East Greenwich, Rhode Island Greenwich
Academy Dormitory Explosion
November 13, 1907
GIRLS FACE DEATH BY EXPLOSION
Hurled from Their Beds Into Cellar of an
Academy Dormitory.
FIRE HEMS THEM IN NEAR DEATH
Panic Results and Many Fatalities are Narrowly
Averted at Fast Greenwich, Rhode Island
East Greenwich, R. I., Nov 13. – Two girl
students are dying and a third was painfully
injured and many narrow escapes from death in a
boiler explosion and fire in the Greenwich
Academy’s new Eastman dormitory, early today.
The terrific blast tore out the entire end of
the building in which the girls were sleeping.
Many of the girls were thrown from their beds by
the shock.
Flames burst so quickly from the debris that
several were unable to escape down the blazing
stairways and were forced to leap from
second-story windows. All were in their
nightclothes, and a number fell unconscious from
terror and exposure to the chilling wind.
The injured: Miss
Florence Bissell, 16, East Hartford,
Conn., cut, bruised and internally injured,
dying; Miss Hester
Gould, 16, Hartford, Conn.,
internally injured, dying;
Miss May Kellogg, 15, Holyoke,
Mass., burned, cut and bruised, out of danger.
The cause of the explosion has not yet been
determined. Miss
Kellogg, occupied a room on the first
floor, directly over the boiler and
Misses Bissell and Gould
the corresponding apartment on the second
floor.
The blast tore out both floors.
Miss Kellogg’s
bed plunged into the cellar and landed upright,
so close to the furnace that the young woman was
scorched by the heat.
PINNED IN DEBRIS.
The Misses Bissell and
Gould were sitting at a table in
their room when the floor yawned beneath them
and they went down in a smother of splintered
beams, brick and mortar. They were so wedged in
the wreckage that it took the rescuers more than
an hour to release them.
The fire was raging furiously in the meantime
and streams of water had to be played constantly
on the rescuers and victims alike to save them
from death in the flames.
It was believed among the refugees on the campus
that the unfortunates were being roasted to
death and several of the girls were so
determined to join in the work of rescue that
the instructress and attendants were compelled
to use force to compel them from rushing into
the blazing wreck.
The teachers were powerless to check the
panic which raged, not alone in the Eastman, but
in the other dormitories immediately after the
explosion. There was danger for a time, indeed,
but the prompt work of the firemen, together
with the villagers, who were all aroused by the
crash, finally confined the flames to the ruined
structure.
Trenton Evening Times, Trenton, NJ 13 Nov
1907
Transcribed by
Jenni Lanham. Thank you,
Jenni!
 Search
for more information on the Greenwich Academy
Dormitory Explosion and other disasters in the Historic
Newspapers Collection. The number of
newspapers on line has recently doubled - search
over 1000 different newspapers. Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
Search for ancestors in
East Greenwich, RI among billions of names at ancestry.com. Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
History
of the town of East Greenwich and adjacent
territory - from 1677 to 1877
Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
| 
