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The ghastly and deadly effects of the powerful substance composing nitroglycerine has again been heard from, and the effect was near enough to cause every inhabitant of Decatur to wonder where he was at. Not knowing the true cause of the terrific explosion, many judged it to be an earthquake or some other evil omen that would turn this worldly globe upside down and perchance cast our lot in the notable China, where we would deal with Japan without gloves. No distinguishable damage was done outside of unstringing one’s nerves and making him unfit—for the time being—of intelligibly appending his John Hancock to a note calling for a thousand or more. The inquiries were then numerous but no one could penetrate the unfathomed mystery and determine upon a con-; elusive evidence for a true finding. However a half hour afterwards a telephone message from Bluffton 5 unfolded the true meaning, which was to the effect that a wagon load of glycerine had exploded, leaving no one behind to tell the sorrowful [ tale of how it happened. In a few ; minutes after the news reached here, delegations of our people were I on their way to the scene ofdisaster.Curiosity raged at a fire heat. Not less than one huudred of our people t visited the fatal scene on this day, which was at Pow*!l’s ford, two miles this side of Bluffton, on the banks of t he raging Wabash. There a deep hole some forty feet across ' the top and perhaps twenty-live or ' thirty at the bottom, showed con* I clusiveiy where some explosion had f occurred. It seems that William Ulmer had left the factory that morning with 720 quads of gl.cer-ine, which was stowed away in au 1 Umpire wagon. The ford is some two miles from the factory. The 1 explosion was either the result of leaking glycerine or by a jar against on oak tree that overhung the road. The latter theory is the more accepted, and it is the belief of most of those who viewed the scene of 1 the accident. Ulmer had been in the services of the Empirecompany almost from its Ireginning. He was aged twenty-two years. One of the strange things concerning him and his work was that his folks were very anxious to have himengagein something less hazardous, but as he owed a few dollars on his team he decided to make one more trip and ■ then find work which if less remu-‘ nerative would at least be safer.1 All that could be found of Ulmer’s remains were a few bits of clothing and fragments of bleeding flesh,’ which were collected and taken to Coroner McBride’s undertaking establishment. Part of one horse was found a hundred feet away from the scene of the explosion, and part of 1 another on the river bank an equal distance away. It hardly seems credible to those unacquainted with the terrible explosive power of nitroclyceiine, that so much damage could be done by 720 quarts of the fluid. Four or five mammoth 1 oaks stood near the river bank which were badly uprooted and broken into pieces, while smaller ’ ones were hurled a distance of five hundred feet. Fences were blown ! down, houses and barns wrecked and incredible damage done. The jar was felt not only here but at Marion, Portland, Muncie, Hartford City, Fort Wayne, Hunting-5 ton, Warren, Ossian and Montpe-‘ lier. Funeral services were held Sunday in the Christian church at Bluffton, over the few collected remains of the unfortunate Ulmer.
Newspaper Details
Decatur Democrat Press
Decatur, Indiana, US
Thu, May 02, 1895
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 06 Sep 2023
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