The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-06-16


up stream was line of little black
spots, marking the heads and bodies
of those who had sought to escape the
roaring furnace on the ship by throw
ing themselves overheard.
Few of those saved by the small
boats had on life preservers. At no
time during the progress of the fire
was there any opportunity to either
lower the hfeboats or get the life pre-
servers out from under the seats
This perhaps, gives an idea of the
rapidity with which the flames swept
the decks.
It was an experience narrowing and
terrible, and that any escaped alive
seems wonderful.
Through all the wild panic, during
all that inferno, with fire and smoke
surrounding them, the officers and
men of the doomed boat remained at
their posts, but they were powerless
to avert the catastrophe.
When She Was BeHched.
The Slccum got within fifty feet of
the northwest point of North Brother
Island and there stopped in the shall
low water.
1t was Just before she beached, that
the hurricane deck, the supports of
which had burned away, fell with it's
load of women and children, adding
to the panic and horror of those on the
deck below. Very soon after parts of
the second and third decks also caved
in. But before this happened the tug
Walter Tracey had come alongside the
burning steamer and been dashed to 1t,
Many passengers were taken off by
the crew of the Tracey, which remain
ed alongside the steamer until the
tugs pilot house took fire.
The point where the Slocum beach
ed was just off the Scarlet Fever ward
on North Brother Island. The patients
who had been out on the porches and
lawns watching the approach of the
burning steamer, were ordered indoors
and the physicians on the island has
tened to the assistance of those who
were being brought ashore through the
shallow water. Many of those who
leaped from the Slocum were carried
away by the current, even after she
was beached, and were drowned.
Scene Was Terrible.
The scene on North Brother Island,
as described by the rescuers, was a
pitiful one. Body after body was wash
ed ashore or brought in by boats and
added to the long row on the beach.
Fifty-three persons died there while the
doctors were attending thep
AS the bodies of the living and the
dead were taken out of the water
those alive were taken to the hospitals
on the island or sent across the river
to hospitals in Manhattan. Ambu-
lances from almost all the hospitals in
Greater New York and every other sort
of conveyance which could be found
were put into service.
For hours the bodies of the burned
and the drowned drifted ashore on
the island and between One Hundred
and Thirty-first and One Hundred and
Thirty eighth streets in Manhattan
Some came ashore still alive. Many
cover.
The scenes on the beach on North
Brother Island were pitiable in the
extreme, as the living and the dead
were brought in. The row of bodies
stretched along the beach and hysterical
women and frantic men went along.
looking at one after another, search
ing for children and friends. Women
with disfigured faces, their clothes par
TALLY stripped from them, were carried
to the improvised emergency hospital,
crying for children who had been torn
from them in the mad rush when the
boat took fire.
SIS Charred COrpses.
Meanwhile the Slocum burned to the
waters edge. At 1925 o'clock, two
hours and twenty-five minutes after
the fire was first discovered, she sank.
1t is estimated that there were then
nearly 100 charred bodies on her decks.
Just after the steamer sank, the
water near by was black with bodies.
The tug Fidelity succeeded in picking
up lightweight charred corpses in
Hunts Cove, off Raker's Island, and
carried them into the sound. None of
these bodies, it is thought, can ever
be identified.
Heads legs and arms are burned off
and not shred of clothing is left on
any of them.
Taken to the Morgue.
Tonight a surging crowd is held back
by police lines formed about the city
morgue at the foot of East Twenty
sixth street. The crowd began to
gather as soon as 1t became runlored
about the city that the dead would
be brought to Manhattan from North
Brother Island and other places. where
at first the dead had been taken. When
the Massasoit came to dock with eigh-
ty-f1ve dead, the work of removing the
bodies from the steamer proceeded
slowly until no more room was found
inside the norgue and the autopsy room
was cleared and the backened and
distorted bodies were placed on the
floor there.
When finally the authorities allowed
the crowd to enter the morgue, a scene
ensued which was narrowing in the
extreme. In some cases, first identi-
fications were found to have been err
roneous, men laying claim to bodies
they afterwards discovered were not
those of their relatives.
At the entrance to the Charities pier
at the foot of East Twenty-sixth street
the crowd tonight tried to push past
the police, and a riot resulted. At the
hight of the trouble a man who had
learned that his wife was among the
charred dead. tried to stab himself.