The most destructive sacrifice of life followed on September seventh. Charles Rust, a Bradford shooter, drove to Sawyer City to torpedo a well on the Jane Schoonover farm. It is alleged that Rust had domestic trouble, wearied of life and told his wife when leaving that morning he would never return. A small crowd assembled to witness the operation. William Bunton, owner of several adjacent wells, Charles Crouse, known as “Big Charlie the Moonlighter,” James Thrasher, tool-dresser, and Rust were on the derrick-floor. Rust filled the first shell, fixed the firing-head and struck the cap two sharp blows with his left hand. There was a blinding flash, then a deafening report. Dust, smoke and missiles filled the air. The derrick was demolished and pieces of board flew hundreds of yards with the force of cannon-balls. One hit Crouse in the center of the forehead and passed through the skull. His face was terribly lacerated and the clothing stripped off his body. Bunton and Thrasher were not mangled beyond recognition, while Rust was thrown a hundred yards. His legs were missing, the face was battered out of the semblance of humanity and not a vestige of clothing was left on the mutilated trunk. Frederick Slatterly, a lad on his way to school, was hit by a piece of the derrick, which ripped his abdomen and caused death in three hours. Three boys walking behind young Slatterly were thrown down and hurt slightly. Mr. Bunton gasped when picked up and lived five minutes. He was an estimable citizen, an elder in the Presbyterian church, intelligent and broad-minded. Thrasher and Crouse were industrious workmen. Edward Wilson, a gauger, standing ten rods away, was perforated by slivers and pieces of tin, his injuries confining him to bed several months. Thomas Buton and John Sisley were at the side of the derrick, within six feet of Rust, yet escaped with trifling injuries. The tragedy produced a sensation, all the more fearful from the belief of some who witnessed it that Rust intended to commit suicide and in compassing his own death killed four innocent victims.
The Roberts magazine on the Hatfield farm, two miles south of Bradford, blew up on the night of October thirteenth, 1881. Nobody doubted it was the work of “moonlighters” attempting to steal the glycerine. Traces of blood and minute portions of flesh on the stones and ties indicated that two persons at least were engaged in the job. Who they were none ever learned.
John McCleary, a Roberts shooter, had a remarkable escape on December twenty-seventh, 1881. While filling the shell at a well near Haymaker, in the lower oil-field, the well flowed and McCleary left the derrick. The column of oil threw down the shell and the glycerine exploded promptly, wrecking the derrick and tossing the fleeing man violently to the ground. He rose to his feet as four cans on the derrick-floor cut loose. McCleary was borne fifty feet through the air, jagged splinters of tin and wood pierced his back and sides and he fell stunned and bleeding. He was not injured fatally. Like Feeney, Buton and Sisley, he survives to tell of his close call. Less fortunate was Henry W. McHenry, who had torpedoed hundreds of wells and was blown to atoms near Simpson Station, in the southern end of the Bradford region, on February fifth, 1883. His fate resembled West’s, Taylor’s, Harper’s and Mitchell’s.
In the summer of 1884 Lark Easton went to torpedo a well at Coleville, seven miles southeast of Bradford. He tied his team in the woods, carried some cans of glycerine to the well and left four in the wagon. A storm blew down a tree, which fell on the wagon and exploded the glycerine, demolishing the vehicle and killing one horse. It was a lucky escape, if not much of a lark, for Easton.
A peculiar case was that of “Doc” Haggerty, a teamster employed to haul Nitro-Glycerine to the magazine near Pleasantville. In December of 1888 he took fourteen-hundred pounds on his wagon and was seen at the magazine twenty minutes before a furious explosion occurred. Pieces of the horses and wagon were found, but not an atom of Haggerty. He had disappeared as completely as Elijah in the chariot of fire. An insurance-company, in which he held a five-thousand-dollar policy, resisted payment on the ground that, as no remains of the alleged dead man could be produced, he might be alive! Some pretexts for declining to pay a policy are pretty mean, but this certainly capped the climax. Experts believed the heat generated by the explosion was sufficient to cremate the body instantaneously, bones, clothes, boots and all.
James Woods and William Medeller, two experienced shooters, were ushered into eternity on December tenth, 1889, by the explosion of the Humes Torpedo-Company’s magazine at Bean Hollow, two miles south of Butler. They had gone for glycerine and that was the end of their mortal pilgrimage. Six years later, on December fourth, 1895, at the same place and in the same way, George Bester and Lewis Black lost their lives. Bester was blown to atoms and only a few threads of his clothing could be picked up. The lower part of Black’s face, the trunk and right arm remained together, while other portions of the body were strewn around. The left arm was in a tree three-hundred yards distant. Huge holes marked the site of the two Humes magazines, a hundred feet apart. The mangled horse lay between them, every bone in his carcass broken and the harness cut off clean. The buggy was in fragments, with one tire wrapped five times about a small tree. Not a board stayed on the boiler-house and the boiler was moved twenty feet and dismantled. The factory, two-hundred feet from the magazines, was utterly wrecked. The young men left Butler early in the morning, Black going for company. The supposition is that Bester was removing some of the cans from the shelf, intending to take them out, and that he dropped one of them. About seven-hundred pounds of glycerine were stored in one of the magazines and a less amount in the other. George Bester was twenty-eight and had a wife and two small children. He was industrious, steady and one of the best shooters in the business. Black was twenty and lived with his parents. The concussion jarred every house in Butler, broke windows and loosened plaster in the McKean school-building, causing a panic among the children.
W. N. Downing’s death, on January second, 1891, at the Victor Oil-Company’s well, in the Archer’s Forks oil-field, near Wheeling, West Virginia, was very singular. The glycerine used to torpedo the well the previous day had been thawed in a barrel of warm water. Next day two of the owners drove out to see the well and talk with Downing, who was foreman of the company. On their way back to Wheeling they heard an explosion, conjectured the boiler had burst and returned to the lease. Mr. Downing’s body lay near where the barrel of water had stood. The barrel had vanished and a large hole occupied its place. The victim’s head was cut off on a line with the eyes. The only explanation of the accident was that the glycerine had leaked into the barrel and a sudden jar had caused the stuff to explode. Beside the well, in the fence-corner, were twelve cans of glycerine not exploded. Downing lived at Siverlyville, above Oil City, whither his remains were brought for interment.
Letting a torpedo down a well at Bradford in September of 1877, a flow of oil jerked it out, hurled the shell against the tools, which were hanging in the derrick, and set off the nitro on the double quick. The shooter jumped and ran at the first symptoms of trouble, the derrick was sliced in the middle and set on fire. The rig burned and strenuous exertions alone saved neighboring wells. The fire was a novelty in the career of the explosive.
Occasionally Nitro-Glycerine goes off by spontaneous combustion without apparent provocation. On December fifth, 1881, two of the employés noticed a thin smoke rising from the top row of cans in the Roberts magazine at Kinzua Junction. They retreated, came back and removed eighty cans, observed the smoke increasing in density and volume and decided to watch further proceedings from a safe distance. Twelve-hundred quarts exploded with such vigor that the earth jarred for miles and a big hole was ploughed in the rock. In November of 1885 the Rock Glycerine-Company’s factory on Minard Run, four miles south of Bradford, was wrecked for the fourth time. O. Wood and A. Brown were running the mixture into “the drowning tank,” to divest it of the acid. The process generates much heat and acid escaping from a leak in the tank fired the wood-work. Wood and Brown and a carpenter in the building, knowing their deliverance depended upon their speed, took French leave. Samuel Barber, a teamster, was unloading a drum of acid in front of the building and joined the fugitives in their flight. The glycerine obligingly waited until the four men reached a safe spot and then reduced the factory to kindling-wood. Barber’s horses and wagon were not hurt mortally, the animals bleeding a little from the nose. Next evening Tucker’s factory at Corwin Centre, six miles north-east of Bradford, followed suit. Griffin Rathburn, who was making a run of the fluids, fled for his life as the mass emitted a flame. He saved himself, but the factory and a thousand pounds of the explosive went on an aërial excursion.
In November, 1896, at Pine Fork, West Virginia, William Conn drove a two-horse wagon to the magazine for glycerine to shoot a well. While Conn was inside two men drove up with two horses. That moment the magazine exploded with a report heard ten miles off. Only a piece of a man’s foot was ever found. Thus three human beings, two wagons and four horses were extinguished utterly.