Davidson-Mecklenburg County NcArchives Obituaries.....Varker, Thomas May 10, 1854
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Shirley Gragg gragg02@comcast.net March 8, 2010, 1:48 pm

The Whig - 10 May 1854
Fatal Explosion.

Mining Accident in Mecklenburg County, NC – May 10, 1854

It is our painful duty to announce that an explosion of powder took place at 
the Hopewell Copper Mine, in this county, on Wednesday, the 10th instant, by 
which two men lost their lives and another severely, if not fatally injured.  
The two first were Marshall McKoy, the Superintendent of the mining operations 
and Captain VARKER, late of Greensboro, N. C. and the last a Dutchman, whose 
name we have not learned.  Mr. McKoy was a worthy and highly esteemed citizen 
of Mecklenburg county and leaves a disconsolate wife and nine children to 
mourn his sudden death.  Captain VARKER was also much esteemed by his new 
friends and neighbors, and leaves a wife and six children to deplore his 
untimely end.  The catastrophe is said to have happened in the following 
manner.  The three were in the Counting Room, where there were four kegs of 
powder, one of which had been opened, and was left uncovered, when the 
Dutchman, and only survivor of the three, in attempting to hang up a drawing 
knife, which he had been using, dropped from his pipe a coal of fire, which 
fell into the open keg of powder.  He, however, denies that he had any fire in 
his pipe, and says that there was powder on the floor, which was ignited by 
the friction of his feet upon the floor, though the other two, it is alleged, 
said before they died that they saw the fire drop from the pipe.  The Dutchman 
is still very low, and expresses a wish that he may not survive, after having 
unfortunately caused the death of his two friends. -- Whig.

The article was originally reported by the North Carolina Whig, a weekly 
newspaper in the area.
 



Additional Comments:
Thomas Varker was my great-grandfather. He had formerly lived for some years 
in Davidson County and was Captain of the Silver Hill mine.  The accident was 
near Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, NC.

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