Trade, of course, attracts crime, and on the open water, pirates. In the early 1900s a man who looked little like a character from pirates of the Caribbean made a name for himself in that ancient profession.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.