1918 went out with a bang in St. John’s — the city’s iconic Cabot Tower exploded.

On Dec 31st of that year veteran signalman Michael Cantwell, was preparing to fire the noon gun from Signal Hill. He went to Cabot Tower, where the gunpowder was stored. Reportedly Mr. Cantwell was smoking a pipe.

You can imagine what happened next.

Fire from his pipe ignited the gunpowder causing a significant explosion. According to a report in the St. John’s Daily Star, the building survived owing to the small supply of gunpowder held inside at the time. Otherwise, they wrote, the tower would have been “blown to atoms.”

As it was there was extensive damage. Large blocks of stone were blown from the walls and the building caught fire. A doctor and a team of nurses from the nearby smallpox hospital rushed to the scene. With fire extinguishers in hand, the nurses fought the blaze, while the doctor tended to Cantwell.

Cantwell’s injuries were serious. He died in the hospital several days later. According to a report in the Evening Telegram (January 3, 1919), “Cantwell was getting old, and besides the bodily injuries done by the explosion, the shock was so very great that death was inevitable from the first.”

Fair enough, I imagine standing at the ignition point of an explosion large enough to move stone bricks would be quite shocking.