The State Herald

A POWDER EXPLOSION.
Ten Men Killed at a Powder Mill in Delaware.

WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 7.- Several startling explosions in quick succession, some counted five, others seven, at 3:30 p.m., announced to Wilmington a disaster at the Dupont powder works on the Brandywine. A rush was made for telephones but nothing could be learned beyond vague reports of damage.

An Associated Press representative hastened at once to the scene, and has just wired that the whole section of the works known as the "upper yard" is a complete wreck and that at least six lives have been lost.

One of the magazines went off first, and the rolling and drying mills near by, set off by the concussion, followed in rapid succession. There were at least seven distinct successive explosions. Every dwelling in the neighborhood is reported wrecked or unroofed or more or less damaged.

Telephonic inquiries from West Chester state that the explosions were distinctly heard in that section.

Later- A messenger has just brought in the following dispatch, which shows that the worst has not yet been learned of the powder mill explosion: "Ten killed twenty wounded. Rockland a complete wreck. None of its houses left standing."

Rockland is a village on the Brandywine, nearly a mile above the scene of the explosion. It has a large paper mill, owned by the Jessup & Moore Company, and about fifty dwellings, in which chiefly reside the mill employees. Its population is about 200. Evidence of destruction at that distance leads to the belief here that the number of killed and wounded is not definitely ascertained.

The dead were all employees of the company, and were in and about the mills that exploded.

Several workmen are missing and are believed to have been blown into fragments.

The wounded received their injuries among the walls of their falling houses and by broken glass and flying debris.

The first explosion occurred in one of the packing mills where a workman named Gran was receiving a can of hexagonal powder to be shipped for the use of the United States government. In some way a spark communicated to the can and blew it up. Instantly the packing mill exploded and the other mills in the upper yards, seven or eight in number, followed at intervals of less than one second.

All these except one were "rolling mills" in which the ingredients of gunpowder are pulverized by action of rollers of stone turning slowly around a central post. The whole machinery is driven by water power. The odd one was a mixing mill.

Immediately after the explosion a large building, known as the "refinery," located near the center of the village, took fire. It was a matter of life and death to the whole population that this fire should be extinguished before it communicated with the powder the building contained. The Dupont fire brigade valiantly fought the flames, which had caught the roof and succeeded in extinguishing them. Had the roof fallen in it is doubtful if any man, woman or child in the vicinity would have escaped death or serious injury.

About fifty families are rendered homeless by the disaster. It is estimated that the loss cannot be less than $500,000.

The shock of the explosion was plainly felt in many sections of Philadelphia, Millville, New Jersey; Chester, Pennsylvania, and other points thirty to thirty-five miles distant.