Allegheny Arsenal Explosion

An explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal on September 17, 1862, killed workers remembered as pure patriotic victims, with forty five buried here and honored as a sacrifice to freedom and civil liberty during a wicked rebellion. The dead were described as friends of humble honest toil, their hands employed by honest industry and their hearts kindled by fervent affection, while widows' and orphans' tears watered this ground where female beauty and manhood's vigor commingled. The original monument on this plot, erected in 1863 in memory of the victims buried here, bore an inscription and names later obliterated by time and destructive elements. A later monument was erected to keep sacred the memory of all seventy eight who lost their lives in the explosion, including Elizabeth Ager, Mary Algeo, Mary Amarine, Hannah Baxter, Barbara Bishop, Joseph E. Bollman, Mary A. Bollman, Rose Brady, Ella Brown, Alice Burke, Sarah Burke, Catherine Burkhart, Bridget Clare, Emma Clowes, Mary Collins, Melinda Colston, Mary Cranan, Agnes M. Davison, Mary A. Davison, Ann Dillon, Kate Dillon, Kate Donahue, Sarah Donnell, Mary Donnelly, Magdalene Douglas, Mary A. Dripps, Catherine Dugan, Nancy Fleming, Catherine Foley, Susan Fritchley, Sarah George, David Gilliland, Virginia Hammill, Sidney Hanlon, Mary J. Heeny, Hester Heslip, Mary J. Jeffrey, Mrs. Mary J. Johnson, Annie Jones, Catherine Kaler, Margaret Kelley, Uriah Laughlin, Eliza Lindsay, Harriet Lindsay, Adaline Mahrer, Ellen Manchester, Elizabeth Markle, Elizabeth J. Maxwell, Sarah A. Maxwell, Ella McAfee, Kate McBride, Maria McCarthy, Susan McCreight, Ellen McKenna, Susan McKenna, Grace McMillan, Andrew McWhirter, Mary Ann McWhirter, Catherine Miller, Phillip Miller, Mary Murphy, Melinda Neckerman, Alice Nugent, Margaret O'Rourke, Mary Riordan, Martha Robinson, Mary Robinson, Mary S. Robinson, Nancy Ross, Ella Rushton, Eleanor Shepard, Sarah Shepard, Elizabeth Shook, Ellen Slattery, Mary Slattery, Robert Smith, Lucinda Truxall, and Margaret A. Turney.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania · United States