Not-so-good old days

This account of a disaster comes from the pre-Civil War Oxford Democrat published April 8, 1845. If nothing else, the story shows clearly that stupidity is not a 21st century invention. It was alive and prospering 166 years ago.

Horrible Explosion

It is long since our city has been visited with so horrible a disaster, as the one which we, as public journalists, find it our painful duty now to chronicle. The accident occurred at the black and white smith shop of Edward Duvall, No. 102 Charlton street.

It appears that Mr. Duvall, a young man in the prime of life, being about 33 years old has been doing a considerable work for the light house at Sandy Hook, and while engaged in the performance of it, he employed the fishermen resident in the neighborhood, to collect the cannon balls and bomb shells which are frequently found buried in the sand or rolled up by the surf, which he agreed to purchase as old iron. During yesterday, a load of the above articles were brought to Mr. Duvall's shop, and on examination found that some of the shells were yet loaded, and before taking them into the house, he proceeded to empty them of the composition. This was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Mr. Duvall proceeding to empty the shells, took one said to be of the shape of an egg about 24 inches long, upon his lap, sitting on a seat which he procured on the side walk, and with a stick loosened the composition, which he shook out upon the walk between his feet. While thus engaged, the shell which was made of cast iron, exploded with a tremendous report, killing Mr. Duvall and two others.

Mr. Duvall's arms were both entirely blown off, his right leg was taken off at the knee, a horrible hole was blown through his abdomen, and his whole body was more or less injured. He never breathed after the explosion. He lived in the upper part of the house wherein was his shop and has left a wife and one child to mourn his loss, as also a large circle of beloved friends.

Mr. Aaron O. Price, builder, of No 79 Thompson street, aged about 39 years, and who is now engaged in building the grace church's new house of worship in Broadway, was passing shortly before the accident, in a one horse Rockaway wagon, on his way to the North river, where he was expecting a cargo of stone from Sing Sing, and loosing a linchpin from his wagon, stopped at Mr. Duvall's and while the wagon was being repaired he was engaged in conversation with the unfortunate proprietor when the explosion took place. He received a blow on the back of his head from a piece of the shell breaking in the entire back of his skull, causing instant death. When found he laid on the sidewalk with his hands in his side pockets, entirely lifeless. His horse, a valuable one, was standing in front of the door and a piece of the shell struck him on the side of the head, taking it entirely off, the same fraction of the shell passed across the street, took a large piece out of the eave gutter of the house, and glancing off the shingled peak fell at some distance beyond. Mr. Price has left a wife and two children to mourn the untimely death of the husband and father.

Unfortunately, this is only about half the explosion story. To meet space requirements, the rest of the story, dealing with the aftermath, will be carried in next week's column.

As is our custom, we try to exactly reproduce the grammar, spelling, punctuation and style of the original. Commas might appear where least expected and remain absent where we’d expect them if the item was written nowadays. On the other hand, consistency was not considered of utmost importance, so variations of a spelling might appear within one story. In addition, some words were abbreviated differently than today. Where brief explanations of terms are considered necessary, they are presented in brackets [] within the quote. Otherwise, explanations appear at the beginning or at the conclusion, without quotes. Parenthesis () used in a quoted passage appeared in the original.