MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSION - 1869

LORIMER

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 4/21/2016 at 12:25:43

Dubuque Daily Herald – July 15, 1869 Page 4

MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSION – On Tuesday evening last, about 8 o’clock, Mrs. G. C. Dean was sitting in her room at the Lorimer House with a friend, when they were suddenly startled and terrified by an explosion as loud as or louder than a gun. This was followed by a smoke and a sulphur smell, different however from gunpowder. An examination failed to reveal a gun, a revolver or an infernal machine, but it did reveal a soft glutinous substance scattered in various places around the room, and whatever it touched it injured or destroyed. Articles of clothing and the carpet had their color taken out and some of it falling upon a marble topped table ate into it like an acid. No one knows where it came from, or what it was. It certainly was a strange phenomenon, and will form a subject of study for the curious.