The Ouachita Telegraph - Boiler Explosion

Date: Mar. 2004
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>




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The Ouachita Telegraph
March 1, 1866
Page 2, Column 1
  BOILER EXPLOSION.-The boiler of Grant's steam mill, situated 12 miles from 
here on the Bastrop road, exploded last week, killing a Mr. Coleman and a 
negro.  Mr. C. was blown upon the log, which was on the carriage, in such a 
position that his head was sawed open.  The negro was killed outright, one 
of his legs being blown a distance of 60 yards.  The machinery was badly 
damaged, and mill generally pretty well wrecked.  The accident is otherwise 
a serious one on account of the great demand for lumber.


The Ouachita Telegraph
March 1, 1866
Page 2, Column 1
  The New Albany Ledger, referring to the casualties at the explosion of the 
ill-fated Missouri, says:
  An old gentleman from Ouachita, who got upon the boat at Helena, was
among  those lost.  He has a daughter going to school at Shelbyville, Ky., and
was on his way to pay her a visit.
  Dr. Edward R. Cage, of Vernon, Jackson Parish, had a daugher going to 
school at Shelbyville, and recently left his home for the purpose of paying 
her a visit.  He also had a brother at Helena, whom he designed to call and 
see.  Dr. Cage was about 51 years of age.  So that, we very much fear that 
he is the gentleman alluded to and that he who had soothed the last moments 
of thousands of his fellows went to his final account mangled and torn, with 
not a pitying hand to grasp in the last sad farewell.


The Ouachita Telegraph
March 15, 1866
Page 2, Column 3
  All hope of the safety of our much esteemed freind, Dr. E.R. Cage, of 
Vernon, who, it was feared was lost on the Missouri, is about extinguished.  
Some of his relatives, who have thoroughly investigated the matter, have 
reluctantly come to such a conclusion.  Our neighboring parish has lost a 
citizen, who had always sympathy for the distressed and kindness for the 
poor.  We should be ungrateful to forget his kindness to us when a 
straggling youth and his uniform kind consideration for the young, evincing 
in this, one of the noblest traits in human nature.  His death leaves to his 
brothers, of whom he has three or four surviving, or in default of them, to 
an unfeeling world, three motherless children, whose patrimony, otherwise 
ample, will be sensibly diminished by the loss of a considerable amount of 
money which, we learn, the Doctor had with him.

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