The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1871-07-31

Halt Supposed Killed or Wounded
sICKENING DETAILS.

Halt Supposed Killed or Wounded
SICKENING DETAILS.
| Scenes at the Station Houses.
NEW YORK, July 80 = 80 P. Mas the
| Station Island boat Weslfield was starting
| from her dock at the loot of Whitehall street,
next to the Battery, at / 80 o'clock this alter
noon. with heavy load, composed mainly of
the usual class of Sunday excnrsiOnists to the
number of about 300, her boiler burst with
tremendous explosion, sbivering the whole of
| the upper works of the boat into a thousand
pieces and laying open the whole forward part
| of the hulk from the very keel. The spectacle
on the Inflated vessel subsequent to the explo-
sion, is beyond description. great aud
yawning abyss stretched from abaft the engine
room close to the steamer, and the deck seemed
to have opened like sepulchre to swallow 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
OTOhcu GihUoTby SpHutoTS anu ucdNy MdCuIuo-
ry. From amidship to cutwater, the boat
presents a vast hold filled with fragments.
How many bodies still lay 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 Prof.
March Chenevere of Brooklyn, were blown
bodily into the air, falling into the water
Some have been hauled out by boatmen, with
hooks and otherwise; and a large party engag-
ed in dragging the bottom are constantly fud
ing bodies As the reporter rushed down
Broadway toward the South Ferry he met
carriage with CHASTITY wounded body inside
Supported BY two men, and then a small
wagon with a woman stretched upon its floor,
apparently dead; then first and then another
ofthe great fire department wagons filed with
a horrid freight of torn and muddy bundles Of
clother with here and thsie bloody head
raised above the level of the mass to mark it as
humanity. Following in the track of these |
we're wagons which turned down Pearl street
aud following the steam of people who were
rushing like mad from Broadway, the reporter !
walked tn -Ough Pearl street into New street to |
the first precinct station house where the !
wagon stopped. A vast crowd filled the street, |
iamming upon to the steps of the house on the |
opposite side and clambering on the ratings |
and windows in front Of the station. The Pc |
culiarty Of this vast assemblage wss perfect |
stiffness. There was no conversation 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. The reporter pass
ed into the front room of the station house, |
shouldering and pushing his way through the |
crowd, in the centre of the room stood q poor |
woman with her clothes. torn away from her |
shoulders and cotton sticking to the 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 collected by her groans as the |
doctor spunged and dressed her wounds, and |
behind this crowd in corner of the front room |
lay eleven bloody and besmerched 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 internal |
ly wounded, who had fallen to the floor and |
lay there cured up in agony. The room in |
the rear of this was very il-lighted and almost |
dark, and in every corner some fearful shape |
was sitting or lying moaning and gesticulating |
with skinless, bloody hands and striving to ar
ticulate with scOrched scalded lips and black
sned tongues. A doctor was bending over an |
old woman on a stretcher on the floor who |
screamed with agony at every touch and |
and another woman sat in chair
and mutilated in fearful manner,
begging for a cup of water. Wounded men 10y |
ho,, xhnA 40 q A. o,I
fumes of the wine and brandy, which had been
to them mingled with the sick
ening order of charred flesh. Men, women anl
children still alive, would be brought in scorch
ed and bruised and INITIATED to such degree |
that it seemed almost impossible that life could |
remain.
Around the corpses in the front room the |
crowd was incessant and was constantly re-
cruited from the people who came in. Among |
the dead lay man with the back of his head |
absolutely blown off. He was said by some to |
be a fireman. Another woman's head was
crushed and her mouth was clotted with blood. |
The explosion was terrific. John Mage, the |
pilot, was thrown from the forward pilot house |
twenty feet into the air, falling on the boat and
escaped without scratch John Freeland |
engineer The latter is a colored man, and the |
Indignation Of the passengers against him ls
tremendous, though his friends say he is not to |
blame. .r- |
New YORK, July 31-2 A. M.-Most reliable |
returns of the disaster make the total killed 30
and of wounded 40. The engineer of the |
Westfield, Henry Robinson, who has been if |
teen years in the employ of the ferry company,
is stated by the superintendent to be very |
competent and trustworthy man, and has been |
engineer of the Westfeld for about nine years. |
His statement is very important as showing |
tbs probable cause of the explosion.
Robinson states emf hatically before he went |
off of the boat Eve minutes before the explosion
he tried the gauge cocks in the boiler and |
found them all full, showing il his statement is
true there was plenty in the boiler. He no. |
ticed there were "a pounds of steam and steam |
was blowing off from the safety valve At the |
time the boiler was inspected on the 18th of
June, when pressure OF IS pounds hydraulic
was applied, the steamboat inspector gave
certificate permitting q pounds of steam to
be carried, and the safety valve was weighted
and locked at that point. The engineers say
no water was supplied to the hoiler after the
boat left the quarantine landing on the way
up, and he commenced to feed the boiler on
leaving the lower landing and shut OF the
water after leaving quarantine.
The engineer further states that the boiler
was repaired and thoroughly overhauled last
winter by firm who put IN new legs and
patched the bottom Thinks the plate which
patched the boiler on the boiler on the bottom
had become loosened and finally gave way.
The testimonyof a fireman named Rawson
confirms the theory of the breaking OF the
patching of the boiler. He heard the Kissing
few moments before tow ard the rear of the
boat and started to see what it was, but as he
approached he was struck by splinters.
The number of passengers on the boat was
not SO large as usual nor as large as first esti-
mated. r.
One of the victims of the catastrophe was
Ante Mo Meacci,a Italian and partner of Gar
ribaldi in his candle factory at Clinton, Staten
Island.