Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1882 — HAVOC BY EXPLOSION. [ARTICLE]

HAVOC BY EXPLOSION.

Eight Workmen Blown to Pieoes st Shawneetown HI. Their Bodies Shockingly Mutilated by .the Bursting Boiler. A boiler in the saw-mill of A. J. Vincent & Co., at Shawneetown, 111, exploded the other day. killing eight men and fatally wounding another. The victims were seated around the engine eating lunch. Remnants of the boiler and portions of the bodies of the employes were found 300 yards away. • The details es the shocking affair are embraced in the following telegram from Shawneetown: It appears that the men were seated around in various positions in the cicinitv of 'the boiler, eating their noon luncheon, when ’the boiler exploded, creating terrible destruction. > There were eleven men in the mill at the thae, and of these the following eight were instantly killed: William Montgomery, Charles Bloss, Henry Hughes, Charles Baker, George Price, W. P. Grove, James McLaughlin, Samuel Kennedy. Several of these were blown into fragmenta The sawyer was blown to pieces, so that scarcely a common pailful of his remains could be picked up. One corpse was blown into the river, and two others were thrown a distance of fully 200 yards. Wade Kee, another employe, was thrown a long distance from the mill, and had his legs and arms broken and otherwise injured. He was picked up shortly afterward and died in less than an hour. The other two men are hurt, one probably fatally. The mill is a complete wreck, portions of the boiler lying in different directions and at various distances, rauging from 100 to 800 feet The accident is the worst ever recorded here, and has created great excitement Several of the victims leave families, some of them in comparatively destitute circumstances. Nobody is left to give any clew as to the probable cause of the accident, and nothing apparently can be known but that the disaster is appalling and complete.