The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-09-20

saw and turn back at Claiborne The | Prentiss was a very swift boat, command l ed during the service by Capt. Henry
 'Sampson, though brought from the west | by Capt. G. B. Massey. The commander
 of the Lucy Bell was N A. Ogburn. She
 was not a fast goer, but her machinery was used in the James Deficit, built in | Mobile, and one of the swiftest among | the hree-boilered packets.
 'The first steamboat disaster occurring | in our waters of which we have any rec ord, was the explosion of the Ben Frank | lin as it was backing out from the wharf at Mobile. We are told this was in 1887 or 1898. Many lives were lost, but being | in easy reach of help the accident was not as fatal as it might have been. The next ! one also took place near Mobile, in sight l just above the city. The steamer Tusca- lcosa had left in a terrible storm. The writer's mother had engaged passage for | herself and two children. the writer being l the younger. The carriage to convey them
 to the boat stood waiting at the door of
 her fathers residence in Toulminville. a | suburb of Mobile. but he dissuaded her
 from making the trip in such a down.
 pour and amid such vivid lightning This was in the winter of 1S47. The boat had | considerable trouble in getting away from
 her mooring, as strong southeast gale
 kept her damned to the wharf but finally, getting under headway, she took fire, whether from lightning from the burst | ing of boilers, was never known, and the blaze being seen from the city. assistance
 was rushed to the scene, where the river
 was filled with freight. wrechage and l human beings. P. c. Conley, afterward 1 a steamboat owner and merchant of the Gulf City. but youth at that time, went | out on one of the vessels to the rescue and saved George H. Kirk, young off- 1 cer of the Tuscaloosa. whom he found
 clinging to some floating object. Many
 were burned to death. many were drowned
 and the river was lashed into a perfect
 foam by the raging gale.
 George H. Kirk afterward became a
 noted captain and was in command oi
 the Sunny South, which was burned to
 the waters edge at Portland in 1866. She
 was loaded with cotton which catching
 fire added to the horrors of the occasion } Col. A. c. Oxford, of Birmingham, was a passenger on the Sunny South and viv' { idly describes the awful tragedy
 ! we are reminded of the death by light } ming that befell a young and beautiful
 woman of Mobile, on this same night Miss Caroline Goodman was residing witl
 her brother, Duke W. Goodman, on th' southwest corner of State and Joachil streets She was sharing the room witt the wife and child Of Capt. Henry Samp son.
 "A MT. Hemphill was guest of th family that night. and detecting the odo of burning cloth. he arose, dressed ant made a search of the house, and througl the keyhole of Mrs. Sampson's apartmen he discovered the bed afre, gave tn alarm, and breaking open the door en tered just in time to save that lady ant Fer child from a horrible death-the for mer being stunned and the latter unin jured and asleep.
 vrhe young lady was dead. A gold but ion at the throat of her night dress hal l been struck by the bolt and was perfectl. { black She was soon to become a bride ! and the prominence of her family an her sudden death added to the catastro } phe on the river, plunged the city il } mourning.
 "The writer's first acquaintarce wit death was when boy of or he wa { living in Camden. from which place h : moved soon after to Mobile. his birth