A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor’s home in Uniontown, Pa.
William Maser, 54, fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away. The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities said nobody was hurt.
State police charged Maser with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
No one answered the phone Friday at Maser’s home. He told WPXI-TV that recreating 19th-century cannons is a longtime hobby. He said he is sorry and he will stop shooting them on his property, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Oops!
Did I Do That?
400 yards guys! There’s some bragging rights in there somewhere. Wish my neighbor was a quarter mile away.
I shot an cannon into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an neighbor’s home
I found the cannon, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
I don’t believe in the one cannonball theory. There was another cannon and caisson on the grassy knoll.