Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-07-31
Terrific Explosion of the Staten
Island Boat Westf1eld.
Twenty-one persons killed and one
hundred wounded.
Full Particulars of the sad Catastrophe.

-N'ASSPchNihS oSSlSldly VI tilc AIUIy OF the
james, gives notice that bis address for the
ensuing year Twill be the Army and Navy
Club 10, Fifth Avenue, where Gen. j. r.
Hawley, president, and Gen. X. Graham
vice president, may also be addressed.
AS the Staten Island boat, Westfeld was
starting from her dock at the foot of White
nall street next to the Battery, at so
O'CLOCK tins afternoon, with heavy load
composed mainly of the usual class of Sunday
excurslonlsts, to the number of about 3OO
her boiler burst with a tremendous explo-
sion, shivering the whole of the upper works
of the boat in thousand pieces, and laying
open the whole forward part of the hulk from
the very keel. The spectacle of the i'll fated
vessel subsequent to the explosion is beyond
description. great and yawning abiss
stretched from abaft the engine room close to
the stem, and the deck seemed to have opened
like sepulchre to swallow its load of pre-
cious human freight. In the dark hold be-
meath the dead and dying were lying about in
every direction among the debris of broken
timbers, splinters and heavy machinery from
amidships to cutwater. The boat presents
vast hold filed with fragments of spars,
beams, flooring and bulwarks, and fragments
firon. How many bodies lay beneath the
ruins in that fearful hole it is impossible as vet
to tell. They are bearing 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 hauld out by hoatmen with
hooks and otherwise, and Il large party en-
"a ed in dragging the bottom are c, family
finding bodies. As the reporter rushed dow
broadway towards the South Ferry he met
carriage with gastly wounded body inside
supported between two men, and then q small
wagon with Il woman stretched upon its floor
apparently dead. Fl st, and then another of
the great fire department wagons filled. with a
horrid freight of torn and muddy bundles of
clothes, with here and there bloody head
raised above the level of the mass to mark it
as humanity. Following in the track of these
were wagons which turned down Pearl street
and following the stream of people who were
rushing like mad from Broadway. The re-
porter walked through Pearl street into New
street, to the first precinct station house,
where the wagons stopped. A vast crowd
filled the street, jamming up on the steps of
the house on the opposite side, and Chamber
ing on the ratings and windows in front of
the station. The peculiarly of this vast as
semblage was 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 passageway, by which the
bodies were carried in. 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 her 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. knot
of people had been collected by her groans as
the doctor spunged and dressed her wounds,
and behind this crowd in a corner of the front
room lay eleven bloody and besmeared
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 ill.,
lighted and almost dark. In every corner of
the room some fearful shape was sitting or
lying, moaning and gesticulating with skin
less, bloody hands, and striving to articulate
with scorched, scaded lips and blackened
tongues. doctor was bending over an old
woman ON a stretcher on the floor, who
screamed with agony at every touch and
movement, and another woman sat in a chair
backened and mutilated in fearful manner,
begging for cup of water. Wounded men
lay about the floor in pools of their own blood
and fumes of the 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 impossible that
life could remain. Around the corpses in the
front room the crowd was incessant, and was
constantly recruited from the people who
came in. Among the dead lay a man with
the back of his head absolutely blown off
10 hxye To hA t.
the most interesting group was a respectable
woman of 80 years, apparently a sewing
woman. with plain wedding ring on her left
hand. Her head was crushed and her mouth
cotted with blood. The explosion was ter
rife. John Magee, the pilot, was thrown
from forward the pilot house twenty feet into
the air, falling on the boat and escaping with
out scratch. John Freeland was Captain
of the boat and Harry Robinson the engineer.
The latter is colOred man and the indi-na-
ton OF the passengers against him is tremvnd-
Gus, though his friends say he is not 10
blame. The cause of the explosion was
probably the breaking of the joints OF The
plate with which the boiler had been patcht d
on the rear end. The huge black smoke
stack of the steamer lay like monster ser
pent over an entire family whom it had strick-
en- in its fall. a number of the victims were
past any chance of recovery, and their death
was only a question of minutes, or few
hours at most. One of the sadleSt and most
affecting sights in the search for the injured,
was the discovery of several little children
and infants, whose tender limbs and bodies
were bruised in the most horrible manner.
The excitement on Staten Island is beyond
belief At every ferry are crowds of women
and children, looking out for the missing ones
Col. Much, a well-known inhabitant, was
fearfully scalded about the arms and body.
Much was a partner of Garibal1i while the
latter was in this country. Capt Jake Van
derbilt says that the Wesifiel was one Of the
most staunch boats of the company, and had
new boilers put in her within the last twelve
months. Sixteen persons are now believed
to have been instantly killed. Twenty
are already dead, and more than one hundred
severely wounded All the lower wards of
the city are filled with excited crowds. The
Times and Sun have issued full extras, con-
tanning full details of the catastrophe.
The Weather.
WAR DEPARTMENT,
nt,xsr.