The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1949-12-15


and women's cabins, panic-stricken,
jumping into the river. Away from
the business district of Cincinnati,
no boats were near enough to go to
the wreck.
MANY DROWN
1t was minutes before any rescue
craft, the only unmanageable barges
and wooden floats, arrived at the
sinking Moselle. Many persons We're
drowned before rescue arrived and
many afterwards went down who
never were again seen.
One small boy, thrown onto the
shore, wrung his hands and implored
someone to rescue his parents and
three sisters, struggling in the wat
er One by one they sank and never
came up. A baby, floating down.
river on a fragment of the hurri-
cane deck, was picked up alive but
it's parents never were found.
The boat sank Is minutes after
the explosion, only her stacks and
part of her upper works above
the water. The Moselle had been
loaded from stem to stern with pas
sengers, mostly Germans, for st.
Louis and a few for New Orleans.
Nearly all on board, other than a
few in the women's cabin, were
killed or wounded. Most victims
were among the crew and the steer
age passengers.
CAPTAIN KILLED
Captain Perkins was thrown by
the explosion onto Cincinnati
street and was picked up dead and
mangled; another man was blown
through the roof of a house; and the
pilot was blown about 100 feet into
the air only to fall back into the
river. Many limbs and other parts
of bodies were found on the river
and along the shore. Of the Mo-
selle's passenger list, it was estimat-
ed that more than 200 were dead.
The river steamer which left Gin
cinnati loaded with passengers for
St. Louis and New Orleans, just a.
head of the Moselle that day was
the North Carolina" running from
Pittsburgh to st. Louis and New
Orleans, in command of Capt. John
+. Devenny. His boat made the trip
and delivered its passengers safely
and promptly but even Devenny ad-
mitted that it might have been over
taken and beaten had no accident
occurred to the swift Moselle.
Devenny, born in 1910 in West
moreland County, Pennsylvania,
moved with his parents to Steuben-
vile, Ohio, in 1916, where he resided
until his death at ninety-six. When
10, in 1929, he was engineer on a
river boat.
In 1885 Devenny commanded a
boat which ran from Pittsburgh to
st. Louis and to New Orleans, and
in the Civil War was captain of a
boat in the Vicksburg campaign.
The first boat Devinny captained
was the "Ruhamah." The North
Carolina was his own steamer.
RACING WAS POPULAR
Racing was common pastime in
the old Ohio and Mississippi river
days.
Devenny related that once as he
left Pittsburgh another boat with
wooden smokestacks pulled out with
him. It's regular stacks had been
brushed away in passing a tree and
the improvised wooden ones were
substituted.
The captain of the damaged craft
angry because Devenny laughed al
the lumber smokestacks, declaring
hecould beat the North Carolina in.
to New Orleans. The race was on
The boats moved along in close
company for few hours, then the
skipper of the rival boat discovered
his wooden smokestacks were afre
There was much excitement on that
boat. The whole crew was sum
moned, tore the stacks away and
threw them into the river.
"We all laughed heartily and ]
thought it was my boats race then
but the rival craft had an extra SET
of stacks hidden somewhere, put
them up in jiffy, and beat us into
New Orleans" Cptain Devenny said
BECAME GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR
1t was Devenny who, as gov
ernment inspector of steamships, had
the first blowout plugs" installed
in boilers to guard against explosions
such as that of the Moselle. Holes
were bored in the boiler, and were
then plugged with block tin. AT the
temperature of 442 degrees the block
tin melted the holes open and the
escaping steam gave warning to the
engineer to open the furnace doors
and let the fire go down. The plugs
were hollow brass screws, with GEN.
ters of block tin. They were put in
from the inside of the boiler by
men who crawled into it to do the
work.
"There were places on the Miss
issippi where we had to lie by all
night Devenny said. Sometimes
we had to send a skiff across the
river to build a bonfire as a guide
to the channel, constantly changing
from year to year. Buoys now take
care of that" the old riverman