This day in The Record in 1916

Sunday, August 27, 1916

A powerful summer storm causes flooding and wind damage throughout the Record reading area today, Schaghticoke suffering the worst damage when lightning sets off an explosion in a powder mill.

The press mill of the Hercules Powder company explodes following a lightning strike at approximately 4 p.m. While regulations forbid the company from storing powder in the mill overnight or on Sundays, investigators believe that enough powder settled between the walls and floors over time to cause a powerful explosion. Since today is Sunday, no one is in the mill to be injured by the blast.

“Some idea of the force of the explosion may be seen by the fact that doors of houses located about a half-mile from the plant were blown from their hinges and windows in houses throughout the town were shattered,” our reporter writes.

In Troy, an inch and a half of rain overwhelms sewer drains, flooding sidewalks in some neighborhoods. “At some points on Congress street barrels were floating around in the streets,” a reporter observes.

Windows are shattered and awnings torn apart in the downtown business section. Proctor’s New Theater on Fourth Street suffers a double-whammy when a large window shatters and sends glass tearing through the canopy in front of the building.

In rural areas “farmers claim that large crops of corn and other vegetables were practically ruined. At Albany Rural Cemetery, a barn fire caused by lightning causes an estimated $20,000 in damages, including seven horses burned to death.

SUICIDE ATTEMPT

When Maxie Addis faints on Broadway near the Union Depot this morning, bystanders assume that the 22 year old woman is drunk again. The police soon learn that Addis had taken bichloride of mercury, a disinfectant and syphilis remedy, in a suicide attempt.

Doctors determine that Addis didn’t take enough of the poison to kill herself, and predict that she should be well enough to appear in police court on Tuesday for her arraignment for attempted suicide.

Addis, whose real last name is Smith, has lived on Grand Street since moving here from Poughkeepsie last January. She claims to have worked as a movie theater piano player in Poughkeepsie, but Sgt. George Ruff, who “frequently saw her upon the streets,” hints that Addis may have become a prostitute to make ends meet.

“When I spoke to her, she said she would be glad to get away from the life she was living, and she told me she often walked the streets hungry,” Ruff says, “Her words were ‘I find many ready to buy me drink, but few who offer to buy me anything to eat.’”