Show I I BLOWN TO ATOMS Four Workmen Torn i Shreds by an Explosion THE MAYFLOWER LAID UP Several IMew England Towns Feet iiiffthetSreat Explosion JlejjlyRd I Was WiffElirs EaWhquake Civil S nice Rules A Fatal Explosion EABTOKOXTHESOUKD N Y Sept 80A terrific explosion occurred at the Ditmer i Powder Works Bay Chester on the Harlem river on a branch of the New York and New Haven Railroad at 10 oclock this morning resulting in the instantaneous death of four men employed in the factory The explosion explo-sion occurred in the packing house a one story frame building 20x30 feet in the center of the grounds and about 2 yards from the main factory large building near the water where the bulk of the giant powder and nitroglycerine used for the new aqueduct aque-duct works is manufactured The men were hard at work putting np and packing cartridges car-tridges when suddenly and without warning the explosion occurred shattering the building I build-ing to splinters and blowing four I men to fragments The exploding powderof which there was a large quantity shot np into the air as high as fifty feet and splinters of the building were blown over a mile distant The names of the men killed are as follows Ernest Dralen John Rusch Max Shafbolt and Mr Reinhart Nothing is left of them except fragments of their bodies their hands legs feet arms and pieces of skulls backbones and charred bits of flesh are scattered in every direction from 509 to 600 feet from the packing house Max Cruger fireman of the works says the explosion was caused by two men shooting into the building He was in the packing house at the time and coming out found two men who said they were shooting squirrels He says he threatened them with arrest when they became impudent impu-dent and when the explosion occurred men were seen hurrying away R H Stan field superintendent of the Thorite Powder Company near by picked up a boxful of the fragments of the dead men and others assisted in the work and the remainder were all put in a heap to await the Coroners arrival One of the dead men leaves a family fam-ily in Germany the others were single men Their clothing is burned to shreds The main factory of the Ditmer works was nearly wrecked After the explosion the lower timbers of the building took fire and burned fiercely A large tree near by was torn up by the roots and branches of other trees were blown away The ground for half a mile around the place of the explosion is strewn with fragments of tho dead splinters packing pack-ing paper etc The violence of the explosion explo-sion shook the houses in Bartow across the creek from Bay Chester Many windows in the hotel at Pelham bridge over a mile away were shattered At West Chester the windows in many houses were broken This is the second explosion that has occurred oc-curred in these works this year One last winter blew a man into fragments Many persons living miles away drove hurriedly to the scene and some of them helped to gather together the fragments of the dead men The windows sashes and doors in the railroad station standing at Bay Chester not far from the powder works were blown to fragments and the wiqdows in the other houses were damaged but no one outside the factory was hurt |