Frequently loads of explosives are hauled through the streets of towns in the oil-regions, despite stringent ordinances and lynx-eyed policemen. Once a well-known handler of glycerine was arrested and taken before the mayor of Oil City. He denied violating the law by carrying the stuff in his buggy. An officer bore a can at arm’s length and laid it tenderly on the floor. “Now, you won’t deny it?” interrogated the mayor. “No,” replied the prisoner, “there seems to be a lot of it.” Then he hit the can a vicious kick, sending it against the wall with a thud. The spectators fled and the mayor tried to climb through the back-window. The can didn’t explode, the agent put it to his lips, took a hearty quaff and remarked: “Mr. Mayor, try a nip; you’ll find this whisky goes right to the ticklish spot!”
Men in Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana have added to the dismal roll of those who, leaving home happy and buoyant in the morning, ere the sun set were dispersed over acres of territory. Yet all experiences with the dread compound have not been serious, for at intervals a comic incident brightens the page. Robert L. Wilson, a blacksmith on Cherry Run in 1869-70, was a first-class tool-manufacturer. Joining the Butler tide, he opened a shop at Modoc. A fellow of giant-build entered one day, bragged of his muscle as well as his stuttering tongue would permit and wanted work. Something about the fellow displeased Wilson, who was of medium size and thin as Job’s turkey, and he decided to have a little fun at the stranger’s expense. He asked the burly visitor whether he could strike the anvil a heavier blow than any other man in the shop. The chap responded yes and Wilson agreed to hire him if he proved his claim good. Wilson poured two or three drops of what looked like lard-oil on the anvil and the big ’un braced himself to bring down the sledge-hammer with the force of a pile-driver. He struck the exact spot. The sledge soared through the roof and the giant was pitched against the side of the building hard enough to knock off a half-dozen boards. When he extracted himself from the mess and regained breath he blurted out: “I t-t-told you I co-cou-could hi-hi-hit a he-he-hell of a b-bl-blow!” “Right,” said Wilson, “you can beat any of us; be on hand to-morrow morning to begin work.” The man worked faithfully and did not discover for months that the stuff on the anvil was Nitro-Glycerine.
The farm-house of Albert Jones, three miles from Auburn, Illinois, was demolished on a Sunday afternoon in November of 1885. Jones had procured some Nitro-Glycerine to remove stumps and set the can on the floor of the dining-room. After dinner the family visited a neighbor, locking up the house. About three o’clock a thundering detonation alarmed the Auburnites, who couldn’t understand the cause of the rumpus. A messenger from the country enlightened them. The Jones domicile had been wrecked mysteriously and the family must have perished. Excited people soon arrived and the Joneses put in an appearance. The house and furniture were scattered in tiny tidbits over an area of five-hundred yards. Half the original height of the four walls was standing, with a saw-tooth and splintered fringe all around the irregular top of the oblong. Two beds were found several hundred yards apart, in the road in front of the house. A sewing-machine was buried head-first in the flower-garden. Wearing-apparel and household-articles were strewn about the place. While Mr. Jones and a circle of friends were viewing the wreck and wondering how the Nitro-Glycerine exploded a faint cry was heard. A search resulted in finding the family-cat in the branches of a tree fifty feet from the dwelling. It was surmised the cat caused the disaster by pushing from the table some article sufficiently heavy to explode the glycerine on the floor. The New York Sun’s famous grimalkin should have retired to a back-fence and begun his final caterwauling over the superior performance of the Illinois feline. Jones and his friends unanimously endorsed the verdict: “It was the cat.”
The first statement coupling a hog and Nitro-Glycerine in one package was written by me in December of 1869, at Rouseville, and printed in the Oil-City Times. The item went the rounds of the press in America and Europe, many papers giving due credit and many localizing the narrative to palm it off as original. One of the latter was “Brick” Pomeroy’s La Crosse Democrat, which laid the scene in that neck of woods. The tale has often been resurrected and it was reported in a New-Orleans paper last month. The original version of “The Loaded Porker” read thus:
“Rouseville furnishes the latest unpatented novelty in connection with Nitro-Glycerine. A torpedo-man had taken a small parcel of the dangerous compound from the magazine and on his return dropped into an engine-house a few minutes, leaving the vessel beside the door. A rampant hog, in search of a rare Christmas dinner, discovered the tempting package and unceremoniously devoured the entire contents, just finishing the last atom as the torpedoist emerged from the building! Now everybody gives the greedy animal the widest latitude. It has full possession of the whole sidewalk whenever disposed to promenade. All the dogs in town have been placed in solitary confinement, for fear they might chase the loaded porker against a post. No one is sufficiently reckless to kick the critter, lest it should unexpectedly explode and send the town and its total belongings to everlasting smash! The matter is really becoming serious and how to dispose safely of a gormandizing swine that has imbibed two quarts of infernal glycerine is the grand conundrum of the hour. When he is killed and ground up into sausage and head-cheese a new terror will be added to the long list that boarding-houses possess already.”
Charles Foster, of the High-Explosive Company, had an adventure in March of 1896 that he would not repeat for a hatful of diamonds. He loaded five-hundred quarts of glycerine at the magazine near Kane City. On Rynd Hill the horses slipped and one fell. The driver jumped from his seat to hold the animal’s head that it might not struggle. He cut the other horse free from the harness, as the road skirted a precipice and the frightened beast’s rearing and plunging would almost certainly dump the wagon and outfit over the steep bank. Nobody was in sight, the driver had no chance to block the wheels and the wagon started down the hill backward. The vehicle, with its load of condensed destruction, kept the road a few yards and pitched over the hill, turning somersaults in its descent. It brought up standing on the tongue in a heap of stones. The covers were torn off the wagon and the cans of the explosive were widely scattered. Seven in one bunch were picked up ten yards below the road. A three-cornered hole had been jammed in the bottom of one of the eight-quart cans and the contents were escaping. Darkness came on before the glycerine could be removed to a place of safety. Foster secured a rig and drove home, after arranging to have the stuff taken to the factory next morning. How the explosive, although congealed, stood the shock of going over the hill and scattering about without soaring skyward is one of the unfathomed mysteries of the Nitro-Glycerine business.
A Polish resident of South Oil City carried home what he took to be an empty tomato-can. His wife chanced to upset it from a shelf in the kitchen. A few drops of glycerine must have adhered to the tin. The can burst with fearful violence, blowing out one side of the kitchen, destroying the woman’s eyes and nearly blinding her little daughter. A woman at Rouseville poured glycerine, mistaking it for lard-oil, into a frying-pan on the stove, just as her husband came into the kitchen. He snatched up the pan and landed it in a snow-bank so quickly the stuff didn’t burst the combination. The wife started to scold him, but fainted when he explained the situation.
The wonderful explosion at Hell-Gate in 1876, when General Newton fired two-hundred tons of dynamite and cleared a channel into New-York harbor for the largest steamships, brought to the front the men who always tell of something that beats the record. A group sat discussing Newton’s achievement at the Collins House, Oil City, as a Southerner with a military title entered. Catching the drift of the argument he said:
“Talk about sending rocks and water up in the air! I knew a case that knocked the socks clear off this little ripple at New York!”
“Tell us all about it, Colonel,” the party chorused.