AWFUL EXPLOSION AT NASHVILLE – LOSS OF LIFE – GREAT LOSS OF PROPERTY – ONE HUNDRED HOUSES DESTROYED.

We copy from the Nashville Gazette, of Wednesday last, the 18th instant, the following account of a terrible explosion of a powder magazine in that city. Passengers by the stage at Louisville, state that ten bodies had been taken from the ruins:

Yesterday afternoon a little after five o'clock during a storm of wind and rain a powder magazine was struck by lightning, (as supposed,) and blew up with a tremendous noise. The shock produced by the explosion was similar to that of an earthquake, and its effects are seen all over the city. In that portion of the city, immediately in the neighborhood of the magazine the houses are in a terrible situation, some completely razed to the ground, and others riddled and torn, as if they had undergone a bombardment. The number of houses cannot be less that a hundred.

Not a brick, not a vestage[sic] remains of the magazine. But the worst feature of this terrible calamity is the destruction of human life. It is not known how many are killed – we have heard of several, but at the time we write this paragraph, it is impossible to ascertain correctly who are lost. Of the inmates of nearly every house injured some are more or less wounded. This calamity has fallen mostly upon mechanics and laboring men – the houses being generally occupied by that class of citizens and they are deprived by it of, comfortable homes.

It was a mournful sight to look upon the shattered homes, the wounded covered with blood, bruised, crushed – the frightened, half crazed mother searching for her children, and the little ones, pale and motionless with fear, clinging closely to their parents. Heaven forbid that we should ever witness such a spectacle again!”

For the following additional particulars we are indebted to the special kindness and attention of our friends of the Gazette:

A house occupied by MR. SHIVERS was torn to pieces, injuring the family and killing a young lady. Mr. WILLIAMS' house and carpenter shop were torn to pieces. MR. TAYLOR'S dwelling, a new Methodist Church, and MRS. CLEVELAND'S house were greatly injured. One half of MRS. REED'S dwelling was jarred down and MRS. R. wounded. MR. CHANDLER, MR. BANG, MR. TARVER, MR. HARRIS, five large dwellings owned by N. J. MOORE, MR. COLE, MR. STOUD, MR. DEVINNY, MR. STEVENS, MR. SHANDLAIN, MR. J. W. SMITH, REV. MR. HENKLE, MR. MARCH, and fifty or sixty others, whose names I cannot recollect, lost seriously. All their household ware is broken, and their furniture and houses injured.

Liberty Weekly Tribune Missouri 1847-10-29
__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!