception of McGarvey, all the killed leave large families.