note: transcription publicly contributed - please contact us with comments, errors or omisions

MG 1 volume 2124 number 173

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

THE DEVASTATED DISTRICT OF DARTMOUTH
Personal Observation of J. H. Mitchell, December 19, 1917


THE INDIAN RESERVATION.

Very near explosion. Houses used to be shaded by pines, now everything is gone. Of some houses, there is absolutely no vestige, not even of ashes. Others are buried under the shattered trees. Clothing, furniture, stoves, trunks, etc., are everywhere. Mr. Moore, a trifle drunk, discovered the dismembered hand of a child while I was there. He said that the day before he had found a scalp with beautiful long hair in a tub, probably blown from Richmond. He also said that all but two of the 40 Indians had perished. (Statement probably exaggerated.) However all are terribly injured. The man who taught the Indian children was killed. One papoose was born the instant of the explosion, All the trees are uprooted and powder-burned. The devastation is incomprehensible. (by J. H. M.)

TUFT'S COVE.
Houses (cheap bungalows, and squatter's shacks) many blown down, some standing. No one killed in village, but several inhabitants perished in Brewery, Halifax. Explosion not visible. Panic, some fled to woods. Many wounded. Iron, etc., showered all around. Relief station, managed by inhabitants, in a hovel which might have been a chicken shed.