1907 - Seven Killed By Explosion

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Wed Jun 27 21:49:16 EDT 2007


Roanoke Times - June 28, 1907

SEVEN KILLED BY EXPLOSION

Lynchburg, Val, June 27 -- Seven men were killed and four
seriously if not fatally injured by the premature explosion of
dynamite on the Tidewater Railway Tuesday afternoon at a point known
as Pola Cut, about twelve miles from Brookneal.
Six of the men killer were Italian laborers, whose names cannot be
learned here, and the seventh was Superintendent Cornelius Sullivan
of Lamont, Ill.
Three of the four men injured were also Italians and the fourth
was the engineer in charge of the dinky engine, which was standing
nearby at the time of the explosion. The engine was also badly damaged.
The exact cause of the explosion will never be known, as all of
the men who were engaged in loading the blast were killed.
Superintendent Sullivan was engaged in arranging the blast and he was
terribly mangled by the explosion, while several of the victims were
practically blown to pieces.
A coroner's inquest was held Tuesday evening, but no light was
thrown on the accident and the verdict was that the deaths of all of
the men were due purely from accidental causes.
It was impossible to secure any of the details of the accident in
the city yesterday.
The body of Superintendent Sullivan was brought to the city at
noon yesterday on the Durham train, and it was shipped to his home in
Illinois in the afternoon.
The accident occurred on the contract which is being executed by
the McDearmot Construction Company on which 200 men were engaged
though most of them were remote from the scene of the trouble where
it took place.

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- Ron Davis, Roger Link





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