"Accident Blasting Rocks." Boyden Scrapbook Page 35

"Accident Blasting Rocks." Boyden Scrapbook Page 35

Author: Lowell Journal "U.A.B." Railroad construction accidents

Year: 1834

Detail of page 35 of the Uriah Boyden Scrapbook, Proprietors of Lock and Canals on the Merrimack River Collection (original call number: P77) Cutter number: L.F.B6936, Center for Lowell History, Oversized Collection, Row P., news clipping from the Lowell Journal, September 24, 1934. Full text: For the Journal Accident Blasting Rocks. At a ledge in Wilmington, near the intersection of the Boston and Lowell Railroad with the stage road, some men are employed in blasting. On the 18h inst. one of the laborers, Patrick Hogan, a respectable Irishman, in drilling out a charge, which from an accident could not be fired by the usual method, drilled into the powder, when, probably by the drill’s striking fire, the powder exploded, and broke a large drill which he had in his hand, but did not rend the rock much, or hurt any person but Mr. Hogan, what had his face and right side badly lacerated —one or two stones piercing through his side into his chest; he will probably recover. The frequency of accidents in the use of powder will probably always be in proportion to the imprudence of those who use it. For it is not probable that any method of rending rocks by powder will ever be invented, whi