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Irvin-Newspaper Article-EXPLOSION OF THE BAYOU CITY STEAMER Houston Telegraph, dated Oct. 2nd, 1860 Submitted by: PATRICIA TOLLIVER (Click each article to enlarge the view)
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From our Extra of Friday
TERRIBLE CALAMITY!!
EXPLOSION OF THE BAYOU CITY.
KILLED, WOUNDED, MISSING
Intelligence was received at
an early hour this morning that between twelve and 1 o’clock,
the steamer Bayou City, when within a few miles of Lynchburg,
exploded her boilers, killing and wounding several of the
officers and crew. The steamer Mary Hill, which happened to be
lying near the scene of the accident, was immediately dispatched
to the relief of the sufferers. By dispatches received by Mr B.
A. Shephard, we learn the following particulars of the
(accident).
Killed, Wounded and Missing
Killed. – Thomas E Westrop,
steward; Mr Cooledge, 2nd Clerk; a negro boy belonging to Mrs.
Shaw; and negro man Johnson belonging to Capt. Forrest
Slightly Scalded. – Capt.
Hall, of Cold Springs and seven negroes.
Three cabin passengers,
strangers, are missing. Four negroes were blown overboard.
A later dispatch says that
Capt. Hall cannot live. He is now lying in Galveston.
Two negroes belonging to
Thomas Johnson, one belonging to E. M. Lane, one belonging to
Mrs. Shaw, and one owned by Capt. Sterrett are dying. All the
cabin crew were saved. Three deck hands were lost. The balance
all well.
We are unable to gain any
particulars of the cause of the explosion.
We are indebted to the
Galveston New(s) Extra of Friday, also the Saturday edition of
that paper for the following additional details.
The boat left Galveston
about half past (IX) o’clock yesterday evening. The explosion
occurred about a quarter to (?) o’clock this morning. The
(center boiler) was the one that exploded and blew up at the
top. The first engineer had just gone forward and was scolding
the firemen and their (st)rikers for not getting up ________
enough as they were making slow time. The boilers were new ,
having, with the boat, been about six months in use. They were
cleaned out the last trip to Houston.
They were, as far as we
could ascertain from various sources, about sixty or seventy
passengers on the Bayou City, including five or six ladies and
some children. None of the ladies or children were hurt, though
a piece of iron flew into their part of the cabin. Two boys were
saved by one of the stewards, a colored man as they were running
to the bow, alarmed by the noise; took them up in his arms and
ran down a back way and placed them on the barge.
As the clerks office, with
the safe, books, and papers, was blown to pieces, it is not
likely we shall ever have a complete list of passengers.
Several of the latter, with
some of the crew, jumped overboard, and we have not yet any
means of knowing how many were saved and how many were lost in
the water. As the Bayou is quite narrow at the point where the
accident occurred, those that could swim and jump overboard,
uninjured by the steam, had a good chance to save their lives.
The explosion injured the
boat, we understand, only immediately above the boilers.
Captain Sterrett sent the
Mary Hill back to the wreck at once and will go up early in the
Neptune this afternoon. A great many of the passengers and
several of the officers remained and the former will doubtless
go up on the Neptune.
The physicians of Lynchburg
and its citizens generally, we are informed, hastened to the
scene of the disaster and did all they could to alleviate the
sufferings of the wounded.
We present as correct and
complete a list as we could obtain, of the killed and wounded:
Dead.- Thos. A. Wostrope,
steward. John Coolidge, second clerk. Johnson, negro fireman,
belonging to Capt. Forrest. Ben, negro fireman, belonging to Mr
McLane. Ned Forbes, negro, belonging to Mrs. Shaw, of Richmond.
Lewis and George, Negroes belonging to Mr. T. Johnson, of
Boonville, drowned.
Wounded. – Capt. Forrest,
slightly scalded. Wm Whitson, first engineer, leg broken and arm
badly hurt. J. McGarvey, mate, slightly hurt. W. Dwyer, first
pilot, slightly hurt. Mr. Calloway of Georgia, foot slightly
injured. Aleck, third cook, belonging to the _____ _____ badly
hurt. Henry, fireman, belonging to Mr. Dwyer. Milton, assistant
steward, belonging to Mr. W. R. Baker, hand and face scalded.
Jim and Garrison, strikers, belonging to Capt. Sterrett, badly
hurt. Ike, belonging to Mr. Johnson of Boonville.
Uninjured. – The following
are all the names we could obtain: Dick Lewis and his brother of
Waverly; Mr. O. L. Battle and a large family of negroes, men
women, and children. This gentleman came from Georgia, and was
on his way to his plantation in Wharton County. Mr. Carletto,
first clerk; Mr Curley, second engineer; Mr. M. White, pilot;
seven cabin boys, all colored. Bob, fireman, belonging to Mr.
Crawford; Mr. McJenkin; Mr. and Mrs. Geo. II Trabue; Mr. and
Mrs. Hurley, cabin passengers, Galveston; Mr fisher of Houston;
Geo Patillo, third clerk.
On the steamboat Neptune
that went up to Houston last evening on her regular trip we
found three gentlemen who were cabin passengers on the Bayou
City. They were: Mr Hewes, of N. O., son of the president of the
Opelousas Railroad; Mr. T. P. Loyd, of Stevenville, Texas,
slightly injured; Dr. A. M. Potter of Galveston.
Col. and Mrs. Clark, of
Columbia, were among the passengers, and remained at Lynchburg.
They were unhurt.
Mr Hewes lost a negro boy
named Frank.
Dr Potter’s room-mate was
saved – name unknown. Dr Potter went out through the ladies’
cabin to get into the fresh air. He saw in the ladies’ cabin the
piece of iron we spoke of in our extra. It was red hot, and he
thought, amid the smoke and steam, that the boat was on fire.
He, with others, prevented several ladies from jumping
overboard: and he then poured water on this piece of iron until
it cooled.
Mr J. T. Irvin (Isaiah
Tucker), Speaker of the House of Representatives, and one of the
most prominent men in the state, was on board with a family of
nine negroes and his brother-in-law O. L. Battle of Egypt,
Wharton County. He was seen rushing aft, and it is believed he
jumped overboard and was drowned. None of his negroes was
injured.
Mr Calloway, we learn, is a
large planter near Washington, Georgia. He came over with
Messrs. Battle and Irvin with a view to settle in Texas.
We learn that Capt. Hill
died last night.
List of the Cabin Passengers
We obtained today, with some
difficulty, and at a late hour only, from the civilian office, a
list of the cabin passengers on the Bayou City, sent to that
office from the steamboat’s books, which had been found. There
is no list of deck passengers, and it is not known if any were
lost.
Mrs Johnson, C. W. Hurley
and lady, Mrs. Sanderson, Con. Sharp and lady, Mrs Darden, Miss
Susan Fuller, Geo. Trabue and lady, R. D. Brown, lady, and 5
children, Capt. Hall, ____Lewis, ____Lewis, Hutchinson, J. R.
Ogilvie, Watts, Balou, Nolan, O. L. Battle, Josiah (Isaiah) T
Irvin, Mr. P. Calloway, S. McJenkin, Jas. Bentley, R. Johnson,
Fisher, W. Thompson, Wm. Hunter, Butler, Hughs, J. E. Lewis, F.
Van Harten, Ed, Beard, S. Gregory, S. W. Scott, A. M. Patton, W.
H. Crutcher, J. A. Fisher, Loyd. J. N. Snedecor, Rowley, D. L.
Byuam, S. F. Jones, G. B. Mirchell, MacFarland and nine negroes
belonging to J. T (I. T.) Irvin.
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