Terrible Conflagration of Oil Wells

The Daily Exchange (Baltimore, Md.), April 27, 1861

The express from Titusville on Thursday [April 18] brought the news of a terrible conflagration which occurred at Rouseville, fourteen miles below that place, at 4 o’clock on Wednesday. The particulars, as near as we could glean them from an informant who left Titusville on Thursday morning, are as follows:

A party of men were drilling at the Merrick Well, and at about 3 o’clock struck the largest vein of oil yet discovered. The oil and gas flowed from the well in a four-inch stream and spouted into the air to the height of fifty feet, with a loud rushing sound. Preparations were made to save the oil, and while dipping it from the ground into barrels, the gas—which had heavily charged the atmosphere—became ignited by some means unknown. It exploded with the noise of thunder, which was heard at a distance of six miles. Instantly, the whole neighborhood was in flames, burning with the fierceness of a volcanic fire.

Four men were burned to a crisp at the well where the explosion took place. A fifth, Mr. Henry R. Rouse, of the firm Rouse, Mitchell & Brown, was so badly burned that his bowels protruded and his body was almost completely robbed of its skin and flesh. He was not expected to live twenty minutes, and persons were dispatched to Titusville for physicians.

These persons—whose information was all that was known at Titusville up to the time our informant left—stated that the flames had spread from well to well and bounded over the ground in every direction as if chased by a whirlwind. All derricks and combustible matter in the vicinity were expected to be destroyed.

They also expressed fears that large numbers of people had perished. At the moment they left, many were missing, and the utmost confusion prevailed.

It seems there were a large number of wells on the plot, many of them only thirty feet apart. As the light was seen to grow brighter from Titusville late Thursday morning, with sudden and vivid flashes, it is but reasonable to suppose that the entire flats have been burned over. Further and full particulars will come in by express tomorrow (Saturday).

— The Erie Dispatch (Pa.)