This article was first published in the June 4, 1950, issue of The Living Church.
By Frederick A. Sontag
A shell had torn a hole through the roof, priceless glass windows were blown to bits, but the two main altars were completely untouched at historic Christ Church, South Amboy, N.J., after the city-wide explosion on the evening of Friday, May 19th.
An inspection of the Church properties by your Living Church reporter revealed that the Church itself was badly damaged. Emergency wooden boards now cover all the windows of the Church, rectory, and parish house. A man-sized hole in the roof allows rain and sunshine to enter the Church itself. One of the big wooden doors was broken in half as it was blown into the Church by the force of the explosion.
A U.S. Army engineer told us—a New York editor and me—that the rafters were sagging and that the whole structure of the Church building would have to be closely examined. The Rev. Harry S. Weyrich, rector, who was eating dinner with his wife when the blast occurred at 7:30 pm Friday evening, said that municipal inspectors figured the damage to the three Church buildings to be at least $100,000. “Our insurance apparently does not cover us for this type of explosion damage,” Fr. Weyrich (who is 62) told us as he reviewed the damage to the Church properties.
A visit to the rectory showed that Fr. Weyrich had lost most of his collection of old glassware and valued religious articles. But he never mentioned this to us, and when we asked him about it, he quickly changed the subject to the damage suffered by the Church and its communicants. The Church buildings are located at 220 Main Street, and in common with other structures on that street, splintered window frames greeted the visitor as he stepped out of his car.
“The miracle of this terrible explosion is the fact that both altars were not touched by the damage,” Fr. Weyrich told us. “After the first blast, I rushed into the Church, as we have the Reserved Sacrament at our side altar. ‘Deity must have ruled here.’ All was in chaos, except at the altars. It was remarkable that none of our communicants were killed, and this tragedy is a good argument against all this talk about war, and points out the need for a constructive foreign policy aimed at preserving the peace.”
Rector Ministers to Victims
Fr. Weyrich was never at the rectory when we called periodically from Friday evening to Sunday night. He was visiting his people at their greatest hour of need, and Mrs. Weyrich acted as our gracious hostess. Fr. Weyrich was in constant attendance at the numerous neighborhood hospitals, where several hundred local residents were being treated. They were victims of one of the worst munitions explosions in this country’s history. A considerable number of Christ Church communicants had to move out of their houses because of severe damage, and certain homes were completely ruined, a firsthand inspection showed during the weekend. At least 50 Episcopal families suffered major property damage.
Two U.S. Army veterans, fully armed, were assigned to the Church properties by the Commanding General, to prevent looting, and to assist the Episcopal priest and his wife in safeguarding the damaged Church buildings. The whole town was under martial law, and each street was patrolled by armed soldiers. Land mines and secondary explosions went off several times, and South Amboy was not a safe place.
Privates Richard D. Brewington, a Presbyterian from Detroit, and James I. Houp, a Reformed Church member from Boyertown, Pa., told us that they were honored to “guard this beautiful Church.” They said, “We would much rather protect this House of God than march in front of a dance hall, where the glass roof is broken.” The young soldiers carefully screened all visitors, and no souvenir hunters were likely to carry off Episcopal property with them on guard.
Contrary to published reports in New York papers, Fr. Weyrich did not preach on Sunday, May 21st, but as he put it, “We celebrated the Holy Communion at all services, for this beautiful and meaningful service said more than any of us could have said after this terrible disaster. Church attendance was up at least 50 percent and the devotion of the people at this thanksgiving Eucharist was most unusual.”
Rebuild Somehow
When we called Fr. Weyrich for the last time on Sunday evening, we asked him what his plans for the future were. He said that the vestry and he were still so “shocked and busy trying to clear our rooms of damaged property that we have not yet had time to plan, but we have decided to rebuild somehow. Now you realize that most of our people have suffered heavy property damage, and we will have trouble meeting our normal financial obligations, saying nothing of rebuilding. With at least $100,000 needed, we will need outside help to survive in this community.”
St. Peter’s, Perth Amboy, also suffered from the explosion. Mrs. George Boyd told us that her husband, the rector, had been at nearby hospitals since the original explosion on Friday night, and she was alone at home with the children, “who were certainly excited and frightened by the explosions.” A number of the historic “Queen Anne” stained-glass windows were broken, and the rectory roof was damaged. All communicants were safe, although several were injured. The Church carried insurance that covered bomb damage, and insurance adjustors were at work on Sunday, when we called, seeming that the church promptly received funds to repair the buildings.
Fr. Boyd, with the help of one of his parishioners who owns a truck, transported 20 hospital beds on the night of the disaster to emergency hospitals set up in the neighborhood. The Church owns these beds, and they were at once made available. The Church suffered only “normal damage,” as one soldier put it. But the inside of the buildings had become terribly dirty owing to the severity of the blasts. Fr. Boyd had only a normal congregation on the Sunday following the explosion. Damage in Perth Amboy was light compared to South Amboy.
Your reporter arrived in warlike, destruction-filled South Amboy less than an hour after the first explosion Friday night. For some hours we were unable to visit Christ Church, but during that period we saw a sight we will never forget. On Main Street we met a priest of another communion with a cameraman in tow. During our conversation, we learned that he was one of a number of men assigned by his Church to “cover disasters, and show how we minister unto people.” Later that night as we met other reporters, we saw how effective his work had been, and how most press association stories carried word of his Church’s work. He was taking photographs that evening which would be priceless for teaching people all over the country how his Church serves its people during times of need. “Fund raising is much easier once our story has been pictorially illustrated,” he told us.
The New York editor asked why her Church, the Episcopal Church, did not have a national promotion organization that obtained coverage of our people, serving its Church on the local level with promotional possibilities for national coverage. My only answer could be that our present national promotion department does not believe in “localized national promotion emphasizing individual action, preferring instead a national radio program.” The other reporters, of all faiths, agreed that one major communion had certainly done a grand job that night in showing its work to the nation, and that as usual, its helpful press relations policy had paid off.
In order to travel around freely in a city that is under martial law, a reporter needs a pass. New Jersey State Trooper Angelo Nicorvo, a communicant of Christ Church, supplied us with one. He concretely expressed his understanding of the value of a free Church press by helping to cut through Army and police red tape. The problem of covering territory in the bombed city was solved by my stepfather, Dr. Eric G. Snyder, who on Sunday, at considerable sacrifice, agreed to act as our driver and also as cameraman. Fred Fairfield of Ford International arranged with Francis Dolan of Photo-Color Inc. to have the pictures printed with all possible speed. Without help from these people, coverage of the South Amboy explosion, by the New York editor (who, on Friday had thought she was going off on a fishing trip) and myself, would have been even more difficult if not impossible.
The South Amboy Powder Pier Explosion of May 19, 1950, was caused by the detonation of 420 tons of military explosives and gelatin dynamite at the only terminal in the New York City region that allowed the transfer of explosives in large quantities. Thirty-one people were killed, most of them dockworkers, and the blast destroyed numerous nearby businesses and homes, causing over $10 million in property damage ($134 million in 2025 dollars). Kilgore Manufacturing Company, the manufacturer of the exploded mines, was the subject of a Congressional investigation, and was charged with 9,000 counts of munitions violations, because it packed the fuses in the same crates as the explosives. Christ Church, South Amboy, continues as an active congregation of the Diocese of New Jersey. In a tribute to Fr. Weyrich’s successor’s the leadership of Fr. Weyrich’s successor, its website’s church history notes, “The financial burden was enormous for the congregation, but with the guidance and stewardship of [the] Rev. Christopher Nichols, and the faith and tenacity of the parishioners, Christ Church was able to overcome.”
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. An Episcopal priest, he has reported widely on global Anglicanism, and also writes about church history, liturgy, and pastoral ministry.
