SIX MEN KILLED
In a Boiler Explosion Near Homer.

A Faulty Pump Brings on an Awful Disaster to a Party of Threshers. The Report Heard for Miles.

THE DEAD
JOHN KETTLE, owner of the threshing machine; was sixty years of age and leaves a wife and five children.

JAMES BOWERS, was fifty-eight years of age, and leaves a wife and four children.

BARNEY BELL, aged seventeen years.

SIDNEY BELL, aged nineteen years.

NORMAN SILLEN, son of the owner of the engine; was forty-three years of age and leaves a wife and three children.

JOSEPH SHIPP, fireman, died Tuesday from the effects of injuries received.

THE INJURED
JOHN KITTLE, JR., leg broken, hip knocked out of joint and internally injured.

THOMAS EDMUNDS, face badly scalded and bruised.

LUTHER SILLEN, owner of the engine, slightly hurt.

Last Monday, Luther Sillen and John Kittle, owners of a threshing outfit, were at work on the Lew Pierson farm threshing his wheat. The pump on the engine had not been operating well during the day, but being near quitting time the men paid but little attentiion to it, and the water was allowed to become too low in the boiler. The result was that at just six o'clock the boiler exploded with a noise that was heard for miles, and the air was filled with steam, dust, straw, flames, and human fragments, which carried with them the death and injury of nearly a dozen men and a team of horses. The engine being blown onto the straw-stack set fire to it, burning up the straw, the separator, wagon and charring the bodies of the men beyond recognition. The force of the explosion was terrific. The engine was driven through a wagon to which a team of horses were hitched, and they were killed. An old gentleman working on the stack saw the engine coming and jumped out of the way, thus saving his life. The men killed were horribly burned and charred, some being torn in a frightful manner.

At the time of the explosion, John and Frank Bell were close at hand. Frank on a load of grain, pitching to the machine, with the horses heads toward the engine. John Bell was cutting bands on the table in front of the cylinder, and John Kittle was feeding the grain into the machine; Joseph Shipp and Thomas Edmunds were standing near and employed about the machine in various capacities, as was John Kittle, Jr., son of the owner of the machine. Norman Sillen, son of Luther Sillen, and James Bowers were on the straw stack, helping to pile it up.

Coroner Ed Crayton was called to the scene of the disaster, and stated to a newspaper reporter that the account given of the affair could not be overdrawn, in fact the scene begged a description. A pile of scrap iron, the remains of the separator, the engine turned over on its back, the steaming carcasses of a team of horses and a pile of smouldering wheat marked the fatal spot. It will be impossible to definitely fix the responsibility. There are so many conflicting stories that the Coroner will have difficulty in rendering a verdict.

The community today is shrouded in sorrow. The awful suddenness of the blow that has left so many homes desolate and burdened so many hearts with unutterable anguish has stunned the residents. Nothing so wide spread in its ruinous consequences has even fallen upon the peaceful residents of this county. It is the most appalling event that ever shocked this or any other farming community.

Published in the Granville Times, Granville, Ohio, August 3, 1893.