Philip had been working in Milliner’s planing mill, learning the trad of patternmaker.  John and I got jobs at the Dilworth Rolling Mill, packing railroad spikes.  Our work was in a basement, near a large boiler which furnished steam for the large spike machines on the floor above.  It was nice work and we each got a dollar a day.  But a few weeks after Mother had received the sad news of brother Henry’s death, that boiler blew up.  There were only four in the basement – two men, John and I.  The two men were killed; John and I were badly burnt and scalded.  I could not find John, the basement was so full of the hot steam.  Then a part of the wall fell in, I saw light and crawled out.  A lot of men were standing about; I asked them to go in and get John, and one went to the hole, but backed out; it was too hot for him.  I could hear John crying for Mother, so I went back and I found him with his arms around an upright timber.  I pulled him over to the hole and we got out just as the timber gave way and the big machines came crashing down into the basement.  John’s hands and the side of his face were badly burned.  My arms, hands, neck, face, breast and ankles were cooked, not much hide left on me.  John was soon up and about, but I was in bed fro seven weeks and for three weeks could not see.

The boiler had been condemned, so the Company paid each of the families of the two men who were killed $10,000.  A number of people tried to get Mother to enter suit for the same, but she refused to do so.  Mr. Rolf, a member of the little church, who had been very kind to her int he past, was a member of the mill company.  He came to see her and told her the Company would pay us our wages until we were able to work, and pay all of our expenses.  Then Mother asked him about my arm; it had been burnt so bad that I could not straighten it but had to carry it against my breast.  Mr. Rold told her he would find a doctor who could fix my arm, or he would pay her more than she could get in any court.  The doctor came from Philadelphia and in four weeks my arm was all right.  Mother told me he got $800.00 from Mr. Rolf.  The Company offered us good jobs at the mill, but I would not go within a block of a boiler for more than a year.

~ Conrad Smith¹⁾My Early Life and the Civil War, Conrad Smith, 1920, pages 15-19