The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1865-10-28
FATAL EXPLOSION!
STEAM SLUG BLOWN UPl
I'M ON BOARD WNED!


About fifteen minutes past three o'clock
Yesterday afternoon, the business portion of
the community was startled by loud explo-
sion which appeared to come from tho &lrec-
tion Of Town Point Soon afterward the ru-
NOR spread through the city that steamboat
hoiler had exploded, and that all on board had
rprished. An investigation developed the
following facts:
The Steam Tug Coinjock, Capt. Pat McCar-
rick. IT., was employed as a tender to the mnd
machine, and was returning from one of her
trims with one of the dumping lighters towing
astern. On the Tug, at the time, was Capt.
McCarrick, Mr.. VIM. Foster, engineer, a
coored man as deck hand, and Mr. Thomas
Patton, IT., Agent of the Boston line of steam
ers. When the Coinjock was within about
three hundred yards of Chambsrlain's wharf
fine boiler exploded, and in an instant the air
was dark with the debris of the upper por-
tion of the steamer. Parties on the wharf
who had their attention called to the point
nv the report inform us that that they saw
the bodies of two men elevated full thirty feet
in the air. and then saw them fall, along with
the fragments, back into the water.
In very short time number of boats
from the shore, and the vessels around reached
the scene, but the steamer had gone down
and only the body OF VIM. Patton was found
The body of this gentleman was horribly
INITIATED, having been torn all to pieces by
the force of the steam, or the flying fragments
The Coiniock was small steamer, being
less than twenty tons burthren, and had been
aAoat only about six weeks. Her hull was
new, having been built at the ship yard Of the
Albermarle and Chesapeake Canal Company
in this city Her boiler was not new, but had
been thoroughly overhauled, and recently sub
iected to one hundred pounds hydraulic pres
sire
Captain McCarrick was a young man of
some twenty-five or three years of age; is the
son of Capt. P. McCarrick, of the steamer
Eolus, of the Eastern Shore and Matthews
line, and was mdshipman in the late Con-
federate Navy. He had but the day before
assumed command of the Coinjock, and had
hardly become familiar with his charge before
he met his violent and untimely end He was
Young man of considerable intelligence, of
many rare and estmable qualities, of fine
promise, of considerable experience in steam
boat matters and like his father, general IA
yorite wherever known. He has been spared
through all the exciting and bloody scenes of
four years war, and now, upon the very
threshold of usefulness, and at the first step
in civil life, he has been suddenly called from
time to eternity. His afflicted parents have
the unaffected sympathy of the whole COM
munty. r.
OF Mr.. Patton, who had merely gone aboard
for the purpose of taking trip to the flats,
that he might see the workings cf the dump
ing lighters, or of Mr. VIM Foster, we know
nothing, nor have we been able to ascertain
the name of the colored man who lost his life
at the same time. At sunset yesterday, prep
arations were being made to drag for the bo-
dies of Captain McCarrick, Mr.. Foster, and
the colored man, but with what success we are
unable to say at this writing.
The hull of the steamer went to the bottom
instantly; and, in moment after the explo-
sion, the surface of the water, for hundred
yards around, was covered with the splinters
and pieces of joiners work. The largest piece
we saw was a portion of the roof, and that
was scarcely four feet square. OF course the
cause of the explosion is, and must forever
remain unknown, but the supposition is that
the water was lower thanit should have been,
and while the boiler was heated volume of
cold water was injected, and steam formed so
very ripldly that the boiler could not with
stand the pressure.