Nine-year-old Robert Butterfield had no way of knowing what he had found in a newly purchased load of coal.
The small object looked harmless enough. Curious, he placed it on a stone and struck it with a hammer.
The explosion tore through his hand, burned his face and body, and revealed too late that the object was a nitroglycerine blasting cap.
Hand Was Torn
BEACH, North Dakota. — Robert, the 9-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Butterfield, farmers ten miles north of this city, had the end of his thumb blown off, index fingers and a portion of his hand badly lacerated while playing with a nitro glycerine cap.
It seems the little fellow found the cap in a load of coal Mr. Butterfield had recently purchased, and, not knowing what it was, laid it down on a stone and hit it with a hammer, an explosion being the result.
Besides his hand, his face and body were badly burned by the explosion.
Source: The Evening Times. Grand Forks, N.D. August 1, 1911.
