A Brief Note From 1904 About Dynamite

From the March 21, 1904 New York Times:

Paterson, N.J.--The little mining village of Sterling Junction, N.Y., is at present speculating as to what is going to happen to Antonio Colone, six years old, who is lying in a serious condition in his father’s hut near the iron mine there. Last Thursday Antonio ate a stick of dynamite.

According to the story told by the boy’s father, Guiseppe Colone, he and some other laborers were employed at the junction on Thursday afternoon unloading a car of dynamite consigned to the Sterling Iron and Mining Company. Little Antonio sat by watching the operations.

The boy got hold of a stick of the explosive, and it is supposed that he took it for some kind of candy, for he ate it. He was still chewing the stuff when his father noticed the stump of the cartridge in the boy’s hands. He took it away from him and carried the boy very gently to the hut. There Antonio became unconscious. 

The father only knew one thing about dynamite, and that was its explosive properties. He dared not move the child for fear of an immediate disaster, so he sent to Sloatsburg for Dr. J.M. Gillett.

The physician found the boy in a state of coma, his temperature very high, and his heart beating at top speed. The latter symptom he attributed to the effect of the nitroglycerine contained in the dynamite. The doctor said the boy would certainly die.”

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