New-York tribune., 1922-08-03
lug ueg Explosion
And Death OF ;
River Mystery
Diver Seeks Vainly for
Bodies of Grew Who Van
islled When Boiler Blew
Up the Towboat Edward
Captain Dead on Pier
Effort To BE Made To-day to
Raise Broken Hull and
Learn Cause of Disaster

learn Cause of Disaster
An attempt will be made to-day to
raise the shattered hull of the tug
Edward from the bottom of the East
River at the foot of Gold Street, Brook
lyn. A boiler explosion is held respon-
sible for the annnihilation yesterday
OF the craft and her company of five
men.
Henry Seimer. a diver employed by
the Merritt Chapman Wrecking Com
pany, explored the wreckage yesterday
afternoon, forty-five feet down in black,
oily water at the mouth of a sewer.
The foul water there was too thick for
the diver to see through the glass
window in his metal helmet. but with
skilled fingers he felt his way over the
broken hull, which lies in two parts,
the stern upside down. separated by
forty feet of Shiny mud. The diver
found that the bodies of none of the
four missing men were in the wreckage.
Only One Body Found
Only the body Of the captain, Thomas
McCaffery, of 81 India Street, Brook
lyn, has been recovered. 1t was hurled
several hundred feet into the air to
land on a pier of the National Lead
Company. Twisted rings that clung to
his fingers and broken watch that
was found in a fragment of clothing
remaining on the body enabled the tug
masters son-inlaw to accomplish the
identification.
ling, a deckhand; Theodore Hedden-
berg, engineer; Michael Nadlcy, cook,
and Jose Gumpitano, fireman.
1t was about 10 o'clock when the
powerful little vessel, low in the
water from her heavy engine, pointed
her bow, covered with hempen padding
that suggested blond beard, against
the side of a coal barge tied up at
the dock Of the National Lead Com
pany's Atlantic Works, which have a
frontage on the East River at Gold
Street. A pier about 100 feet long ex-
tends into the river from Gold Street
Another pier Of similar length ex-
tends into the river at the other end
of the lead plant, about 250 feet away.
The tragedy occurred in the sewage
fouled basin formed by these two
wooden piers.
Tug Vanishes in Flash
The Edward had come to take the
barge Dutch Boy in tow for Port
Richmond. Captain McCaffery was
leaning from the forward window of
his pilot house exchanging shouts
with Walter j. Lynch, foreman of the
lighterage department of the National
Lead Company, who was on their pier.
Another man, probably the missing
Bowling, was standing in the bow pre-
pairing to toss line to the barge In
thn%
around on the strong ebb tide. A
flash of time later and the tug had
disappeared as though by enchant-
ment.
Il was standing by to grab line
from the tug when it happened" said
Patrick O'Brien, captain of the coal
barge. "My wife and children were in
the cabin. Then it happened l didn't
hear any noise.
There was a cloud of steam, blast
of hot air and then the barge shipped
lot of water. | saw the pilot house
Of the tug, and l think the skipper's
face was still at the window, go sailing
up into the air. Beams and iron began
sink at our BERTH
Cornelius O'Brien, the barge cap
tain's son, does not recall hearing any
noise, either, although the explosion
occurred within twenty feet of him.
MY mother was ironing and me and
my little brothers, Pat and Vincent
were eating. First thing we knew the
kitchen was knee deep in hot water"
Debris Hurled Six Stories
Half dozen employees in the Edi-
son Company's plant on the south side
of Gold Street were convinced for ten
or fifteen minutes that an airplane had
collapsed over them. Bits of wreckage
dropped through the sKylight, six
stories above the ground, and although
none of the workmen were injured, one
of the four big turbo generators had to
be shut down until fragments of the
tugboat could be cleared away.
A section of the tugs boiler, esti-
mated to have weighed 1900 pounds,
sailed high into the air and came down
like a dud on the end of the lead COM
pany's pier, tearing a hole as large as
taxicab in the roof of the shed that
covers it.
At the offices of the East River Tow
ing Company, II Battery Place, it was
stated that the officials of the concern
were as mystifed as the authorities
concerning the cause of the boiler ex-
plosion. Government inspectors, it was
said, had looked over the boiler of the
tug last May and had given it the
annual official Q X.
Reuben Wilson, assistant District
Attorney of Kings County, appeared on
the Gold Street dock in the late after
noon. Everybody who might know
anything about the cause is dead;
there is nothing we can do" he said.
This is matter for investigation by
the United States Steamboat Inspec-
tion Service"
Throughout the afternoon a group of
policemen, firemen and others watched
from the Gold Street pier as the rising
air from the helmet of the diver
marked out with line of bubbles on
the surface the broken outline of the
grave of the tug Edward.