In early October 1896, life in Danville was good. The colors of autumn were displayed and merchants in the downtown were advertising their wares. At the corner of Mill and Mulberry Streets, J.H. Cole had stocked his “new room” with a new and clean line of hardware and tools. John F. Tooley had just opened a new grocery at 318 Mill Street in the room formerly occupied by the Grand Union Tea Company.

And on Thursday, Oct 8, 1896, nothing appeared out of the ordinary at the Montour Rolling Mills of the Reading Iron Company. But just before 8 pm, the Number 5 boiler exploded, ripping through the building and sending a portion of it like a 20th-century rocket outside and into a home on Northumberland Street. The explosion was felt in most parts of Danville, shaking some buildings and rattling windows.

By the time the dust and debris settled, a six-week-old baby had been killed in its mother’s arms. The explosion also resulted in the deaths of five others, all workmen inside the mill. Thirty-three other employees sustained injuries ranging from critical to minor. Mrs. John Baron, mother of the six-week-old child suffered broken ribs when part of the original 28-foot boiler crashed through the home and landed 100 feet beyond the house, a total of 180 yards from the point of the explosion. One of those injured in the blast was the woman’s husband.

Upon exploding, part of the boiler was forced backward inside the building, sending scalding steam, bricks, and pieces of iron in different directions.

News of the disaster spread quickly and hundreds from the town rushed to the scene, looking for friends and family members and to provide aid to the injured.

Robert Reid, the Mill Manager and one of those scalded by steam and injured by debris, pulled a coworker from under a pile of rubble.

The dead included two brothers, Thomas and Oliver Cromwell, brick masons who were under the Number 5 boiler at the time of its explosion, repairing the roof of the furnace. The others killed included Johnson Lovett, a charger at heating furnaces, John Castleman, a plumber and John Mullen, employed on the hotbed.

What caused the boiler to explode has never been determined. Just the day before the fatal accident, someone from Reading had been inspecting the boilers at the Rolling Mills. And some five minutes before the explosion several men and women were standing on a line where the boiler exploded, but had moved on to another area of the Mill.

Within days of the mishap, laborers were clearing away debris and making repairs, allowing the mill to resume operations in less than two weeks.

Ironically, the blast on October 8, 1896, occurred almost forty-two years to the day of another deadly explosion at the Mill. On October 7, 1854, as many as ten people died and many others injured when a boiler exploded and passed through a home right next door to the one destroyed in the 1896 blast. In the 1854 explosion, those killed included two children who had been sleeping in their beds. The body of one of them was found inside the boiler, which landed in the same area as the one in 1896.

Also in 1868, a boiler exploded in the puddling mill of what was part of the original mill and landed in the basin below the Mill, three hundred yards away.

One more irony, the first “T” Rail in America was rolled on October 8, 1845, fifty-one years after the 1896 boiler explosion. Danville’s place in the history books was forever forged because of the “T” Rail, but there was a cost of hard labor and lost lives.

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Over the years, Danville has been rocked by several boiler explosions from Iron mills, killing several workers and citizens, and injuring many others. At least two of those disastrous accidents occurred in the month of October. We rely on an article in the Lebanon Semi-Weekly Report that provides details on an October 6, 1854, explosion at the Montour Rolling mill. According to the story, a boiler exploded that day, carrying it 100 feet from its foundation. It also demolished a nearby frame dwelling and a stable, and tore away 40 feet of the mill, burying several people in the rubble. A nearby home, occupied by two families was destroyed by the blast. The family of John Farley lived upstairs, and one of his two children was killed instantly. The other, a little girl, was found in the ruins, was critically injured, and was not expected to survive. In the lower story of the home three of the children of Barney McGuire were hurt. McGuire himself, Peter Monaghan, and Lawrence McBride were also in the house at the time and were injured. Also identified among the dead was a boy by the name of the Charles Search. John Priest, John Dissinger, Alexander Wands, John Adams, Michael Levy, Isaac Hines, William Butler, and Joseph Shuggart were all badly scalded. Robert Woods, Bryan Dennen, John Miller, and Samuel Dietz were slightly injured. An effort was underway to remove debris as quickly as possible because more victims were believed buried in the rubble. The boiler was running but had no water inside causing that explosion.