Delaware Inquirer

TERRIFIC BOILER EXPLOSION.

The Worcester Spy, of Saturday, gives some particulars of the terrific boiler explosion at Washburn & Co's Wire Factory, in that city, on Friday afternoon: One of the most terrific explosions that ever occurred in this vicinity, took place in this city yesterday afternoon, about one o'clock, at the Wire Factory of Messrs. I. Washburn & Co., on Grove street. The large steam boiler thirty feet long, and four feet in diameter, and weighing about five tons, attached to their powerful engine, exploded with tremendous force, scattering the engine house (which is of brick) into atoms, demolishing a portion of the walls of the main building adjacent, and injuring several workmen one severely, but it is hoped not fatally. So immense was the force of the explosion that the ponderous boiler, leaving the fire box and the crown sheet behind, shot through the engine house walls into the air, to an altitude of two hundred feet at the highest estimated by many observers, and reaching the ground, striking with the top downwards, in the garden of Mr. J. M. C. Armsby, on Lincoln street, over a quarter of a mile distant, and driving itself into the earth to the depth of four feet; but it rebounded from the garden, and breaking off a portion of the top or rim, which it left buried there finally expended its force in landing itself on the other side of Lincoln street, where it lay extending diagonally across. It tore away Mr. Armsby's fence for a width of fifteen feet and injured the fence of Mr. J. H. Gerauld. There were over one hundred men at work in the factory at the time, and a number of persons were at work upon the grounds outside. It seems almost miraculous that all escaped with their lives, and that so few were injured. When the boiler rebounded across Lincoln street, two men were riding by in a carriage, and very narrowly escaped death. The cause of the catastrophe is explained by the proprietors of the establishment in this way:-While some of the men were at work hoisting up the wire, the rope became entangled around the shafting, rendering a stoppage of the engine necessary, with a closing of the safety valve. The consequence was an increased pressure of the steam, which caused the explosion.