31 August 1916: William Whitman, a furnaceman employed at the Lebanon Blast Furnace Company's plant known as Meily's Furnance, was instantly killed in a most distressing accident on Wednesday evening (Aug 39, 1916) about 9 o'clock. Just how the accident really occurred has not yet been fully ascertained, but from accounts given by various workmen witnesses, the following details have been gleamed.

Whitman was employed in the rock house, from which point the incline railway carries the ore and fuel to the top of the furnance stack. A cage had just started up the incline with two buggies of ore and fuel, when Whitman noticed that the safety rail at the rear of the cage had not been properly fastened. It was lated pointed out that the easiest way to have corrected the defect, would have been for Whitman to signal the engineer at the top to stop the cage or return it to the bottom for adjustment, but Whitman, eager to do his best, and without thought of probable consequences, impetuously dashed after the car hoping to overtake it and fix the bar.

The man had reached a point half way up the steps of the incline, when of a sudden one of the buggies lurch from the cage, and dropped downward, landing on the down going cage, in which it reached the bottom with the two regular buggies belonging on that cage.

In the meanwhile however, Whitman landed fifty feet below, in the water of the Brandywine Creek, which flows past the furnace. Those who saw the accident say that the failing buggy did not strike him at all, and that he fell off the step and out under the railing in an effort to avoid the buggy. This theory is corroborated by the statement of a physician called to the scene, who says that the only injury found on the body was a severe injury to the man's head, which, it is supposed, was sustained when he landed in the stoney bed of the creek.

The accident was the more deeply deplored by officials and workmen alike, because there was so little occasion for it, they said. Even had the steel buggy fallen out as it eventually did, and had it gone to the bottom, the damage could not have been serious, and in any event would have meant much less than the sacrifice of a life, and fellow workmen of the unfortunate victim of the accident are unable to account for the action of their companion in the premises.

A pathetic feature of the case was that Whitman leaves a large family of children, some of them very small, and that his wife is seriously ill. He was also the support of his aged mother. Besides the mother, Mrs. Sarah Whitman, and his wife, he leaves these children: Oscar, Mary, Henry, Harvey, Emma, Charles, Sarah and Helen. Jonas, Harry, John, Frank and George Whitman are brothers, and Mrs. Harry Kreiser, Mrs. Levi Stoudt, and Mrs. Emma Douple are sisters. The family reside at 135 North Fourteenth Street. (Lebanon Daily News, Page 1 & 2)