100 years ago in The Record

Friday, June 29, 1917

Weaver says that since he now assumed that all the caps were duds, “he struck the box with an axe and an explosion followed.”

The problem with Weaver’s story, as far as the police are concerned, is that the box “was not damaged to any extent” when they found it. Another problem, according to an explosives expert, is that the caps in the box don’t contain the steel shavings that riddled Weaver.

“Fragments of the detonator might be mistaken for copper shavings when torn and twisted by such an explosion,” the expert notes, “but there is nothing in Weaver’s account of the accident to account for the presence of the steel shavings.”

SLACKERS?

rumors have spread through Rensselaer County of widespread resistance to the upcoming military draft, but Sheriff William P. Powers dismisses many of the reports today.

Men between the ages of 21 and 30 were required to register earlier this month for a draft tentatively scheduled for September. Powers confirms that some people have boasted of skipping registration, but claims that in the cases his department has investigated the reputed “slackers” aren’t even of draft age.

While these pseudo-slackers haven’t broken the law, Powers thinks “there should be some way for stopping such boasting.” Investigators are unsure of what exactly happened tonight to put James Weaver of Lansingburgh in the hospital, in part because Weaver’s own changing story doesn’t seem to explain it. The Record reports that Weaver, who lives at 653 Fifth Avenue, is in “precarious” condition at Leonard Hospital, with “hundreds of particles of metal … blown into his body.” Initially, however, he tells the police that he had been shot. “The first intimation that Weaver’s family had of the nature of the explosion was when he came staggering through the back door of his home and dropped to the floor,” our reporter writes, “He was bleeding profusely and his wife immediately notified the police and summoned a physician.” The police soon discover that there had been “an explosion of some nature” in the shed in the rear of the Weaver home. However, “There was not an article in the shed, which was used as a chicken coop, that would furnish the police with a clue as to what might have caused the explosion, with the exception of a small red box.” At the hospital, before undergoing surgery, Weaver explains that he found the tin box, which contained blasting caps, near the New York Telephone & Telegraph station at 26th Street. Inspecting some of the caps in his shed, Weaver found that the first two he looked at had no explosive charge.