A couple cleaning out the basement of their newly purchased South Connellsville home stumbled onto something far more alarming than old furniture or forgotten boxes Sunday afternoon: a live Civil War-era artillery shell. Police were called, a bomb squad was summoned, and the find turned a basement cleanout into a scene straight out of a different century.
Fayette County 911 confirmed that first responders were requested around 1:20 p.m. Sunday to the 1900 block of Fourth Street, according to CBS Pittsburgh. A homeowner reported finding an object believed to be a mortar, and the station reported that the couple had recently bought the home and was in the process of cleaning out items left behind by previous owners when they discovered the suspicious-looking object in the basement.
Per Sergeant Bryan Kendi of the Connellsville Police Department, the younger couple contacted police right away rather than attempting to move or handle the item themselves. Officers responded to the home, concluded the item appeared suspicious, and sent a photograph of the object to the Allegheny County Police Bomb Squad for review, the station's report notes. That review set off the official determination that would confirm just how serious the find really was.
Bomb Squad Confirms the Shell Was Live
The Allegheny County Police Bomb Squad determined that the object was in fact a live Civil War-era artillery shell, the same report states. Technicians collected the shell from the home and said they would properly dispose of it, bringing the basement discovery to a safe conclusion without further detail on the disposal process.
Finds like this aren't as rare as homeowners might assume. The Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office has noted that Civil War-era ordnance can remain just as dangerous as the day it was made, telling Smithsonian magazine that “these devices pose the same threat as the day they were initially manufactured.” The magazine also reported that a Texas man unknowingly used a Civil War-era Parrott round as a desk paperweight for years before experts identified it as a live explosive and safely detonated it at Camp Bullis.
A Pattern of Buried Danger Across the Region
Old ordnance has turned up in unexpected places well beyond Fayette County. In 2023, an archaeologist discovered a ten-pound artillery shell buried about 20 inches underground at Gettysburg National Military Park, and experts later destroyed it, Smithsonian magazine reported. Elsewhere, NBC News reported that a bomb squad safely deactivated a live Civil War-era cannonball found in Frederick County, Maryland, moving it to Beaver Creek Quarry in Hagerstown for an emergency disposal.
The risks aren't hypothetical. NBC News noted that a man who collected Civil War relics died in 2008 after a cannonball he was trying to restore exploded, and in 2009 a Pennsylvania man was charged after accidentally firing a 2-pound Civil War cannonball into his neighbor's home, though no one was hurt in that incident. The FBI's St. Louis Field Office saw just how common these discoveries can be after launching a public information campaign in 2022, when the bomb squad fielded 17 reports of possible explosives in a single week, according to Smithsonian magazine.
Southwestern Pennsylvania has its own recent brush with old munitions. The Allegheny County Bomb Squad was called to Waynesburg to dispose of a World War II-era mortar round, according to the Observer-Reporter. In that case, a man had found a German mortar round in the attic of his First Avenue home while cleaning out his grandfather's belongings, and the bomb squad placed it in a blast bag for later detonation, the newspaper reported.
For the South Connellsville couple, the basement cleanout ended with the shell safely removed from the property by trained technicians rather than left for the next unsuspecting homeowner to find.
