At around six o'clock the newly dug Little and Merrick Well on the Buchanan Farm on Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania, pumping an estimated three thousand barrels a day, caught fire and exploded.  Hundreds had gathered to see the new well. Fire and explosions from the world's first oil well fire spread across the hundred well field.  The flames took seventy hours to put out, and nineteen people were killed, including oil pioneer Henry R. Rouse.  Two dozen others were burned, some seriously, but survived.  (By John Osborne)  

The Leavenworth City Council had a week before announced that the city ordinance forbidding hogs from running wild in the streets of the city would be vigorously enforced.  The City Marshal began full enforcement of the low on this day.  One local newspaper stated, " A well ordered city is no place for swine.  Those persons who will continue to raise hogs for gain, within the city limits, must hereafter do it on their own premises, and at their own expense." (By John Osborne)

A noontime fire broke out in the cellar of a drugstore on the corner of Maine and Delaware Streets in the business district of Leavenworth, Kansas.  It quickly spread and caused thousands of dollars worth of damages through much of the block.  Lawyers lost their law libraries while insurance brokers and real estate agents saw their premises completely destroyed.  No-one was hurt but the press estimated around $150,000 in losses.  (By John Osborne)

Fire destroyed the Granite Hall Hotel in downtown Macon, Georgia.  The financial loss was estimated at around $30,000 but no serious injuries were reported.  (By John Osborne)

The business district of Plymouth, Massachusetts suffered a destructive Sunday morning fire that destroyed a grocery and a shoe manufacturers.  Two Plymouth firemen were badly injured in fighting the fire but no deaths were reported.  Early press estimates of the damage were around $12,000.  (By John Osborne)

In counter to the Philadelphia Democrats' fury over the state legislature's recent postponement of the municipal elections, elections they had been expecting to win, the city's Constitutional Unionists met in their convention and supported the measure.  In the chair, I.H. Harris called a legal challenge "inopportune" and said the time was now for all "who love their country ... must unite in beating down under foot the fell spirit of disunion, anarchy, corruption, and fanaticism."  (By John Osborne)   

Enraged Democrats in Philadelphia held protest meetings denouncing the state legislature's postponement of the municipal elections, elections they had been expecting to win.  The party executive for the city denounced the measure as an "outrage perpetrated by the Black Republican majority" and demanded a decision on its constitutionality. This failed and Republicans won the municipal elections easily in the fall, in a vastly changed political climate.  (By John Osborne)