Bath School disaster

The Bath School disaster was a series of violent attacks perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe on May 18, 1927, in Bath Township, Michigan, that killed 38 elementary school children and six adults and injured at least 58 other people. Kehoe killed his wife and firebombed his farm, then detonated a major explosion in the Bath Consolidated School, before committing suicide by detonating a final explosion in his truck. It is the deadliest mass murder to take place at a school in United States history. Andrew Kehoe, the 55-year-old school board treasurer, was angered by increased taxes and his defeat in the Spring 1926 election for township clerk. He was thought to have planned his "murderous revenge" after that public defeat. He had a reputation for difficulty on the school board and in personal dealings. In addition, in June 1926, he was notified that his mortgage was going to be foreclosed. For much of the next year, a neighbor noticed Kehoe had stopped working on his farm and thought he might be planning suicide. During that period, Kehoe purchased explosives and discreetly planted them on his property and under the school. Kehoe's wife was ill with tuberculosis, he had stopped making mortgage payments, and he was under pressure for foreclosure. Some time between May 16 and the morning of May 18, 1927, Kehoe murdered his wife. Then on the morning of May 18 at about 8:45 a.m., he set off various incendiary devices on his homestead that caused the house and other farm buildings to be destroyed by the explosives' blast and the subsequent fires. Almost simultaneously, an explosion devastated the north wing of the school building, killing 36 schoolchildren and two teachers. Kehoe had used a timed detonator to ignite hundreds of pounds of dynamite and incendiary pyrotol, which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers began working at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and used a rifle to detonate dynamite inside his shrapnel-filled truck, killing himself, the school superintendent, and several others nearby, as well as injuring more bystanders. During rescue efforts at the school, searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol connected to a timing device set to detonate at the same time as the first explosions; the material was hidden throughout the basement of the south wing. Kehoe had apparently intended to blow up and destroy the entire school. Background- Bath Township: Bath Township is a small community located ten miles (16 km) northeast of Lansing, Michigan, and contains the unincorporated village of Bath. In the early 1920s, the area was primarily agricultural. In the early part of the 20th century, many small one-room schools, where different grades shared the same classroom and teacher, were closed. Educators of the era believed that children would receive a better and more complete education if students could attend a single school at one location. The grades could be age-divided into classes, and the facilities could be of a higher quality. After years of debate, in 1922 Bath Township voters approved creation of the consolidated school district, and the increase in property taxes to pay for the new school. When the school opened, it had 236 students enrolled in grades 1–12. All area landowners had to pay higher property taxes. At the time of the bombing, the village had about 300 residents. Andrew Kehoe: Andrew Philip Kehoe was born in Tecumseh, Michigan, on February 1, 1872. Kehoe's mother died when he was young, and his father married a much younger widow. Reportedly, Kehoe often quarreled with his stepmother. When he was fourteen, the family's oil stove exploded and set his stepmother on fire. Kehoe threw a bucket of water on her, but because the fire was oil-based, his action spread the flames more rapidly over her body. She died from her injuries. Some of his neighbors believed that Kehoe had caused the stove explosion. He studied electrical engineering at Michigan State College in East Lansing. After that, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he worked as an electrician. After several years in Missouri, Kehoe returned to Michigan. At the age of 40, he married Ellen "Nellie" Price in 1912. Seven years later they moved to a farm they bought outside the village of Bath. Even though Kehoe was said to be dependable, doing favors and volunteer work for his neighbors, they also described him as being impatient with all who disagreed with him. They recounted that Kehoe had shot and killed a neighbor's dog that had come on his property and annoyed him by barking. He was known to have beaten one of his horses to death when it did not perform as well as he wanted. With a reputation for frugality, Kehoe was elected in 1924 as a trustee for three years and treasurer for one year on the school board. He argued endlessly for lower taxes The later superintendent of the board, M. W. Keys, said that Kehoe "fought the expenditure of money for the most necessary equipment." He was considered extremely difficult to work with, often voting against the rest of the board and wanting his own way. Kehoe repeatedly accused Superintendent Emory Huyck of financial mismanagement. He argued with township financial authorities, trying to get the valuation of his property reduced, and claimed that he had paid too much for the farm. He also tried to get the mortgage taken off but was not successful. In June 1926, he was notified that the company was going to foreclose on his property. Kehoe was appointed in 1925 to temporarily fill the position of town clerk but, several months later, he was defeated in the regular spring 1926 election for the position. This public rejection by the community angered him. In his eyewitness account, The Bath School Disaster, Monty J. Ellsworth said he thought this rejection was the reason Kehoe had planned his "murderous revenge" of the bombings, to destroy the school and kill the community's children and many of its members. A. McMullen, another neighbor, noted that Kehoe had stopped working on his farm altogether for most of the preceding year, and thought he might be planning suicide. For this reason, when Kehoe gave him one of his horses about April 1927, McMullen returned it. It was discovered later that, as part of Kehoe's preparations to destroy his farm, he had cut all his wire fences, girdled young shade trees to kill them, and cut off his grapevine plants before putting them back on their stumps to hide the damage. He gathered lumber and other materials and put them in the tool shed, which he later exploded with an incendiary bomb. By the time of the bombing, Nellie Kehoe had become chronically ill with tuberculosis, for which there was no effective treatment or cure. Her frequent hospital stays may have contributed to the family's debt. Kehoe had ceased making mortgage and homeowner's insurance payments months earlier. Purchase and planting of explosives: There is no clear indication when Kehoe conceived and planned the steps leading to the ultimate events, but his neighbor, M. J. Ellsworth, thought that Kehoe conceived his plan after being defeated in early 1926 for the election as town clerk.[11] The general consensus of the townspeople was that Kehoe had worked on his plan at least since August of the previous year. M.W. Keyes, a member of the Bath School Board was quoted by the New York Times as saying I have no doubt that he made his plans last Fall [1926] to blow up the school... He was an experienced electrician and the board employed him in November to make some repairs on the school lighting system. He had ample opportunity then to plant the explosives and lay the wires for touching it off. Kehoe had free access to the building during the summer vacation of 1926. From mid-1926, Kehoe began buying more than a ton of pyrotol, an incendiary explosive used by farmers during the era for excavation and burning of debris. In November 1926, he drove to Lansing and bought two boxes of dynamite at a sporting goods store. As dynamite was also commonly used on farms, Kehoe's purchase of small amounts of explosives at different stores and on different dates did not raise any suspicions. Neighbors reported hearing explosions set off on the farm, with one even calling him "the dynamite farmer". In December 1926, according to the testimony of Lieutenant Lyle Morse, a Michigan State Police investigator with the Department of Public Safety, Kehoe purchased a .30-caliber Winchester bolt-action rifle. Day of the disaster- Prior to the disaster: Prior to May 18, Kehoe had loaded the back seat of his truck with all sorts of metal debris capable of producing shrapnel during an explosion. He also bought a new set of tires for his truck so it wouldn't break down when transporting the explosives. He didn't want it to look suspicious that his truck was full of dangerous products. He made many trips to Lansing for more explosives, as well as the school, town, and his house. Many of his neighbors noticed how busy he was driving around, but never thought to make any comment about it. Multiple times, a neighbor to the school saw a man carrying objects into the building at night, but never thought to mention it to anyone. Nellie Kehoe had been discharged on May 16 from Lansing's St. Lawrence Hospital. Between her release and the bombings two days later, Kehoe killed his wife. He put her body in a wheelbarrow located in the rear of the farm's chicken coop, where it was found after the farm explosions and fire in a heavily charred state. Piled around the cart were silverware and a metal cash box. Ashes of several bank notes could be seen through a slit in the cash box. Kehoe had placed and wired homemade pyrotol firebombs in the house and all the buildings of the farm. The burned remains of his two horses were found tied in their enclosures with their legs wired together, to prevent their rescue during the fire. Farm bombs: At approximately 8:45 a.m., Kehoe detonated the firebombs in his house and farm buildings, causing some debris to fly into a neighbor's poultry brooding house. Neighbors noticed the fire, and volunteers rushed to the scene. O. H. Bush, a fireman, and several other men crawled through a broken window of the farmhouse in search of survivors. When they determined no one was in the farmhouse, they salvaged what furniture they could before the fire spread into the living room. Discovering dynamite in the corner, Bush picked up an armful of explosives and handed it to one of the men. As Kehoe left his burning farm and house in his Ford truck, he stopped to tell those fighting the fire, "Boys, you're my friends. You better get out of here. You better head down to the school", and drove off. Explosion in north wing of school: Classes began at 8:30 a.m. that morning. At about 8:45 a.m., in the basement of the north wing of the school, an alarm clock set by Kehoe detonated the dynamite and pyrotol he had hidden there. Rescuers heading to the scene of the Kehoe farm fire heard the explosion at the school building, turned back and headed toward the school. Parents within the rural community also began rushing to the school. The school building had turned into a war zone with thirty-eight people, mostly children, being killed in the initial explosion. First-grade teacher Bernice Sterling told an Associated Press reporter that the explosion was like an earthquake: "It seemed as though the floor went up several feet," she said. "After the first shock I thought for a moment I was blind. When it came the air seemed to be full of children and flying desks and books. Children were tossed high in the air; some were catapulted out of the building. The north wing of the school had collapsed. Parts of the walls had crumbled, and the edge of the roof had fallen to the ground. Monty Ellsworth, a neighbor of the Kehoes, recounted, "There was a pile of children of about five or six under the roof and some of them had arms sticking out, some had legs, and some just their heads sticking out. They were unrecognizable because they were covered with dust, plaster, and blood. There were not enough of us to move the roof." Ellsworth volunteered to drive back to his farm and get a rope heavy enough to pull the school roof off the children's bodies. Returning to his farm, Ellsworth saw Kehoe in the opposite direction heading toward the school. "He grinned and waved his hand; when he grinned, I could see both rows of his teeth", said Ellsworth. The scene at the school building was chaotic. Robert Gates, a witness, said, "... mother after mother came running into the school yard, and demanded information about her child and, on seeing the lifeless form lying on the lawn, sobbed and swooned...In no time more than 100 men were at work tearing away the debris of the school, and nearly as many women were frantically pawing over the timber and broken bricks for traces of their children." Truck explosion: About a half hour after the explosion, Kehoe drove up to the school and saw Superintendent Huyck. Kehoe summoned the superintendent over to his truck. Charles Hawson testified at the Inquest that he saw the two men struggle over some type of long gun and that the car then went up in an explosion, killing Superintendent Huyck, Kehoe, Nelson McFarren (a retired farmer) and Cleo Clayton, an eight-year-old second grader. Clayton, a survivor of the first blast, had wandered out of the school building debris and was killed by the fragmentation from the exploding vehicle. The explosion also mortally wounded postmaster Glenn O. Smith (who lost a leg and died later that day of his wounds) and injured several others. After Kehoe's truck exploded, Ellsworth recounted, I saw one mother, Mrs. Eugene Hart, sitting on the bank a short distance from the school with a little dead girl on each side of her and holding a little boy, Percy, who died a short time after they got him to the hospital. This was about the time Kehoe blew his car up in the street, severely wounding Perry, the oldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Hart. O. H. Bush, foreman of the road crew, recalled the scene after the final explosion: I began to feel as though the world was coming to an end. I guess I was a bit hazy. Anyway, the next thing I remember I was out on the street. One of our men was binding up the wounds of Glenn Smith, the postmaster. His leg had been blown off. I went back to the building and helped with the rescue work until we were ordered to stop while a search was made for dynamite.