Mining: The Heart of
Westville /
The Coal Mining Legacy
/
The Drummond Colliery
Disaster /
Boiler Explosion /
The Moose River Gold Mine
Rescue /
Highlights of the Coal
Legacy /
The Miners Monument
Boiler Explosion
A spectacular mine accident occurred at the Drummond Colliery on Thursday April 2, 1914, when a boiler explosion claimed seven lives and seriously hurt five others.
The dead were William Betts, Manuel Josey, Arthur McKearney, Lorne McKenzie, D.L. McMillan, Frank Ryan and George Taylor.
The injured were Daniel Fraser, Eli Little, Angus McDonald, John Angus McDonald, and Benjamin McKearney.
It was a cold day and several outside workers had come into the warm boiler room to eat their lunches. They were sitting around, directly above No. 5 boiler which suddenly blew up with terrific force.
The boiler was one of six used at the colliery. The boiler broke in two, hurling the back part 70 yards and the front part an equal distance in the opposite direction, nearly wrecking the boiler house and damaging other parts of the surface plant. Large coal cars, loaded to the top were turned over and smashed in the wake of the explosion’s force.
An eyewitness reported hearing a roar and then seeing the boiler rise in the air followed by a black cloud of smoke and steam filled with countless items of wreckage flying in all directions.
Doctors Bruce and Ross were called to the scene to attend to the injured. Dr. M.D. Sutherland, the coroner, was also present.
Boiler Explosion of 1914
The cause of the disaster was not determined. The boiler was practically new, having been in service only about four years and was said to be in splendid shape. The Coroner’s jury suspected inferior boiler plate, but experienced operators were inclined to think that water had been allowed to get too low.
Apparently there was then no provincial boiler inspector, and the jury recommended the appointment of government inspections of boilers.
Summing up the disaster, a reporter for “The Free Lance”, a Westville paper, said, “This is an accident which has been stamped indelibly on the minds of every person, who has viewed the scene of the accident, and one which again forces our notice the well-known Biblical quotation: “In the Midst of life we are in death.”
