How A Deadly Factory Explosion In 1854 Fueled The Creation Of Hartford’s First Hospital
By Matthew Sturdevant,, The Hartford Courant | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Macabre scenes vividly detailed in The Courant convey the dire work conditions and gritty urban living of
It was a call to action:
At the time, doctors made house calls and even performed surgeries in homes. But
"So, here was
For years, the public balked at the
While doctors cared for the well-to-do at home, poor laborers and their family members ended up in charitable sick homes, the predecessors to hospitals as a place of last resort for someone seriously ill or injured, Crombie said.
"You have to realize that the institutions that were taking care of the sick were in the category of almshouses and pest houses, in the sense that the infected people of the lower echelons of society that had no home -- or at least didn't have a dignified, classy looking home that you would bring a doctor in to look after you -- they went to those institutions," Crombie said.
Medicine was not the refined and regulated practice that it is today. Only about half of medical practitioners in
"Surgery was done on kitchen tables," said
A Thriving Enterprise
The 1850s were a time of change and growth in
One such thriving enterprise was Fales & Gray. It employed about 300 people, which was a lot in those days as work opportunities expanded from small blacksmith shops and other tiny trade operations.
In the Fales & Gray Car Works plant, soot-smeared blacksmiths toiled near white-hot furnaces, their assistants hammering metal into shape as parts for railroad cars, according to "Connecticut Disasters: True Stories Of Tragedy And Survival," by
The factory's new steam boiler that flew apart in mangled wreckage had replaced an older one, often rigged with lead weights hung from the safety valve to keep the machine chugging along regardless of potential hazards, according to testimony and Grant's book.
It's not as though Fales & Gray was the first catastrophic result of the industrial age involving a steam engine in
Steamboats made regular trips from
But, unlike the riverboat disasters, the Fales & Gray explosion happened in the heart of
A Few Drinks With The Midday Meal
Fales & Gray was near the
The operator of the steam boiler,
The machine had been operating only about a month on the afternoon of
McCune had come back from a midday meal during which he downed a few drinks with a friend at a nearby saloon. McCune was talking to a local printer named
McCune, who was distracted and had a little alcohol in his system, also was prone to carelessness, according to one co-worker.
"I considered John rather a careless man,"
"That forenoon I had a conversation with McCune in regard to his carelessness and told him if [the steam boiler] blew it would kill me, and he said, 'God, I shall have a blow up if I am not more careful.' He said he did not like the 5 flue boilers, it worked his water off so fast; he was always tired at night. He had to fly around so with the new boiler ..."
Blow up, it did -- right around
One blacksmith,
"Another man was buried in rubbish near me whom I tried to get out -- don't know who he was -- saw nothing to give any alarm or indicate an explosion until I found myself buried in the ruins," The Courant reported Collins saying.
During the inquest,
'Unfortunate Calamity'
The explosion was the talk of
On
"The late unfortunate calamity demonstrates clearly the necessity of the establishment of a regular and efficient Hospital in our City. ... Accidents are constantly occurring in the breaking of limbs and in other similar calamities where a place is needed for the proper attention and care of those suffering thereby. ... The utility of such an institution is evident. The necessity of it so great as to call for immediate action. Who will move in it?"
On
The following February, doctors, wealthy merchants, manufacturers and some of the people involved in the Home for the Sick met and formed the first board of directors of the newly founded
The hospital wasn't the only outgrowth of the Fales & Gray explosion. A decade later, the state Legislature passed a boiler inspection law requiring annual safety inspections, according to the 1966 book "
The blast also led to the formation of the
Allen, Reed and the president of the
The Fales & Gray explosion was an awakening in
"Agrarian accidents were happening all the time," Crombie said of the 1800s. "Horses were kicking guys and fracturing their skulls, and all of that sort of thing. But in each case, it was a mini-event.
"Suddenly, you get this, with 20 people dead and all these casualties, people who had to have bones set and wounds cleaned up and all that. ... It was risky territory all over the industrial era, particularly in the first half."
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