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MG 1 vol 2124 number 141b

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
Chronicle Building
Halifax, N.S.
3

plaster of both walls and ceiling were very badly broken. Furniture was destroyed and even the iron of fire-places broken.

Freak. In one of the parlors, where the iron fender was broken, a British plate-glass mirror and a fragile glass vase were carried quite across the room and set down unbroken. The frame of the mirror was smashed beyond repair, but the mirror itself was not even chipped. The vase was blown across the room and set down upside down but quite uninjured.

Mr. Dustan was at his office in Deep Water. Vincent Coleman Telegraph-operator at Richmond, telephoned to Mr. D "A munition ship, on fire, is making for the dock. What orders?" Mr. Dustan said, "Don't let her dock. Send men out to prevent her coming in. I'll come up." Then he put on his hat and coat and ran up Cornwallis St. for the car. He just missed one and chased it a little way hoping to catch it, but gave up and took the next one. The one he missed was blown 'to atoms' and not a person on it came out alive. The next one, which he went up on was blown off the tracks and the people injured. He himself was cut. He says that Vincent Coleman did Not leave his post. He has the exact message which Coleman sent to Truro and believes that it was just immediately before the explosion. The fact that he was not found on the exact spot where his key was proves nothing, since everyone was blown some distance.

NOTE. Mrs. Dustan fed fourteen people on December 6th.