382                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

lets, then chewed, and dragged about in the dirt and saw-dust. It is pain-
fully suggestive of the sad and deadly disaster of last Saturday.”
    A fatal boiler explosion in the puddling department of the rolling-
mill of the Central Iron and Steel Company, Monday, January 9, 1888,
shook up and startled the population of the city of Brazil, many of whom
were at the dinner table at the time, as it occurred at exactly 12:25 p.m.
The exploded boiler was riven in two, one end projected against the
brick stack on the east side of the mill and the other against the stack
on the west side, demolishing both. The sheet roofing, with its support of
timber beams and iron stays, was precipitated in promiscuous ruins upon
the floor, and in the midst of tumbling walls, cracking timbers, brick and
iron missiles, showers of hot water and clouds of steam, were a number of
men at their posts of duty. The scene immediately following the crash
was a mass of debris in the midst of which lay a dozen or more victims,
cut, bruised, scalded, burned and disfigured almost beyond recognition,
some pinioned to the floor, wholly unable to extricate themselves.
    The instantly killed were Mat Mortimer and John E. Tobin; the
injured, John J. Lewis, Peter Dolan, Edward Myers, William Williams,
John Bentley, Edward McGlew, Elias T. Davis, George Hendrix, John
Kaufman, John L. Sullivan. Having held an investigation, Coroner Sla-
vens found that the explosion was attributable to defective machinery.
Previous to this there was a disastrously fatal explosion at this place on
the 10th day of February, 1885. The killed were Mahlon Barker, Robert
Davis, Peter Farrel, William Pettit, Lewis Miller, George Miller, James
Billeter, the last named surviving his injuries three days. The injured
were James Rogers, John Nussel, Thomas Kennedy, Francis Paney,
Matthew Mortimer, Thomas Brady, Thomas Hendrix, John Burns, John
Daly, Thomas O’Mara, Charles Sage, Thomas Sullivan, Thomas Chilton,
Henry Brankstin.
    A triple fatality from the explosion of both powder and dynamite
occurred on the John Nees place, in the southeast part of Perry town-
ship, at an early hour of the forenoon, Wednesday, May 3, 1893. William
Nees, a son, William Irwin, a son-in -law, of John Nees, and Roy Gard,
young men, were at work sinking a coal shaft. In a small shop on the
ground, in which was a forge, where they sharpened their tools, there
was a keg of powder and a quantity of dynamite for blasting use. The
keg of powder had been previously opened. One of the party was at the
forge working on the tools, when, as believed (there being no other way
to account for it), a spark thrown off from the forge or from the iron
in pounding, dropped, into the keg, igniting the powder. Of the three
men named, Irwin and Gard were instantly killed, and Nees fatally
injured, dying about three weeks later. There were several others on
the ground and about the shop, who escaped injury.
    On Monday evening, June 11, 1900, while operating his saw-mill, at
Howesville, William Rumple was instantly killed by the explosion of the
boiler. A son employed about the mill escaped with but little injury.
Rumple was a man about sixty years of age. It was said at the time that
he knew the boiler to be defective and unsafe, but that he put his trust
in its holding out until he should complete the cash job of sawing then
being done, the proceeds of which he intended to apply on the purchase
of a new and safe one.
    The Bowling Green saw-mill was completely wrecked by the explo-
sion of the boiler, Friday, January 31, 1908, throwing out timber and