Steamboat Boilers
The Pennsylvania was a side wheeler steamboat which suffered a boiler explosion in the Mississippi River and sank at Ship Island near Memphis, Tennessee, on June 13, 1858. Of the 450 passengers on board more than 250 died, including Henry Clemens, the younger brother of the author Mark Twain.
SS Ada Hancock, a small steamboat used to transfer passengers and cargo to and from the large coastal steamships that stopped in San Pedro Harbor in the early 1860s, suffered disaster when its boiler exploded violently in San Pedro Bay, the port of Los Angeles, near Wilmington, California on April 27, 1863 killing twenty-six people and injuring many others of the fifty-three or more passengers on board.
The steamboat Sultana was destroyed in an explosion on 27 April 1865, resulting in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history. An estimated 1,700 passengers were killed when one of the ship's four boilers exploded and the Sultana sank not far from Memphis, Tennessee.
Another US Civil War Steamboat explosion was the Steamer Eclipse on January 27, 1865, which was carrying members of the 9th Indiana Artillery. One official Records report mentions the disaster reports 10 killed and 68 injured; a later report mentions that 27 were killed and 78 wounded. Fox's Regimental Losses reports 29 killed.
Read more about this topic: Boiler Explosion
Famous quotes containing the word steamboat:
“We approached the Indian Island through the narrow strait called “Cook.” He said, “I ‘xpect we take in some water there, river so high,—never see it so high at this season. Very rough water there, but short; swamp steamboat once. Don’t paddle till I tell you, then you paddle right along.” It was a very short rapid. When we were in the midst of it he shouted “paddle,” and we shot through without taking in a drop.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)