Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-31
LATEST NEWS.
TERRIBLE STEAMER ACCIDENT

TERRIBLE STEAMER ACCIDENT!
"A Boiler Explodes !
300 Passengers Oh Board !
Fearful Loss of Life !
THE DEAD AND THE DYING!
CHASTITY Scenes and Incidents
New YORK, July 81 80 p MAS the
Staten island boat Westfeld was starting from
her dock, at the foot of Whitehall street, next
the Battery, at II o'clock, this afternoon, with
heavy load, composed mainly of the usual class
of Sunday excursionistS, to the number of about
300, her boiler bust with a tremendous explo-
sion shivering the whole upper works of the
boat into a thousand pieces, and laying open
the whole forward part of the hull from the very
keel. The spectacle on the Inflated vessel, sub
sequent to the explosion, is beyond description.
A gre at yawning abyss stretched from abaft the
engine room, close to the stern, and the deck
seemed to have opened like sepulchre to swal-
low its load of precious human freight in the
dark hold beneath. The dead and dying were
lying about IN every direction, among the debris
of broken timbers, splinters and heavy ma
chinery, from amidships to the cut-water. The
boat presents a vast hold filled with the frag-
ments of spars, beams, flooring and buwarks,
nc Of lnN
lie beneath the ruins in that fearful hold, it is
impossible, as yet, to tell. They are bringing
them out every hour. Many persons, as in the
case of Professor March Cheneviere of Brooklyn,
were blown bodily into the air, falling into the
water.
Some have been hauled out by boat-men with
hooks and otherwise, and a large party are now
engaged in dragging the bottom, constantly
finding bodies. As the reporter rushed down
Broadway, to the south ferry, he met a carriage
with CHASTITY, wounded body inside, supported
between two men; then small wagon, with a
woman stretched upon its floor, apparently
dead; then first one and then another of the
great fire department wagons filled with hOr-
rid freight, torn and muddy bundles of clothes,
with here and there a bloody head raised above
the level of the mass to mark it as humanity.
Following the track of one of these wagons,
which turned down Pearl street, and, following
the stream of people who were rushing like mad
from Broadway, the reporter walked through
1edIl llltO NEW 10 uFSl pT6ClllCl Sld-
ton house, where the wagon stopped. A vast
crowd filled the street, iamming up on the steps
of the houses on the opposite slde and Chamber
ing on the ratings and windows in front of the
station. The popularity of this vast aSsembage
was its perfect stiffness; there was no converse
ton, and the only sounds were the hoarse shouts
and orders of the police and firemen, who
sought to drive the crowd back from the passage
way by which the bodies were carried in.
Unrepelled, the reporter passed into the
front room of the station house, shouldering
and pushing his way through the crowd. In
the centre of the room stood a poor woman,
with clothes torn away from her shoulders and
cotton sticking to fearful burns upon her breast
and arms, from which the water with which they
had recently been washed, dripped, mixed with
blood. A knot of people had been coectedIby
her groans, as the doctor spunged and dressed
her wounds; and, behind this crowd, in the cor
ner Of the front room, lay eleven bloody and be-
smeared corpses. In chairs, behind the railing,
sat two men and a woman, fearful to behold,
with bloody and scalded hands and faces, and
one man internally wounded, who had fallen to
the floor and lay there curled up in agony.
The room in the rear of this was very lily
lighted, and almost dark, and in every corner
some fearful shape was sitting or lying, moan
ing and gesticulating with skinless, bloody
hands, and striving TO articulate, with scorched,
scalded lips, and blackened tongues. doctor
was bending over an old woman on stretcher
on the floor, who screamed with agony at ey-
cry touch and movement, and another woman
sat in chair, backened and mutated in a
fearful manner, begging for a cup of water.
Wounded men lay about the floor in pools OF
their own blood, and fumes of wine and brandy,
which had been administered to them, mingled
with the sickening odor of charred flesh. Men,
women and children, still alive, would be
brought in scorched and bruised and mutilated
to such degree that it seemed almost impossi-
bic life could remain.
Around the corpses in the front room the
crowd has necessarily and constantly recruited
from the people who came in. Among the dead
lay a man with the back of his head absolutely
blown off, said by some to be a fireman. The
most interesting sight was a respectfully dressed
woman, thirty years old, apparently a Sc wing
woman, with plain wedding ring on her left
hand. Her head was crushed, and her mouth
clotted with blood.
The explosion was terrific John Mayer pilot,
was thrown from the forward pilot house twenty
feet into the air. falling in boat and escaping
without q scratch. John Freeland was captain
of the boat and Harry Robinson engineer The
latter is colOred, and the indignation of the
passengers against him is tremendous, though
his friends claim that he was not to blame The
boiler was inspected by John K Mathews
United States boiler inspector, on the 10th of
June, and pronounced safe Robinson, the en-
gineer of the Westfeld, states that he tried the
cocks in the boiler few moments before the eX-
plosion, and found water at the upper cock. He
states further, that, at that time, he looked at
the steam gauge, and there were twenty-Seven
pounds of steam on her boiler; also, that the
steam was blowing off at the safety valve, show
ing that the boiler was carrying the full extent
allowed by the certificate. The cause of the ex-
plosion was, probably, the breaking of the
Joints of the plate with which the boiler had
been patched, on the rear end,
The huge black smoke stack of the steamboat
lay, like monster serpent over an entire fami-
ly whom it had stricken in its fall.
number of victims were past any chance of
recovery, and their death was only question of
minutes, or few hours at the longest. Oneof
the saddest and most affecting sights in the
search for the injured, was the discovery of sew
eral little children and infants, whose tender
limbs and bodies were bruised III the most hor-
rible manner. OF course these were nearly all
dead. The excitement on Staten island is be-
You'd belief At every ferry were crowds of
women and children, looking out for missing
ones, among whom are many OF the most
prominent Staten islanders. Old Col. Much, a
well known inhabitant, was fearfully scaded
about the arms and body. Mr. Much was part
ner of Gen. Garibaldi while the latter was in
this country. Capt. Jake Vanderbilt says the
Westfield was one of the staunchest boats of the
company, and had new boilers put in within the
past twelve months. Sixteen persons are now
believed to have been instantly killed. Twenty
one are already dead, and more than one hun
bred and seventy are wounded. All the lower
wards of the city are filled with excited crowds,
ing full details of the catastrophe.
The engineer of the West6eld, Henry Robin
son. who has been fifteen years in the employ of
TIE ferry company, and stated by the superin-
tendent to be very competent and trustworthy
person has been engineer of the Westfield about
nine years His statement was very important,
as showing the probable cause of the explosion.
He says that until within about three minutes of
the explosion, which he fixed as 27 P. M, he was
on the dock, and noticing that the time was
about up, he went on board the boat, and was
approaching the bow when the explosion took
place AS he was going forward, he saw one of
his firemen, Patrick Finnegan, standing in the
door of the engine room. This man was seri-
ousy injured. Robinson states, emphatically,
that before he went off the boat about five min
utes before the explosion, he tried the gauge
cocks in the boiler, and found them all full,
showing, if his statement is true, that there was
plenty of water in the boiler.
As he passed the engine room, on his way aft,
he observed the steam gauge, and noticed that
there were twenty-seven pounds of steam,
and the steam was blowing off from the
safety valve at the time. The boiler was in
spected the 18th of June, when a pressure of
thirty-ive pounds hydraulic was applied The
steamboat inspectors gave certificate, permit
ting tweuty-seven pounds of steam to be carried,
had