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"DYNAMITE" JOHNNY O'BRIEN

Despite his size, John O'Brien was one of those bigger-than-life real heroes whose outrageous adventures became the stuff of legend

"Dynamite" Johnny O'Brien saw things that most people wouldn't believe. He witnessed the burning of the Merrimac off Craney Point and ships swallowed whole in Hell's Gate. He saw revenue cutters give chase near the coast of Cuba and the incoming fire of Spanish gunboats. Dynamite Johnny even watched the Maine rise from its watery grave only to be ceremoniously sunk again.

Raised in the old dry-dock section of New York, O'Brien was born in 1837 with brine coursing through his veins. He once remarked to his biographer, Horace Smith, that his first memory was of a ...

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