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"Ow^ touch of Nature makes the whole world ktn 
 
 
 
 5 J 
 
 New York's Awful 
 
 Excursion Boat Horror 
 
 TOLD BY 
 
 Survivors and Rescuers 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JOHN WESLEY HANSON 
 
 The GhasUy Story of the Heart-Rending Tragedy at 
 Hell Gate Vividly Portrayed by Pen and Picture. 
 
 Every Harrowing Detail of the World's Most AppalHng 
 
 Holocaust Accurately Described by Eye-Witnesses. 
 
 The Self-Sacrificing Heroism of Mothers. The 
 
 Wholesale Cremation of Little Children. 
 
 The Noble Deeds of Brave Life-Savers. 
 
 The Thrilling Scenes on the Flame-Swept Decks of the 
 
 Ill-Fated Pleasure Boat, General Slocum, 
 
 Truthfully Delineated. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 WITH VIEWS TAKEN DURING AND AFTER THE CALAMITY 
 
 U... 
 
LieB*RV nf G0N6RESS 
 Two Oooies Received 
 AUG 3 1904 
 
 C Oopyrtght Entry 
 
 Class x xxc. no. 
 
 COPY B 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 iOHN W. HANSON 
 
 S 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 One beautiful day in June an excursion steamer, with 
 twelve hundred Christian souls on board, set forth upon a 
 pleasure trip. The boat was gay with multi-colored bunting; 
 the happy voices of care-free women rang across the dancing 
 waters; happy children were romping over the decks and — as 
 if in mockery of the predestined catastrophe that was to follow 
 — the band was playing a sacred hymn, "Our God Is a Mighty 
 Fortress." Then the brutal hand of Fate swept the picture 
 from the canvas and in its place supplied a fiendish nightmare 
 vision of horrid anguish and frantic terror. 
 
 No artist, unless he dipped his brush in the colors of hell, 
 could portray the awful scene of a majestic vessel, wrapped in 
 great sheets of devouring flame, speeding to a haven of 
 refuge, while the grim helmsman Death wrestled for suprem- 
 acy with the heroic captain at the wheel. And it would 
 need the genius of a Dante to word-paint the dreadful spec- 
 tacle of helpless children roasted alive before their mother's 
 eyes or swept by fear-crazed hundreds over the burning rails 
 of the boat into the hungry jaws of the devouring tide— of 
 gentle women and feeble old men crushed beneath the falling 
 timbers of the decks or hurled to a swifter and, possibly, less 
 terrible death, in the rushing waters of the river. 
 
 "There is purpose in pain— otherwise it were devilish," and 
 
 3 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 may not the fact that this sacrifice of human life was per- 
 mitted to take place be only another proof of an all-seeing 
 Providence that, "deep within the shadow, keepeth watch 
 above His own"? For this is the lesson to be drawn from the 
 disaster on the East River: The human family is traveling 
 toward the same goal — "the ways they are many, the end it is 
 one" — but each is the way of the Cross. 
 
 Terrible was the suffering on board the General Slocum, 
 but, in the midst of the agony of body and spirit of the 
 doomed passengers, one great familiar truth stood revealed 
 in all its sublimity and grandeur: "Love conquereth all 
 things." The love of a mother for her child, which even 
 death cannot appall; the love of husband and wife, which fire 
 doth but purify; the love of brother and sister, were illus- 
 trated hundreds of times during that fiery ordeal. But greater 
 than these were the splendid examples of man's love for his 
 fellow man that inspired scores of courageous hearts to sacri- 
 fice their lives for the sake of strangers, drawn to them, in 
 those awful moments, by the tie of universal brotherhood — for 
 the sight of suffering is the "one touch of nature that makes 
 the whole world kin." 
 
 What, then, was the purpose of the Hell Gate horror? It 
 was to soften the heart and chasten the spirit of man. The 
 very thought of a thousand people suddenly given the choice 
 of two horrible deaths — burning or drowning — is fearful to 
 contemplate, but, when the majority of them are little chil- 
 dren, it becomes a sacred tragedy, thrilling, intense and 
 pathetic. But, after all, it was the number of victims, sacri- 
 ficed to human cupidity and carelessness, that intensified the 
 wave of sympathy that swept the country. If, when the news 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 of the disaster had been flashed over the world, It had 
 recorded the death of one little baby, what would the effect 
 have been? The world would have shuddered and then for- 
 gotten—and yet some mother's heart would have been made 
 desolate thereby. Therefore, much good will come from the 
 very immensity of the holocaust. We needed the lesson, hard 
 as it was, and the storm of public sentiment that the calamity 
 has aroused will mean that, for a long time, the lives of 
 women and children will be more zealously safeguarded. 
 
 "Example is a living law, whose sway 
 Men more than all the written laws obey." 
 
 Surely those little ones, whose lives went out in the smoke 
 and flame of the burning steamer, did not die in vain. And 
 that army of mothers, who suffered glorious martyrdom that 
 the inhumanities of commercialism might be exposed, were 
 part of the same salutary plan. So, too, the splendid example 
 of those heroes and heroines whose deeds of daring and self- 
 sacrifice are recorded in the pages of this book, will do much 
 to curb the avaricious spirit of the times— the lust for blood- 
 jnoney— that reached its climax when the wrecked hull of the 
 General Slocum was beached on the shore of North Brother 
 
 Island. 
 
 John Wesley Hanson. 
 
The Passengers' Death Song 
 
 '■'■Ein Feste Burg 1st Unser Gott," the great 
 hymn of the Lutheran church, which the mighty 
 Martin and his followers sang as they entered 
 the diet at Worms to stand trial for Jieresy, and 
 which the Pan-German army chanted on the battle- 
 fields of France in j8yo, zvas the hymn sung by the 
 ill-fated passengers of the General Slocum zvhen 
 they started on their last voyage. 
 
 This English version is by Frederic Henry 
 Hedge : 
 
 ^ i^igl^t^ f^xixtm \^ our cBfoti 
 
 A mighty fortress is our God, 
 
 A bulwark never failing ; 
 Our helper he amid the flood 
 
 Of mortal ills prevailing. 
 For still our ancient foe 
 Doth seek to work us tvoe ; 
 His craft and potver are great 
 And armed with equal hate, 
 
 On earth is not his equal. 
 
 Did %ve in our own strength confide. 
 Our striving ivould be losing ; 
 
 Were not the right jnaji on our side. 
 The man of God' s oivn choosing. 
 
 Dost ask who that may be ? 
 
 Christ Jesus, it is he. 
 
 Lord Sabaoth his tiame, 
 
 From age to age the same, 
 And he must win the battle. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER"'! 
 THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hundreds Roasted Alive or Drowned — Passengers Panic-stricken — A Carnival 
 of Terror — Women and Children with Their Hair and Clothing on Fire — 
 Wailing Children and Old People Trampled Under Foot — Crowded into 
 the Water — The Fall of the Hurricane Deck — Rotten Life Preservers — 
 Heroic Captain and Pilots^-The Cause of the Fire — Story of Cruel Selfish- 
 ness—The Tide Gives Up the Dead 13 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 A DAY OF BRIGHT PROMISE 
 
 The Boat Starts — An Eager Crowd — An Ideal Day for a Picnic — Big Family 
 Parties on Board — "Our God Is a Mighty Fortress" — Hell Gate Passed — 
 The First Burst of Smoke — Warning from Passing Craft — Children 
 Thought the Fire Alarm a Joke — The Captain Heads for the Shores of 
 North Brother Island — Hemmed in by Fire — Mothers Fight for Their 
 Children Like Wild Beasts 2g 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 HARROWING DETAILS 
 
 No Chance for Rescue — Into the Racing Tide — Writhing Figure in the Burning 
 Wreckage — Ablaze from Stem to Stern — The Captain and Pilots at 
 Their Stations — A Heroic Coxswain — Brave Jack Wade — Fireboats Sound 
 the Alarm — A Boy's Brave Fight — The Burning Hulk Sinks — Refuse to 
 Lend a Helping Hand — Over Four Hundred Dead on North Brother 
 Island — Divers Begin the Search — Statement of the Pilot— Sad Features. . 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 HEROIC RESCUERS 
 
 Bravery of the Nurses — Florence Denning Saves Seven — Other Heroines — The 
 Bravery of a Switchboard Girl — A Courageous Irish Girl — Lashed to the 
 Burning Steamship — Flannery the Hero — Heartrending Appeals for Aid — 
 Tugboat Men to the Rescue — Saves His Sweetheart — Three Girls 
 Rescued — An Eleven -Year-Old Boy Shows Great Presence of Mind— Van 
 Tassel, the Intrepid Policeman 63 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE SUNKEN SEPULCHER 
 A Grewsome Task— Diver Finds Eighty Bodies of Women and Children — 
 Pinned Down by Metal and Wood — In the Clutch of the Tide — A 
 Shapeless Heap of Dead — Pitiful Forms Crushed by Beams — 
 Bodies Floating Rapidly Away — The Work of Rice and Other Divers 77 
 
 7 
 
8 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 SCENES AT THE MORGUE 
 
 Awaiting the Arrival of the Dead— First Boatload of Thirty Bodies — Eighty 
 Dead on the Massasoit — Rows of Pine Boxes — Wide-open Eyes Staring 
 Upward — A Father Finds His Baby Daughter — Wife and Children Gone — 
 The Tireless Search at Hospitals — Human Tragedies 87 
 
 CHAPTER VH 
 HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 
 
 flev. George C. P. Haas Relates His Experiences — An Inhuman Brute — Heat 
 of the Flames Prevents the Work of Rescue — Story of a Deckhand — A 
 Fireman Loses His Family — Rail of the Boat Gives Way — Left with 
 Only His Baby— Watching While Mother Dies— The Children's Side of the 
 Disaster the Most Pathetic— Gave Up Life Preserver— Priests Comfort 
 the Bereaved Ones— Mother and Child Die Together — Pickpockets— 
 Twenty-nine Relatives Gone 102 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE captain's STORY 
 
 The First Alarm of Fire— Knew that the Slocum Was Doomed— Could Not 
 Swing the Boat Against the Tide— No Chance to Beach the Steamer- 
 Scores Pitched into the River— Tried by Fire— Did the Captain Blunder? — 
 Other Means of Escape— The Crew Blamed 120 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 HISTORY OF THE GENERAL SLOCUM 
 
 Built in i8gi— Made Entirely of Wood— Overhauled and Inspected Shortly 
 Before the Disaster— A Victim of Many Mishaps— Present Laws Which 
 Govern Inspection of Steamboats— Same Accident May Occur to Any 
 Excursion Steamer— Stop the Building of Boats with Flimsy Upper 
 Decks— A Boiler Always a Danger Spot— Age of Boat Does Not Count. . 131 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE SPECTACLE FROM THE SHORE 
 
 An Ominous Cloud of Smoke— Enveloped in Flame— A Huddled Mass of 
 Women and Children— Bodies in the Wake of the Burning Boat— The 
 Dead Tangled in the Debris— A Floating Crematory— Shrieking Mass in 
 the Water— The Beach Strewn with Disfigured Dead 138 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES 
 
 Clara Hartmann's Story— Alive but Tagged with a Death Mark of Identification 
 —Thrilling Story— Boyish Pluck— Clung to a Paddlewhecl— A Pile of 
 Heads, Legs and Arms— Hair and Clothing on Fire— Dragged under 
 Water— Plucked from the Waters 140 
 
CONTENTS 9 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A HOUSE OF LAMENTATION 
 
 Thriving Neighborhood Plunged in Woe — Once Happy Church Turned into a 
 Place of Mourning— Sorrow for the Lost — Woeful Trips of the Under- 
 takers' Wagons — The Missing — St. Mark's Church an Old One — The 
 Streets Thronged with Mourners — Crowds Round the Church — People 
 Clamoring for Information — Crape-Hung Doorways 155 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 STORIES OF EYE-WITNESSES 
 
 Tales of Horror — A Brave "Trusty" — An Unknown Hero — Clinging to the 
 Paddle-Wheel— The Work of Herbert Farrell— What Captain McGovern 
 Saw — Remarkable Child-Bravery — Survivors Commit Suicide — Robbing 
 the Dead — Crazed Mothers Hurl Babies into the River — Paddlewheel 
 Choked with the Bodies of Victims — Saw the Hurricane Deck Collapse 
 —Fifty Childen Perished in the Whirlpool of Hell Gate 167 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 IDENTIFYING THE DEAD 
 
 Clothing of Victims Searched for Effects — The Bodies Carefully Tagged— Many 
 Charred Beyond Recognition — Identified by Some Article of Clothing or 
 Trinket— Searching for Loved Ones— Remains Sent to the Morgue — 
 System for Preventing Mistaken Identification 177 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 TESTIMONY OF THE SURVIVORS 
 
 The Story of Clara Stuer— Awful Scenes Witncp.sed by Little Sallie Klein— His 
 Dead Wife Smiled— Twenty Boys Form a Bucket Brigade— Annie Weber's 
 Dreadful Narrative— The Statement of John Halphusen 186 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 EXPRESSIONS OF SYMPATHY 
 
 President Roosevelt's Message— England Horrified— Offers of Aid from 
 American Cities— President Loubet Cables His Sympathy —Mayor 
 Harrison Sends a Telegram of Condolence to the New York Executive — 
 Generous Contributions from Wealthy Sympathizers— Letters from 
 Clergymen — Cablegrams from Euroj^ean Monarchs i97 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 
 A Happy Party of Children— A Freight of Youthful Happiness— The Little Tots 
 Flock Together— No Hint of Danger— Eating Ice Cream When the Fire 
 Started— Looking Forward to a Day on Long Island— Tiny Toddlers 
 Lost from Their Mothers— Baby Heroes and Heroines— Mothers Crazed 
 with Panic — Empty Benches in Schools 205 
 
10 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 MEMORIAL SERVICES 
 
 Comforting Words' from Clergymen — A Sad Sabbath — Pathetic Scenes at 
 Church — Quotations from Addresses of Noted Divines — A Whole City 
 Mourns — Churches of Every Denomination Send Messages — Prayers are 
 Read— Bells are Tolled during the Funerals 214 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 NOBLE WORK AT THE HOSPITALS 
 
 Physicians and Nurses Act as Life-Savers— Burned Children Tenderly Cared 
 for — Setting a Baby's Broken Jaw— Caring for the Injured at North 
 Brother Island— Nurses Brave Death to Aid the Helpless Ones — No Work 
 Too Hard for Them— Energy Born of Desperation — Clamoring, Frantic 
 Men and Women— An AU-Night Task— The City Hospitals 228 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 FUNERALS OF THE VICTIMS 
 
 Funerals from Dawn to Dark — Morbid Crowds— Burial of Mrs. Haas— The 
 Unknown Dead — Children Take Part in the Ceremonies — Curiosity 
 Seekers— The Child with the Rose 236 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 THE coroner's INQUEST 
 
 Testimony of Owners and Crew of the Slocum— No Fire Precautions— Refuse 
 to Testify — Bursting of the Hose — Only One Member of the Crew 
 Drowned — Hero Day at the Inquiry — Scum of Powdered Cork on the 
 Water — Rotten Hose and Useless Life Preservers — The Survivors 
 Testify— Held to the Grand Jury 245 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 official LIST OF THE DEAD 267 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 RECORD OF STEAMBOAT DISASTERS 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 THE NORGE DISASTER 314 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Bodies on the Lawn near Riverside Hospital 
 
 An Innocent Victim 
 
 Policemen Carrying Injured into the Ambulance 
 
 Hauling Bodies over the Wall 
 
 Interior View of the Morgue 
 
 Recovering Bodies 
 
 The General Slocum Just Before the Fire Broke Out 
 
 Bodies of the Victims Strewn along the Shore 
 
 Boat Bringing Survivors and Dead Bodies to Land 
 
 Four Heroes 
 
 Diver John Rice Coming Up from the Wreck 
 
 Fishing Up Bodies from the River 
 
 Some of the Survivors of the Disaster 
 
 A Group of Bereaved Relatives 
 
 Bodies Wedged in the Paddlebox 
 
 Boats Removing Bodies from the Sunken Wreck 
 
 View of the Burning Steamer 
 
 Exterior View of the Morgue 
 
 Identifying the Dead 
 
 Heroic Rescuers at Work 
 
 One of the Life Preservers 
 
 A Simple Funeral 
 
 A House of Mourning 
 
 Anxious Crowd on the New York Shore 
 
 Five Dead in One Home 
 
 A Burned and Mutilated Body 
 
 Preparing the Bodies for Identification 
 
 Rev. Geo. C. F. Haas 
 
 Funeral of the Pastor's Wife 
 
 A Row of Corpses Awaiting Removal 
 
 Bodies Lying on the Shore of North Brother Island 
 
 Throng in Front of St. Mark's Church 
 
 Funeral of the Unknown Dead 
 
 Inspector Lundberg on the Witness Stand 
 
 Deckhand Coakley Testifying 
 
 Portraits of Mrs. Anna Backman and her Baby 
 
 Portrait of Mary Duckhoff 
 
 Portraits of the Muth Children 
 
 Portrait of Minnie Christ 
 
 A Pitiful Story 
 
 Coroner's Jury in Session 
 
 Chief Engineer Conkling Giving his Testimony 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 
 
 Hundreds Roasted Alive or Drowned— Passengers Panic-stricken — A Carni- 
 val of Terror — Women and Children with their Hair and Clothing en 
 Fire— Wailing Children and Old People Trampled under Foot— Crowded 
 into the Water— The Fall of the Hurricane Deck — Rotten Life Preserv- 
 ers — Heroic Captain and Pilots — The Cause of the Fire — Story of 
 Cruel Selfishness^The Tide Gives Tip the Dead — Ghastly Evidence. 
 
 On Wednesday, June 15, 1904, occurred one of the most 
 horrible catastrophes in history. A steamer, the General Slo- 
 cum, filled with happy excursionists, burst into flames near 
 Hell Gate, in the East River, New York, and hundreds of 
 people, mostly Sunday school pupils and their parents, were 
 consumed by fire or hurled to a watery grave in the seething 
 flood. 
 
 The disaster exceeded in numbers and wholly matched in 
 pitifulness and horror the Iroquois theater fire in Chicago last 
 December. It was appalling in its immensity, dramatic in its 
 episodes, and deeply pathetic in the tender age of most of its 
 victims. 
 
 VICTIMS MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN 
 
 As in the Iroquois fire, most of the victims were women 
 
 and children. They were members of the Sunday school of 
 
 St. Mark's German Lutheran church, bound for their annual 
 
 excursion up Long Island Sound, happy, gay, care free, and 
 
 full of joyous expectations of their day of all days in the year. 
 
 13 
 
14 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 They went to their death with bands playing, flags whip- 
 ping in the breeze, and under as fair a sky as was ever vouch- 
 safed to a picnic crowd. The four hundred children were 
 singing, dancing, and waving handkerchiefs and flags in 
 answer to the salutations of those on shore or from passing 
 steamers. 
 
 MADE THE HEART SICK 
 
 The scenes during and after the catastrophe were the kind 
 that make the heart sick. Mothers hugging their children to 
 their breasts in love and terror were forced to choose between 
 certain death in the flames and almost equally certain death 
 in the water. 
 
 Some, made frantic by their sudden peril, threw their babes 
 into the whirling waters of Hell Gate, hoping doubtless for 
 improbable rescue, while many were not allowed the poor 
 privilege of choosing, but were forced overboard by the mad 
 rush of the panic-stricken passengers in their efforts to get 
 away from the flames. 
 
 ROASTED ALIVE 
 
 It was a spectacle of horror beyond words to express — a 
 great vessel all in flames, sweeping forward in the sunlight, 
 within sight of the crowded city, while its helpless, screaming 
 hundreds were roasted alive or swallowed up in the waves; 
 women and children with. their hair and clothing on fire; wail- 
 ing children and old men trampled under foot or crowded 
 over into the water — and the burning steamboat, its whistle 
 roaring for assistance, speeding for the shore, with a trail of 
 ghastly faces and clutching hands in the tide behind — gray- 
 haired mothers and tender infants going down to death 
 together. 
 
THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 15 
 
 Members of the crew endeavored to extinguish the flames. 
 Their efforts were unavailing and in an incredibly short time 
 the fire gained uncontrollable headway. Clouds of smoke 
 rolled back through the crowded decks. The flames followed 
 instantly and a wild panic ensued. 
 
 WILD PANIC AMONG PASSENGERS 
 
 Hemmed in by the rocks of Hell Gate, the captain was 
 unable to turn his vessel in the channel, and crowding on all 
 steam he made for North Brother Island, directly ahead. 
 
 With the first rush of smoke and fire those on the forward 
 deck were driven back and many persons were crushed against 
 the rail and pushed overboard. 
 
 As the panic spread, many sprang over the rail, at first by 
 twos and threes, and then as the fire rushed aft they went 
 over by dozens. 
 
 MOTHERS THROW BABIES OVERBOARD 
 
 Crazed parents threw children overboard and followed 
 themselves, only to drown in the swift waters of Hell Gate. 
 As with her engines driving her at full speed the big vessel 
 churned toward the beach at North Brother Island she left a 
 train of dark forms in her wake, and how many thus perished 
 probably will never be known. 
 
 FALL OF THE HURRICANE DECK 
 
 Before she was beached the crowded hurricane deck gave 
 way and threw hundreds into the fiery furnace 'tween decks, 
 already choked with a struggling, panic-stricken mass of 
 women and children. 
 
 Continuous blasts of the Slocum's siren brought dozens of 
 tugs and small craft to her side, and the work of rescue was 
 
i6 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 quick and daring. Some of the tugs stuck to her side until 
 they themselves were afire or were driven off by the leaping 
 flames. 
 
 USELESS LIFE PRESERVERS 
 
 To add to the unspeakable hideousness of it all, the extent 
 of the disaster might, in the view of many, have been lessened 
 if better judgment had been shown in the crisis by those in 
 charge of the boat. 
 
 Also ominous facts came to light which tended to show 
 that proper safety appliances were not provided on the boat. 
 Rotten, useless life preservers, out of reach, and filled with 
 cork dust, were the mocking instruments of salvation with 
 which the vessel was furnished. 
 
 It was established that a man's thumb nail was a weapon 
 that would rip many of the life preservers on the ship wide 
 open, and that the things were filled with granulated cork, 
 which quickly becomes water-soaked and loses buoyancy. 
 
 CAPTAIN AT A LOSS FOR REASON 
 
 Captain William H. Van Schaick of the Slocum explained 
 as best he could the horrible disaster that had come to the 
 company under his care and direction. He was a man sixty- 
 one years old, of long experience in commanding pleasure 
 craft in the waters around New York. Captain Van Schaick 
 said that though he heard the alarm of fire early he made up 
 his mind at once that there was no certain place where it 
 could be beached in shallow water south of North Brother 
 Island. 
 
 The tide was running up to the sound with terrific velocity, 
 and he was sure that he would lose time trying to turn his 
 
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THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 17 
 
 bo,at into a proper beaching place south of the island. He 
 stuck to his post, although the flames scorched his clothing, 
 until the boat was hard and fast ashore. Pilot Van Wart 
 staid with him. 
 
 River men generally were divided as to the good judgment 
 shown by Captain Van Schaick in trying to go so far. It was 
 nearly an even division. The captain himself admitted that 
 it was not until after the fire had been going some time that 
 he realized its fierceness and its rapidity. 
 
 INFLAMMABLES IN THE FORE CABIN 
 
 There was a compartment in the hold of the General Slo- 
 cum known as the second cabin. It was forward just aft the 
 forecastle. In this room were kept the lamps and the oil for 
 them, the gasoline and brass-polishing liquids, and all the 
 other inflammable supplies. It was not determined at first 
 whether the fire started in this cabin. But it was known that 
 the flames were fed there to reach their greatest and most 
 murderous intensity. From that cabin the fire swept back 
 through the boat with a fierceness that no fire-fighting appa- 
 ratus could hold in check. 
 
 SCENES OF FRIGHTFUL HORROR 
 
 There were scenes of horror on the General Slocum and 
 on shore beyond the ability of any one to describe. 
 
 It was a boat load of women and little children. For the 
 last mile when the steamer, spouting flames high into the air, 
 was shooting swiftly out of the sound with the tide, people on 
 shore and on other steamers could see the women and chil- 
 dren fluttering over the sides into the water in scores. 
 
 The river is swift there at flood tide. The waves grab for- 
 
i8 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 ward at one another with hungry white fingers. A strong 
 man would have but little chance. The women and the chil- 
 dren had no chance. 
 
 There were also heard such stories as often come out after 
 a disaster — stories of cruel selfishness by members of the crew, 
 of cold disregard of the Slocum's distress signals and most 
 evident need by pleasure and business craft in the harbor. 
 
 In the end came the story that there had been looting of 
 the bodies of the dead. Some of these things were more or 
 less true. 
 
 GLORIOUS RECORDS OF HEROISM 
 
 But there was a glorious record of self-sacrifice and of 
 bravery to be set over against all that was evil or unmanly. 
 Of such were the bravery with which the old captain and his 
 pilots staid at their posts, the noble efforts of the policemen 
 who were on the burning boat, to save the lives of those 
 intrusted to their care; the beautiful recklessness of the 
 women nurses and the convalescent patients from the hos- 
 pitals on North Brother Island, risking their lives to dash 
 into the water around the burning boat, to pull out drowning 
 children and women; the brave deeds of the men on the 
 city's boats, the Franklin Edson and the Massasoit, and on 
 the tugs Theodore and Wade. 
 
 HELP RUSHED TO THE SCENE 
 
 Some day some one will fittingly dress out the deeds of the 
 daring rescuers, but there was no time for the glorying in 
 heroes. For every one whose deeds were seen and mentally 
 registered in the flying moments of horror and peril, there 
 were hundreds of others in which the rescued were too much 
 
THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 19 
 
 scared to appreciate what was being done for them and the 
 rescuers too busy to take note for themselves. 
 
 Ambulances and patrol wagons from nearly every corner 
 of the city were sent to points along the Bronx shore nearest 
 the wreck. Physicians and nurses came by hundreds not only 
 from hospitals, public and private, in all the boroughs of the 
 city, but singly, from their private offices, from as far away as 
 Newark and Paterson. 
 
 Bodies were sent down to the Bellevue morgue from North 
 Brother Island as fast as they were recovered until there was 
 no more room there. Most of them were unidentified. 
 
 LOW TIDE GIVES UP DEAD 
 
 At about five o'clock, when the tide was low, there was a 
 sudden increase in the rapidity with which bodies were 
 recovered. They were brought out of the water near where 
 the Slocum had been grounded at the rate of about one a 
 minute. 
 
 A temporary morgue was established on the island, and the 
 work of identifying the bodies commenced. Some of them, how- 
 ever, were so badly burned that they could not be recognized. 
 
 All the afternoon and night great, silent crowds, thousands 
 and thousands of people, stood in front of the church in Sixth 
 street, in front of the morgue, and the Alexander avenue 
 police station, and along the East River shore opposite North 
 Brother Island — wherever the bodies of the victims were laid 
 or where news of them could be learned. 
 
 MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION 
 
 On the shore of North Brother Island scores of bodies of 
 women and children, of young girls with disordered hair shroud- 
 ing their pale faces, and of tiny babies, lay on the lawn cov- 
 
20 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 ered with sheets or blankets. Here was the body of a mother, 
 with the child she had tried to save still clasped in her arms. 
 Beside her would be a little form, which the lifted sheet dis- 
 closed to be that of a boy, perhaps her son. Only now and 
 then could there be any other identification, except by num- 
 bers. So there remained nothing for the coroner and the 
 police to do except to place a numbered tag upon one body 
 after another before it was lifted into one of the wagons and 
 transferred to a boat, which bore it to one or the other of the 
 city morgues. 
 
 In a paper bag, with its corresponding number, was laid 
 away such jewelry or other means of identification as could be 
 found. 
 
 "No. 64. Woman. One gold watch. One gold guard 
 ring," was a characteristic inscription for one of these bags. 
 Piled one above another in a basket, which followed the 
 coroner on his rounds, the bags accumulated in increasing 
 numbers, as the first estimates of the loss of life had to give 
 way to what at first had seemed to be absurd and exaggerated 
 guesses as to the number of victims of the disaster. 
 
 BODIES ARE TAGGED 
 
 Trip after trip was made by the Massasoit to the morgue 
 at the foot of East Twenty-sixth street, but at nightfall so con- 
 stantly were the bodies being lifted over the sea wall to their 
 temporary resting places beneath the trees of North Brother 
 Island that there were as many as ever to be disposed of. 
 
 When a few more than one hundred bodies had been 
 recovered and the task of numbering and tagging them was 
 well under way, it seemed that the end was in sight, though 
 there were still hundreds of persons to be accounted for. 
 
THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 21 
 
 Many of the bodies had already been taken aboard the Mas- 
 sasoit, and mournfully the watchers admitted that the near-by 
 waters held no more of the dead — the missing must have been 
 buried in the hull of the ill-fated steamboat when she sank off 
 Riker's Island. 
 
 DEAD IN EACH OTHER'S ARMS 
 
 But about this time a small boat, which had been lying to 
 off the spot where the Slocum had first grounded, was pulled to 
 the sea wall with the bodies of two little children clasped in 
 each other's arms. So strong had death fastened their hold 
 upon each other that together they were lifted into the boat, 
 and still with arms interlocked they were brought to the shore. 
 
 Soon other bodies began to come to the surface. Other 
 small boats went to the rescue. A couple of tugs for hours 
 continued steaming about the spot where the hundreds of 
 unfortunates had plunged into the water to save themselves 
 from death by fire. Again the force of hospital attendants 
 and policemen was called to the work of lifting the bodies 
 from the water, as the boats brought them near enough to 
 shore so that outstretched hands could reach them. 
 
 MANY IN THE SUNKEN HULL 
 
 And so the work went on until more than one hundred 
 bodies had been recovered, after it had been hoped that the 
 river had already given up the most of its dead — after the 
 watchers and workers had sighed with relief that the worst 
 was over, except for the recovery of bodies from the hold of 
 the sunken vessel. 
 
 All the while men in search of wives, children or sisters 
 were picking their way from one covered form to another, and 
 as a face was uncovered and the sheet turned back upon it 
 
22 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 there was renewed hope that after all those sought might be 
 saved, or at the worst were only suffering in one or another 
 of the hospitals. 
 
 PITIFUL SCENES 
 
 Now and then a search was sadly rewarded. A man would 
 be seen to fall upon his knees beside one of the forms under 
 the trees, but it was seldom that one could hear more than a 
 stifled groan. Most pitiful of all was the grief of one who 
 found not one but two or three of his family among the dead, 
 as happened on several occasions; for many a man was left 
 not only a widower but childless when the General Slocum 
 blazed and sank. 
 
 Early in the morning boats were still patrolling the section 
 of the stream where bodies might be found, and though fewer 
 Vv^ere recovered as the search continued, the work was by no 
 means finished. It was days before there was any certainty 
 that no bodies remained to be given up by the river. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY NOT EXAGGERATED 
 
 At the first the scope of the Slocum disaster was underesti- 
 mated, and the awful truth as later revealed seemed almost 
 impossible of belief. Bodies of men, women and children who 
 embarked on the boat on the fatal morning of June 15th, were 
 recovered hourly from the charred sunken wreck and from 
 the water along the shores of North Brother Island. Others 
 were washed ashore on the Manhattan side all along the river 
 front. The captains of the various precincts had men patrol- 
 ling the water front from the Battery to Bronx Kills to look 
 out for these bodies, and even on the Astoria shore there was 
 a long line of policemen watching the beach for what the 
 waves might wash up. 
 
THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 23 
 
 As the bodies vv^ere recovered they were taken to North 
 Brother Island, where they were laid out, numbered and the 
 valuables removed, and then sent on one of the city's boats to 
 the temporary morgue in the Charities Pier at the foot of East 
 Twenty-sixth street, whose floor was covered with long rows 
 of the dead in rough pine coffins. 
 
 THE SEAT OF GRIEF 
 
 Throughout the city there was mourning, but the seat of 
 grief lay in a wide section of the lower East Side, centering 
 about St. Mark's Lutheran Church, in East Sixth street, in 
 which the majority of the victims lived. As quickly as the 
 bodies were identified at the morgue by families or friends, 
 they were removed to their homes, and in this section there 
 was scarcely a house without its somber sign of mourning at 
 the door. There were few persons in the streets, which pre- 
 sented the appearance they might have on a quiet Sunday. 
 Life there seemed at a standstill. When the survivors left 
 their houses it was to go to the morgue or to the church 
 itself, where a bureau of information had been established, to 
 ask for tidings of the missing; for in many families more than 
 one went to death on the General Slocum; in many instances 
 four or five, in some as many as nine, from a single household. 
 In a block of sixteen houses, eight were counted with flags 
 draped with crape at half mast. 
 
 SCHOOLS IN MOURNING 
 
 Superintendent Maxwell, of the Board of Education, after 
 receiving a report of the pupils of the school who went on the 
 ill-fated excursion, ordered that the graduation exercises in 
 the lower East Side schools be abandoned and that memorial 
 exercises be held in their stead. 
 
24 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 AN INVESTIGATION SET ON FOOT 
 
 Mayor McClellan, Commissioner McAdoo and Dr. Dar- 
 lington, who were in the places where they were most needed 
 immediately after the holocaust, were busy the following day 
 seeing that the best arrangements under the circumstances 
 were made to handle this unlooked-for situation. 
 
 The Mayor at once began making a careful inquiry as to 
 the causes of the disaster. The District Attorney set on foot 
 an investigation, and Secretary Cortelyou, of the Department 
 of Commerce and Labor, left Washington to take a hand in 
 fixing the blame. 
 
 FINDING MORE BODIES HOURLY 
 
 With dawn there was no diminution in the activity of the 
 workers on North Brother Island. Divers of the dock depart- 
 ment made descents into the wrecked hold of the Slocum. 
 They reported that there were still many bodies burned 
 beyond recognition in the waist of the boat, where the victims 
 were buried when the superstructure and the upper decks, 
 their supports burned away, collapsed and carried all the 
 excursionists in that part of the boat into the seething hull. 
 Divers Rice and Russell, who worked in the hull with only 
 small intervals for rest two day and nights, reported that they 
 could not tell what number the dead amidships would reach. 
 Diver Rice recovered eighteen bodies and most of them were 
 so burned and mutilated as to make identification a fortunate 
 chance. 
 
 THE SEARCH CONTINUED 
 
 The word "Hope" was engraved in the ring of a pretty 
 woman whose body was received at North Brother Island. 
 The early light glinted upon handsome solitaire diamond ear- 
 rings, a diamond ring and a costly pearl brooch that testified 
 
THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 25 
 
 practically to some one's devotion to the woman whose body 
 had been rescued. From midnight until dawn the workers 
 rested. 
 
 A woman of thirty-five, a man of thirty, a little boy of eight, 
 and a girl of seven were brought from the waters when rescue 
 work was resumed. Then came the body of a baby of ten 
 months. Working with grappling hooks, the men continued 
 the search all day. 
 
 THE CURIOUS TURNED AWAY 
 
 Boat after boat of morbidly curious came to the island. 
 They were ordered away by the police. Two piles of coffins 
 stood near the scarlet fever hospital — the one for children and 
 the other for adults. 
 
 River men said that many of the bodies would be washed 
 down the river and would not come to the surface for days. 
 The tuberculosis patients who exposed themselves in the 
 rescue work of the day before, and whose lives were thereby 
 endangered, were found not to have suffered. The physicians 
 said that the treatment at the island had protected them. 
 
 LIFE BELT DROPS TO PIECES 
 
 With a small portion of a rotten life preserver about her 
 neck, the body of a woman was brought ashore at North 
 Brother Island. There was every evidence that the life pre- 
 server had been so rotten that it fell from her in pieces. 
 
 Volunteer workers came willingly to the aid of the officials. 
 Fully fifty small boats brought crews of citizens who assisted 
 in the search for bodies. 
 
 Seeking souvenirs of the disaster, half a hundred rowboats 
 came to North Brother Island. The persons in them started 
 to take bits of clothing and any other portable relic. Dis- 
 gusted, the police drove the ghouls away. 
 
26 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 It having been decided that Coroner Berry should conduct 
 the inquest, the latter, assisted by a staff of clerks, at once set 
 about issuing subpoenas. He wishea to obtain the testimony 
 of as many adult survivors as possible, and of all who were in a 
 position to throw any light upon the destruction of the Gen- 
 eral Slocum. He believed that the investigation before him 
 should be as thorough as possible. 
 
 THE WORK OF THE CORONER 
 
 In the following words Coroner 0'Gorman,who waived his 
 right- to conduct the inquiry, summed up an important part of 
 his first day's labor on North Brother Island and around the 
 wreck of the Slocum: 
 
 "Evidence before me so far indicates an appalling failure 
 on the part of the crew of the General Slocum to assist the 
 helpless passengers during the tragic half hour. I have exam- 
 ined eye-witnesses of the disaster, none of whom remembers 
 to have seen any efforts made by the crew, although the wit- 
 nesses themselves were among those to risk life in rescue 
 work. Standpipes for the fire hose, taken from the wreck 
 to-day, show that on the side of the boat farthest away from 
 the flames no attempt was made to use the fire-fighting appa- 
 ratus. Valves are found unturned and caps are still in place. 
 There is nothing to show that the crew did not look out for 
 itself alone. Only one member appears to have perished, and 
 that one was a steward." 
 
 Early on Thursday the coroner called before him the crews 
 of the tugboat Wade and the Franklin Edson, the island 
 ferry. Blistered paint and woodwork on both boats show 
 where they were while the fire raged, and of each member of 
 the crew the coroner asked what work, if any, was done by 
 the crew of the Slocum. 
 
THE COUNTRY HORRIFIED 2; 
 
 TESTIMONY OF EYE-WITNESSES 
 
 Following this he called before him the staff of the North 
 Brother Hospital corps, including every one from Dr. Stewart 
 to the humblest orderly. Physicians and nurses, as well as 
 patients who had risked their lives wading and swimming out 
 into the swift tide, were asked to tell of their observations. 
 Not one of them could relieve the impression first produced 
 by the testimony. 
 
 At the wreck the coroner had John M. Rice, a diver 
 employed by the department of docks, busy at work collecting 
 the silent evidence of standpipes, reels, nozzles and the like. 
 Rice had not been working an hour on the starboard side of 
 the boat aft of the paddle box when he came up with a section 
 of a standpipe, the cap of which had not been removed. 
 
 "•It shows that no attempt whatsoever was made to attach 
 the hose," was the official comment. 
 
 Later in the day Rice brought up another standpipe twelve 
 feet long, on one end of which was a wheel valve. Burnt 
 shreds showed that a hose had been attached to this pipe, but 
 further investigation showed that the valve had never been 
 turned. Then, too, came a reel with shreds of unbound hose, 
 and a nozzle which had not been removed from its place. 
 
 A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION 
 
 George B. Cortelyou, Secretary of Commerce and Labor; 
 George Uhler, Supervising Inspector General of the Steam- 
 boat Inspection Service, and Robert S. Rodie, Supervising 
 Inspector for the Second District, met and discussed the 
 disaster of the General Slocum and mapped out the pro- 
 gramme of the Federal investigation. The conference was 
 held in the Supervising Inspector's office, and to Secretary 
 
28 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOA!' HORROR 
 
 Cortelyou, who had arrived from Washington a few hours 
 after the catastrophe, Mr. Rodie told the circumstances and 
 result of the calamity. As far as possible the details of the 
 disaster were gone over and the causes which led to the loss 
 of life thoroughly canvassed. President Roosevelt took a 
 keen interest in the inquiry by the federal authorities. Before 
 Secretary Cortelyou left Washington he had a long conference 
 with the President, who ordered that the investigation be 
 made most searching and thorough. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A DAY OF BRIGHT PROMISE 
 
 The Boat Starts — An Eager Crowd — An Ideal Day for a Picnic — Big Family 
 Parties on Board — "Our God Is a Mighty Fortress" — Hell Gate Passed 
 — The First Burst of Smoke — "Warning Whistles from Passing Craft — 
 Children Thought the Fire Alarm a Joke — The Captain Heads for the 
 Shores of North Brother Island — Hemmed In by Fire — Mothers Fight 
 for their Children Like Wild Beasts. 
 
 The General Slocum spent Tuesday night at the foot of 
 Fiftieth street. It started around the battery at about seven 
 o'clock Wednesday morning. The crew of twenty-seven men 
 were aboard. It reached the foot of Third street in the East 
 River, where there is a pier, at about twenty minutes past 
 eight o'clock. 
 
 CROWD EAGER TO 60 ABOARD 
 
 There were several hundred excursionists already on the 
 pier when the Slocum arrived. There were mothers full of 
 pride in their lusty German-American babies, and full of 
 anxiety for fear some of them would fall overboard in their 
 anxiety to get on board the Slocum before anybody else did. 
 A band came and went to the after deck and began booming 
 out melodies dear to the German heart. 
 
 PASTOR SEES THEM GO ON BOAT 
 
 The mothers and children kept pouring across the gang 
 plank and scurrying for good places about the decks. The 
 
 29 
 
30 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Rev.'G. C. F. Haas and his assistant, the 'Rev. J. S. Schultz, 
 stood on opposite sides of the gang plank and welcomed the 
 mothers and the Sunday school scholars. 
 
 Policemen Kelk and Van Tassel, full of experience in the 
 handling of Sunday school excursions, took posts on the off 
 side of the steamer, ready to dive after any child who by 
 mistake should fall overboard. 
 
 It was as fine a day for a picnic as ever dawned. The sun- 
 light made the blue water seem as bright as though it lay any- 
 where but between the piers of the biggest city of this nation. 
 The ugly factory walls were set off by masts and flags, and big 
 boats and little boats seemed rather to be skittering over the 
 river for their own amusement than for any purpose of sordid 
 profit. 
 
 BIG FAMILY PARTIES THERE 
 
 The excursion was late in starting. Lutherans are great 
 folk for going to family picnics in big family parties. Greta 
 and Wilhelmina and August's wife gather from the corners of 
 Manhattan and Brooklyn and bring all their children to com- 
 bine their luncheons, so that it shall be served to ten or fifteen 
 hungry mouths in proper proportions. And if any one of the 
 whole family circle was late, then all the rest went to Pastor 
 Haas and besought him by all that was dear and sweet not to 
 let the boat go until sister and her little ones came. 
 
 Pastor Haas was good natured, and it was well along 
 towards ten o'clock when the Slocum started, the band on the 
 upper deck playing "Ein Feste Berg 1st Unser Gott." 
 
 DAY ONE OF BRIGHT PROMISE 
 
 The children tugged at their skirts, held down by their 
 smiling mothers and big sisters and grandmothers, and 
 
A DAY OF BRIGHT PROMISE 31 
 
 cheered at the departing pier. There was not a chill in the 
 air. There was not a cloud on the blue sky. Pastor Haas 
 went up and down the decks, and the matrons loudly com- 
 municated their congratulations to him. 
 
 Hell Gate, where the tide was rushing out to the Sound 
 with the utmost violence, was passed safely. There is not a 
 steamer captain in this harbor,*no matter though he be as old 
 as Captain Van Schaick, who is not glad when he has passed 
 through Hell Gate without a collision and without being 
 sloughed out of his course against its rocky sides. 
 
 HIDDEN FIRE ALREADY AT WORK 
 
 Though Captain Van Schaick did not know it, the steamer 
 must even then have been on fire. Just back of the crew's 
 quarters, up in the bow of the steamer, under the main deck, 
 is what is called the second cabin. 
 
 On the Slocum this cabin has been used as a sort of store- 
 room. Spare hawsers were kept there, and paint and oils. 
 Gasoline was kept there, and it was there that Albert Payne, 
 a negro steward, kept the ship's lamps when they were not in 
 place, and cleaned and filled them. 
 
 LAMPROOM OPEN TO INQUIRY 
 
 Payne, his face all ashy with the horrors he had been 
 through, stated, upon oath, that he finished cleaning all the 
 lamps before the boat left the dock at West Fiftieth street, 
 and that he had not been in the room except to see that 
 everything was all right. 
 
 Along the Astoria shore, where there are many yards for 
 the building of small boats, the trouble was known sooner 
 than it was on the steamer itself. As the Slocum passed 
 
32 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Broadway, Astoria, John E. Ronan, a dock department 
 employee, was struck with the gayety of the steamer, with its 
 flags, its music, and its load of hilarious children, and called to 
 a companion: "Look at the Slocum. Don't it make you hate 
 to work when you see a crowd having as good a time as that?" 
 
 FIRST PUFF OF SMOKE IS SEEN 
 
 But a quarter of a mile further on, William Alloway, the 
 captain of a dredge, saw a burst of smoke puff out from the 
 lower deck of the Slocum just forward of the smokestack. He 
 let off four blasts of his dredge whistle. At the same moment 
 other boats on both sides of the river began to toot shrill 
 warnings. Alloway and his men could see a scurrying on the 
 decks of the Slocum. They wondered why Captain Van 
 Schaick didn't back his boat right into the Astoria shore. 
 
 "It seemed to me," Alloway said, "as though he was having 
 some trouble with his wheel, and as though it wasn't minding 
 it, and as if he could not get his signals into his engine-room. 
 But, anyway, he went right ahead." 
 
 LONG IN REALIZING DANGER 
 
 From the first understanding of the situation which could 
 be gained from those who were left alive when everything 
 was over, it was quite a while after the Slocum was first found 
 to be on fire that the seriousness of the situation was under- 
 stood by all of the officers and crew. Few of the passengers 
 knew anything of the real danger they were in until the burn- 
 ing and drowning had begun. 
 
 Eddie Flannagan was the Slocum's mate. On excursion 
 steamers the safety and comfort of the passengers are 
 delegated to the mate, while the captain is in the pilot house 
 properly, while the boat is in motion. 
 
A DAY OF BRIGHT PROMISE 33 
 
 To Flannagan there came a deckhand and Steward 
 McGann. He caught Flannagan by the shoulder and said: 
 
 MATE WARNED OF FIRE 
 
 "Mate, there's a fire forward, and it's got a pretty good 
 headway." 
 
 Flannagan jumped down through the dark space in the 
 middle of the boat and turned the lever of the fire drill alarm. 
 He sent McGann to warn Captain Van Schaick. The crew 
 was not enough to handle so many passengers. 
 
 BURNS THROUGH DECKS 
 
 The fire crackled up through one deck after another, lick- 
 ing out far on the port side. There was a rush for the stern. 
 
 Some of the children thought the whole alarm was a joke 
 and laughed and pummeled one another as they ran. The 
 mothers didn't. They lumbered after, trying vainly to keep 
 hold of some one garment on the bodies of each one of their 
 youngsters. 
 
 FIRE DRILL PROVES FUTILE 
 
 Captain Van Schaick ran back from the pilot house and 
 saw that Flannagan had two lines of hose run from the 
 steamer's fire pumps toward the second cabin, and that the 
 water was already spouting through them. The fire drill on 
 the Slocum was always well done. It was held without any 
 requirement of law once every week. But this fire was 
 beyond any mere fire drill. It took Van Schaick only a min- 
 ute to see that he ought to get his passengers ashore as soon 
 as ever he could. He determined on the shore of North 
 Brother Island. 
 
 It takes time to read of all these things. It took almost no 
 time at all for them to happen. The yells and screams of the 
 
34 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 few people who were caught on the decks below the hurricane 
 deck forward were ringing horribly across the water. The 
 roar and crackle of the oil-fed flames shut these screams off 
 from the frightened mass of Sunday school people aft. 
 
 Kelk and Van Tassel had leaped into the crowds when the 
 fire gongs rang. It was due to them that more women and 
 children were not caught forward of the fire. They herded 
 the people back like sheep until nearly the whole company 
 were huddled together on the broad after decks. 
 
 FIRE HEMS IN THE CROWDS 
 
 The fire was eating its way back steadily. The people 
 were getting more and more frightened. Mothers whose chil- 
 dren had been separated from them in the rush were getting 
 frantic, and dashing madly through the crowd. Confusion 
 grew almost as fast as the fire at the other end of the boat 
 was growing. Van Tassel took to the rail side of the boat. 
 
 POLICEMAN DOES HIS BEST 
 
 "Now everybody keep quiet," he shouted again and again, 
 waving his big arms reassuringly at women who were grasp- 
 ing the rail and already leaning over and trying to make up 
 their minds to jump. 
 
 Pastor Haas had found his wife and his twelve-year-old 
 daughter Gertrude and had put them near the back of a com- 
 panionway, where he was sure he would find them. He, too, 
 tried to calm his people. 
 
 He might as well have tried to calm the whirling tide that 
 was bearing the burning steamer along to its end. They were 
 fighting now. Mothers who had started side by side with an 
 endless fund of sympathy for domestic difficulties, were fight- 
 ing like wild beasts. 
 
A DAY OF BRIGHT PROMISE 35 
 
 Screams came from the water. A woman looked over and 
 saw three children floating by on the starboard side. The 
 head of one of them was covered with blood where a blade of 
 the paddle wheel had wounded it. 
 
 WOUNDED CHILD IN WATER 
 
 The woman screamed just once, so loud that for a moment 
 all the other horrible sounds of the boat seemed hushed. 
 She pointed a finger at the little bodies that were floating back 
 from the forward decks. 
 
 "Frieda!" she screamed. "Mein Frieda!" 
 
 MOTHER LEAPS TO HER DEATH 
 
 Before a hand could have been raised to stop her, if, 
 indeed, there was any one there cool enough in that moment 
 to raise a hand, the mother jumped on the seat and threw 
 herself over the rail. She sank, whirling over and over in the 
 swift current. So did the children. 
 
 But other bodies came. As the flames worked upward and 
 backward more and more people were being driven to jump 
 to escape being burned. 
 
 Mercifully, the pilot house, away forward and up in the air, 
 was in a position which the flames found it hard work to 
 reach. The captain and his pilots were able to keep steer- 
 ing. 
 
 It seemed to be the captain's purpose as he came up past 
 One Hundred and Thirtieth street to try to find a berth on 
 the Bronx side of the stream. There are a number of coal 
 and wood yards along there and some factories. River men 
 said that he might well have carried out his plan. The land 
 forces of the fire department could have reached him there. 
 But he said that a tug warned him off, telling him that he 
 
36 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 would only be setting fire to the shore buildings, and would 
 not be helping his people in the least if he ran in there. 
 
 TUGS CHASE AFTER BLAZING BOAT 
 
 At any rate the Slocum, observed now by hundreds of hor- 
 ror-dazed people on both sides of the stream and on the 
 islands, turned again toward North Brother Island. Steamers 
 and tugs from far down stream were making after it. The 
 department of correction boat Massasoit was on the far side 
 of North Brother Island. Its captain lay in wait for the 
 Slocum, not knowing through what channel it would come. 
 From down stream came the slim white Franklin Edson, the 
 health department boat. 
 
 Thence, too, came the sturdy little Wade with its great- 
 hearted little captain, Jack Wade. There came also the tugs 
 Theo and Easy Time, tooting their whistles, headed for the 
 burning steamer. 
 
 BIG BOAT A SCENE OF HORROR 
 
 On board the Slocum horror was being piled on horror too 
 fast for any one to keep track of them. The fire leaping now 
 high above the frame work of the steamer's hog back and 
 roaring with a smoky glare of red tongues up thirty feet over 
 the tall brown smokestacks, had begun to scorch the edges of 
 the compact mass of women and children who were crowding 
 back out of its way at the rear end of the boat. 
 
 "The first I knew," said one of the survivors, a young 
 woman, "was when I heard a cry of 'Fire!' raised. We heard 
 a wild scramble of feet overheard and saw a little cloud of 
 smoke curl upward. I asked a man, who was in a near-by 
 stateroom hurriedly putting a lot of money into a small bag, if 
 there was any danger. He assured us there was none at all, 
 
A DAY OF BRIGHT PROMISE 37 
 
 but he took his money and hurried away. I since learned that 
 he was the purser. 
 
 RUSH TO THE STARBOARD SIDE 
 
 "All of a sudden everybody seemed to be rushing toward 
 the starboard side of the steamer. When the starboard rail- 
 ing of the second deck gave way, hundreds of women and chil- 
 dren and a few men fell into the water, which was black with 
 human forms packed so densely that we might have stepped 
 out and walked over them as on a floor. Most of them seemed 
 to be paralyzed with fear the moment they struck the water 
 and made hardly any effort to save themselves from 
 sinking. 
 
 "Unless they were strong swimmers there was nothing to 
 save them after they reached the water, for there was not a 
 single one in that mass of humanity that had a life belt. 
 These were so high overhead that they could not be reached 
 in a hurry, and besides, were fastened with strong wires. I 
 tugged at one for a long time, but to no purpose, for it broke, 
 and I found then that it was filled with ground cork instead 
 of with the solid cork, which I have been told is required by 
 law. Others must have had the same experience, for the stuff 
 was scattered all over the deck. When the tug Sumner came 
 up they threw a rope to my father, and we jumped together, 
 holding on to the rope, and were pulled on board the tug. 
 
 THE PREACHER A HERO 
 
 "Pastor Haas showed himself a real hero, and received 
 most of his injuries while seeking to save a number of children 
 whom he had ushered into the cabin to protect them from the 
 flames which were then rapidly eating their way toward the 
 stern. He tried to close the forward door to shut off the 
 
38 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 flames from where the little ones were. The door would not 
 budge, and Dr. Haas was terribly burned in the effort. The 
 next moment I saw him rush toward his wife, who was stand- 
 ing near the railing, and jump overboard with her hand 
 clasped in his. I noticed another woman fall on top of them, 
 which made him lose his hold, and that was the last I saw of 
 the pastor and his wife." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HARROWING DETAILS 
 
 No Chance for Rescue — Into the Racing Tide — Writhing Figures in the 
 Burning Wreckage — Ablaze from Stem to Stern — The Captain and 
 Pilots at their Stations — A Heroic Coxswain — Brave Jack Wade — 
 Fireboats Sound the Alarm — A Boy's Brave Fight — The Burning 
 Hulk Sinks — Refuse to Lend a Helping Hand — Over Four Hundred 
 Dead on North Brother Island — Divers Begin the Search for Bodies 
 — Statement of the Pilot — Sad Features. 
 
 The greater number of these people by far were on the 
 Bronx side of the decks. They seemed to feel, poor crea- 
 tures, that, small as their chance for rescue was, when it came 
 it would come from the thickly populated shore rather than 
 from the bleak, rocky, bare spaces on the islands on the star- 
 board side. 
 
 The Slocum was now opposite One Hundred and Thirty- 
 eighth street, heading partly across the river towards North 
 Brother Island. 
 
 PEOPLE ON SHORE HELPLESS 
 
 On the contagious diseases landing the fire fighting 
 force of the island, under the direction of Superintendent of 
 Outdoor Work Doorley, was drawn up, with two lines of heavy 
 hose connected with the island's salt water pumping station. 
 
 To have gone to them, according to men who are familiar 
 with the run of the tide along there, would have been worse 
 than useless. The getting of the boat's broadside against the 
 
 39 
 
40 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 stream, they say, would have whirled it helplessly out into the 
 stream. 
 
 WHAT THE SPECTATORS SAW 
 
 But as they watched and waited, this is what the onlookers 
 saw: 
 
 With a crack and a choking volley of screams that set on 
 edge the teeth of men hardened to almost any form of death 
 or evidence of pain, the port rail of the Slocum's after deck 
 gave way and all the people near it slipped and slid, over one 
 another, into the water. 
 
 VICTIMS POURED INTO THE RIVER 
 
 It had hardly gone 200 yards further on — indeed, by ones 
 and threes and twos and sevens gayly-dressed women and 
 little ones all in white were seen whirling down from the deck 
 into the racing tide — when worse came. 
 
 The steamers and tugs in pursuit were catching up one 
 woman here or a child there, but it was not much they could 
 do. The tide was too swift and there was too much work to 
 be done ahead to warrant any delay over individuals. 
 
 DECKS FALL INTO THE FLAMES 
 
 There was a puff like a great cough down in the Slocum's 
 vitals. A red, starry cloud of sparks, and smoke, and angry 
 flames shot up and the greater part of the superstructure aft 
 plunged forward into the flames. 
 
 How many hundreds of lives were snuffed out in that one 
 instant nobody will ever know. Outsiders could see writhing, 
 crawling figures in the burning wreckage, slipping down 
 farther and farther into the flame whirl until they were gone. 
 As bees cling along a branch when they are swarming, there 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 4i 
 
 was a thick clustering of women, all screaming, and boys and 
 girls around the edges of so much of the superstructure as was 
 still standing. 
 
 HURLS INFANTS TO SAFETY 
 Farthest back, Kelk, the policeman, was standing, catching 
 up some of the smallest children and hurUng them out at the 
 decks of the nearest following steamers. Mothers threw their 
 children overboard and leaped after them. When the stan- 
 chions burned out and the superstructure fell, families were 
 
 spnarated. 
 
 Thus it happened to Dominie Haas. He had given up as 
 hopeless any effort to get the people quiet, and had ]ust 
 found his wife and daughter. The crash came and he lost 
 them. 
 
 STEAMER NEARLY ALL ABLAZE 
 
 Now the big steamer, ablaze for more than two-thirds of 
 its 250 feet of length, was rounding the point of North Brother 
 Island. The flames were reaching out for the pilot house. 
 The door toward the fire was blackened here and there and 
 the paint blisters were bursting with little puffs of fire. But 
 the hundred nurses and the tuberculosis patients— all the 
 others had scarlet fever and other contagious diseases and 
 were kept indoors-gathered eagerly on shore waiting a 
 chance to help, saw old man Van Schaick and his pilots at 
 their wheel straining forward as though by their own physical 
 efforts they could make the boat go faster. 
 
 It was at no moment certain that the pilot house would not 
 shrivel up and vanish in a puff of smoke. If it did, the Slo- 
 cum would never get close enough to the shore to make it 
 
42 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 possible for help to be given to the passengers who were still 
 living. 
 
 SAILORS BENT ON SINGLE PURPOSE 
 
 And the two old men and the younger, with never a look 
 backward, whirled their wheel and braced it, and, with their 
 teeth set close together and never a word, kept their eyes 
 fixed on the one little stretch of rocky beach where it was 
 possible for a steamer as big as the Slocum to be beached 
 accurately and safely. 
 
 They succeeded in the fight that they had been making all 
 the way from the sunken meadows, where the Seawanhaka was 
 beached years ago. Captain Van Schaick was past the 
 sunken meadows before he knew that he had a fire on his 
 boat, and the tide was too strong to let him turn back to 
 beach it there, even had there been any way of rescue out 
 there in the middle of the river. 
 
 SWIMS TO THE RESCUE 
 
 The Massasoit, which was the closest boat behind the Slo- 
 cum when it struck, drew so much water that it was impossible 
 to get its bow within fifty feet of the Slocum. It made no 
 difference to Carl Rappaport, the coxswain. He took a 
 running jump forward over the bow and swam toward the 
 burning steamer. Like a big red-headed St. Bernard he 
 grabbed two babies and swam back to his own boat. 
 
 Meantime the captain of the Massasoit was putting boats 
 overboard as fast as he knew how. When these were out, 
 picking up people from the water wherever they could, Rap- 
 paport was floundering around helping from the water side. 
 
 The Franklin Edson, with its new, clean coat of white and 
 gilt paint, drew less water than the Massasoit and went right 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 43 
 
 up to the Slocum's side so that people jumped from the burn- 
 ing decks and w-^re dragged back to safety. For safety was 
 not on the forward deck of the Edson. It needs a new coat 
 of paint. The forward windows were cracked by the heat 
 and there are marks of the flames on the forward thirty feet 
 of its superstructure. 
 
 JACK WADE THE HERO 
 
 Jack Wade, master and owner of his little tug, was pitch- 
 ing his life preservers over, turning loose his boats, and push- 
 ing up so close to the burning decks that the hair on his 
 brawny arms frizzled, and his men, John McDonnell, Ruddy 
 McCarroll, and Bob Brannigan, had their shirts burned off 
 their backs. It was not worth while afterward to attempt to 
 get this crew to tell how many lives it saved. They had been 
 too busy to count. 
 
 RUDDY McOARROLL IS USED UP 
 
 Ruddy McCarroll was plainly beaten out for the first time 
 in his life. The effort which finished him was getting a heavy 
 German woman over the side single-handed. When she was 
 aboard she began to scream. Ruddy laid himself out flat, face 
 down, along the rail, and was sure he was going to die, he was 
 so exhausted. He heard the fat woman say: 
 
 "Wake up! You, wake up!" but he didn't know she was 
 talking to him. 
 
 "There is my Claus in the water!" she screamed. Without 
 more ado she shoved Ruddy overboard. He floundered 
 around, caught the boy, and managed to get aboard again. 
 The fat woman grabbed Claus and started down the boat with 
 him. Ruddy shook his head with a look that was almost a 
 smile, and then fell on his face in a faint. 
 
44 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 FIRE ALARMS RINQ ON SHORE 
 
 Along the shore as the burning steamboat had come along 
 the stream on the breast of the tide, fire alarms had been 
 rung. One alarm at the foot of One Hundred and Thirty- 
 eighth street was rung three times. There was nothing the 
 firemen could do when they came except just one thing, which 
 was done at once. The captain of the first company to arrive 
 at the river's edge telephoned for the fireboat Zophar Mills. 
 It came up the river, screaming, with a voice that outscreamed 
 all the other whistles which were being blown in every factory 
 and yard from which the blazing steamship could be seen. 
 
 The captain of the Mills saw that the Slocum was beached 
 and that rescuers were more needed than pumpers of water. 
 He ran into One Hundred and Thirty-eighth street and took 
 aboard Captain Geohagan and all the reserves of the Alex- 
 ander avenue station and took them over the river to help in 
 the work of picking people out of the water from rowboats 
 and tugs. There is a big marble works opposite North 
 Brother Island. The boss, when he saw the Slocum, knocked 
 off all work and sent his 150 men across in any and every sort 
 of a craft that they could lay their hands on. 
 
 GOOD WORK DONE 
 
 Even though relieved by these evidences — but one or two 
 out of hundreds that happened unrecorded — of the working 
 of good and brave human hearts, the misery and the horror 
 were going on almost undiminished. The great hulk was still 
 burning like a furnace on top of the water. Living men and 
 women were still rolling out from the decks. Hundreds 
 sought shelter from the heat under the paddle boxes, which 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 45 
 
 seemed slow to burn. In there, among the wet paddle blades, 
 the rescue boats were filled again and again. 
 
 BOY TRIES TO CLIMB FROM FIRE 
 
 Long after every one had given up any idea that there was 
 a human life in the forward part of the boat, except those of 
 Captain Van Schaick and his two pilots, there was a shout of 
 surprise and agony on shore. 
 
 A small boy — he seemed about six years of age — climbed 
 up to the flagstaff and began to make his way up, as though 
 to get away from the deck, which was burning under 
 him. 
 
 He climbed a little higher and a little higher with each 
 jump of the tongues of flame from below until he was almost 
 at the top. He was a sturdy looking little chap, and each 
 time he found he had not gone far enough he would shake his 
 yellow curls determinedly and work his way a few inches more. 
 It was a brave fight. He lost it. 
 
 The flagstaff began to tremble just as a boat was getting in 
 position to get at the child. The staff fell back into the float- 
 ing furnace and the boy with it. 
 
 PHYSICIANS DO GOOD WORE 
 
 As fast as the dead and living were brought ashore the 
 weaker of the convalescent patients took them and carried 
 them up on the lawn. There was a constantly increasing 
 number of physicians coming over from the mainland, some of 
 them in rowboats. Every burnt woman or child who showed 
 any signs of life was carried into the buildings. The nurses' 
 quarters and the doctors' quarters and the stables and every 
 place that had a roof where cots could be erected was filled — 
 except those in which there were contagious diseases. 
 
46 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 DEAD LAID ON THE GRASS 
 
 The dead were laid out in long rows on the grass. The 
 living walked or were carried by them. Heart-rending recog- 
 nitions were there, women throwing themselves on the bodies 
 of their children, children catching at their mothers' hands 
 and begging them to "wake up," and screaming inconsolably 
 when they realized that there would be no waking up. 
 
 There was too much to be done at once for any list to be 
 kept of those who were rescued. The Rev. Mr. Haas was 
 pulled out of the water, in which he had fallen soon after the 
 boat beached, and found not to be badly injured. But it was 
 more than an hour before he could be found and identified. 
 
 HARDLY ANY COULD SWIM 
 
 One reason for the heavy loss of life ascribed by those who 
 assisted in the work of rescue was the apparent inability of all 
 the passengers of the Slocum to swim. Scores were drowned 
 within a few steps of firm footing. Not a few were drowned 
 who might have saved themselves by standing up. Captain 
 Van Schaick and his pilots and all the rest of his crew except 
 Steward McGann and Chief Engineer Conklin swam ashore 
 without much difficulty after they once got safely into the 
 water away from the flames. 
 
 HULK TOWED OUT OF WAY 
 
 When the Zophar Mills' commander was satisfied that there 
 was no more chance of saving any lives he ordered that the 
 burning hulk be got out of the way. With the help of several 
 of the other tugs it was yanked out into the stream and 
 floated, ablaze from stem to stern, over to Hunter's Point, a 
 mile away, where it grounded again and burned to the water's 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 47 
 
 edge and sank, with its yellow smokestacks tilted over to the 
 south and one of the big yellow paddle boxes visible. 
 
 WRATH FOR COLD-BLOODED CRAFT 
 
 There was great wrath expressed by all the people who 
 watched the steamboat's blazing progress up the river because 
 of the actions of one or two of the craft which did not go to 
 the rescue. The captain of the ferryboat Bronx, which 
 crossed from One Hundred and Thirty-fourth street, right 
 under the stern of the Slocum, without going close enough to 
 catch any of those who were jumping from its decks, got a 
 great share of the blame. Then there was a steam yacht 
 which bobbed along within a cable's length through almost all 
 of the Slocum's pitiful journey, and never once went close 
 enough to lend a hand. The same accusation was made 
 against a black steam yacht with yellow funnels. 
 
 DEAD IN WORTHLESS CORE JACKETS 
 
 On many of the bodies which were recovered were life 
 preservers, which seemed to have been perfectly worthless. 
 Assistant District Attorney Garvan's attention was called to a 
 collection of the Slocum's life preservers which had been 
 made by Captain Jack Wade. These life preservers were 
 covered with such flimsy stuff that they could be ripped open 
 by a scratch with one's thumbnail. They were filled with 
 ground-up cork, instead of with solid chunks, which would 
 retain their buoyancy. Captain Wade, who threw $100 worth 
 of really good life preservers to the Slocum's passengers, was 
 highly indignant over the matter. 
 
 STEADY WORK RECOVERING BODIES 
 
 The work of recovering bodies went on steadily from the 
 time when all hope of saving more lives ended. Nearly a 
 
48 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 hundred policemen, assisted by men from all the hospitals and 
 morgues, went out in small boats and waded out and worked 
 from the shore and from the decks of the tugs with grappling 
 hooks, dragging up all that was left of the victims of the 
 disaster. The bodies of some of those who were burned were 
 in indescribably horrible condition. 
 
 BODIES TOWED BEHIND ROWBOAT 
 
 In the rush and confusion there were many things which in 
 the face of a disaster less appalling would have shocked the 
 sensibilities of the most hardened man who witnessed them; 
 such, for instance, as the sight a newspaper tug encountered 
 on one of its trips across to North Brother Island, a rowboat, 
 with two men at the oars, and a small boy, who was holding a 
 line by which were towed the bodies of three women, dressed 
 all three in flimsy white dresses. Nobody was to blame. The 
 boat would have been swamped with the three bodies inside. 
 
 OVER 400 DEAD ON ISLAND ALONE 
 
 Two hours after the disaster 436 corpses had been recovered 
 at North Brother Island. Fifty had been recovered at other 
 points. They included a dozen that had first been landed at 
 Oak Point. More were coming in at the rate of twenty an 
 hour. The police of the harbor squad, assisted by volunteers, 
 were wading and rowing about the shore, picking them up 
 with grappling hooks. So numerous were the corpses that 
 early in the evening bodies were recovered at the rate of one 
 a minute. 
 
 All the boats used by the police and other workers were 
 equipped with lanterns. In addition lights were hung on 
 poles that had been stuck in the mud along the shore of the 
 island. The police boat patrol stood by constantly with a big 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 49 
 
 searchlight playing on the waters. The employees of the hos- 
 pital rigged up temporary lines of incandescent lights along 
 the lawn to aid those at work in tabulating and searching the 
 bodies. 
 
 THE BODIES SEARCHED AND PHOTOGRAPHED 
 
 As soon as the bodies were taken from the water they 
 were laid in groups of four each. They were first tagged and 
 then searched. All jewels, papers, and valuables taken from 
 the bodies were thrown into huge bags. Each batch of valu- 
 ables taken from a body was tagged with the number cor- 
 responding to that on the body. 
 
 After the searching and tagging of the bodies had been 
 completed, photographs were taken of the groups of four; 
 this was done by the use of flash lights. 
 
 The first photograph was taken at eight o'clock at night. 
 It was a group of four, consisting of a woman and three chil- 
 dren. The bodies were stretched out along the lawn with the 
 heads propped against the wall of the scarlet fever hospital. 
 
 It was also decided to send all the valuables taken from 
 the dead to the office of Coroner O'Gorman at One Hundred 
 and Seventy-seventh street and Third avenue. 
 
 BODIES ALL GOING TO ONE PLACE 
 
 Commissioner McAdoo first proposed the scheme of send- 
 ing all bodies to the morgue at Twenty-sixth street, where 
 arrangements had been made to turn the big charities depart- 
 ment dock into a temporary morgue. 
 
 Mr. McAdoo explained that the bodies would then be 
 
 brought nearer to their homes, and could thus be more easily 
 
 identified. Coroner O'Gorman readily assented to this plan, 
 
 Ithough it took the cases out of his jurisdiction in the 
 
50 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Bronx and transferred the bodies to the authorities in Man- 
 hattan. 
 
 DIVERS COME TO RESCUE 
 
 At seven o'clock Wednesday night a Merritt-Chapman 
 wrecking tug, with full crew and three divers, reached North 
 Brother Island. The wrecking crew and two of the divers 
 had come at the call of Commissioner McAdoo. The other 
 came over in a boat and offered his services. He was John 
 Rice, who went to Boonton, N. J., and brought the body of 
 Bill Hoar to the surface, when others had failed to do so. 
 Rice was gladly welcomed, and, joining the others in the 
 wrecking crew, hurried to the charred and sunken steamer to 
 recover the bodies fastened in and about the wreck. 
 
 POOR LIGHT IMPEDES WORE 
 
 Word was sent back by them some time later that the work 
 would be difficult, owing to lack of light. It was also stated 
 that the single wrecking tug was hardly able to cope with the 
 situation, and Commissioner McAdoo decided to summon 
 more help. 
 
 He then telephoned to the authorities at the Brooklyn 
 navy yard asking if they would help out, and received word 
 back that a powerful navy tug, fitted up with searchlights, 
 would be dispatched to the scene immediately. 
 
 NAVAL RESERVES CALLED ON 
 
 Commissioner McAdoo had already called on the First 
 Battalion, New York Naval Reserves, to come to his assistance. 
 Commander Franklin, who received the message, sent two 
 launches, the Oneida and Seneca, in command of Lieutenant 
 Barnard and full crews made up of picked men from the New 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 51 
 
 Hampshire, lying at the foot of East Twenty-fourth street. 
 Commander Franklin ordered these men to report to Com- 
 missioner McAdoo, and they did so as soon as they reached 
 North Brother Island. 
 
 One of the launches was sent to aid the harbor police in 
 the recovery of bodies from along the shore and the other was 
 used as a ferry between the island and the foot of East One 
 Hundred and Thirty-sixth street. 
 
 Dr. Darlington, president of the health board, arrived early 
 in the afternoon and was still seen superintending his men 
 and hustling with his coat off at midnight. Coroner O'Gor- 
 man was also still there at that hour. 
 
 DIVERS QUIT WORK ON WRECK 
 
 At eleven o'clock Wednesday night Diver John Rice 
 returned from the wrecked steamer with four bodies of chil- 
 dren. They had been found in the afterhold of the vessel. 
 Rice said that the divers had decided to make no more 
 descents into the wreck, as it was plain to them that their 
 labor would be useless. 
 
 "We searched the forward part of the boat," said Diver 
 Rice, "and could find no bodies. The ship had settled down 
 with a crash in the middle and we couldn't explore that part. 
 I suppose there are a lot of bodies there, but the wreckers will 
 have to get in their work before any one can get in the center 
 of the vessel. 
 
 "The wrecking crew are going to work on that part and 
 they say that if necessary to clear it they will split the boat 
 in two parts. We divers will go out in the morning 
 again." 
 
52 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 ALL THE ROPES WERE BURNED 
 
 Edward Van Wart, the pilot of the General Slocum, said: 
 "When I first discovered the presence of fire on the 
 steamer I decided to make for the first dock that I could find, 
 but in a moment I was informed that all the ropes by which 
 we usually tied up had been burned. I then decided to make 
 for the first point of land where there were no rocks and 
 beach the vessel, and this I did. The presence of rocks all 
 along the shore made it impossible for me to beach the vessel 
 any sooner than I did." 
 
 Van Wart was taken before Coroner Berry and was 
 paroled in the custody of his counsel. 
 
 THE BEST CITIZENS 
 
 Said Police Commissioner McAdoo: "The saddest and 
 most pitiful thought in regard to this disaster is that it fell 
 upon the very best citizenship in the community — the indus- 
 trious, frugal, peaceful, well-behaved people of German origin. 
 There are no better people in New York, and it was pathetic 
 to look at the new shoes, the neat, tidy and attractive dresses, 
 the articles of jewelry, the savings bank books. The maternal 
 and paternal affection so strong in these people was shown in 
 the many bodies found together with locked arms. 
 
 NEW YORK YACHT CLUB DEFENDED 
 
 Members of the New York Yacht Club were considerably 
 annoyed at the reports that a yacht flying the flag of the club 
 had passed the General Slocum when the fire was at its 
 height, and had made no effort to assist in rescuing the 
 passengers. 
 
 The boat under discussion proved to be the Candida, and 
 the following letter was issued by its captain: 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 53 
 
 "We arrived from the eastward at the scene of the wreck 
 just as the Slocum was beached, about 10:10 a. m. Our life- 
 boat was lowered at once, and sent in charge of the mate to 
 save lives. He proceeded at once to pick up those people 
 who were hanging on under the starboard paddlebox. 
 
 "When the boat was loaded she transferred the people to 
 the tugs and other large craft which surrounded the wreck. 
 Our boat remained at this work for more than an hour, and 
 when it became apparent that no more effective work could be 
 done by this boat, about 11:30 a. m., as the wreck by this time 
 was surrounded by craft of all descriptions, she returned to 
 this vessel. 
 
 "The fact that the yacht was hove to while the lifeboat was 
 doing the work of rescue evidently led certain persons to think 
 that this vessel rendered no assistance. The log of this ves- 
 sel will prove this statement, and is open for inspection at any 
 time." 
 
 GHOULS AT WORK 
 
 Charges were made that after the burning of the Slocum 
 there was wholesale robbery of the dead in the river, by a 
 gang of men who put out from points on the Long Island 
 shore in boats. Robert Brandt, of Brooklyn, while protesting 
 at the morgue about a pair of diamond earrings which were 
 missing from the body of Mrs. Margaret Zerdes, said: 
 
 "I know positively that when Mrs. Zerdes went to that pic- 
 nic she had on a very handsome pair of solitaire earrings. 
 They were of the hanging sort. I took the number given me 
 by the morgue officials to the coroner's office in the Bronx and 
 they turned over a wedding ring to me, nothing else. They 
 said they had no other property belonging to Mrs. Zerdes. 
 
54 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Unless these diamonds were stolen from this woman's ears 
 they would not be missing. 
 
 "I have made some inquiries about what happened about 
 the wreck, and I am informed that when the river was full of 
 bodies a number of men put out from College Point in small 
 boats. Some of these men, I am told, were seen taking 
 jewelry from the dead and then passing the bodies along to 
 other boats, which took them ashore." 
 
 USELESS FIRE HOSE 
 
 On the day following the disaster a great deal of evidence 
 touching the origin of the fire, and the conditions which pre- 
 vailed on board the boat, was collected by Coroner O' Gorman. 
 Several feet of the fire hose of the General Slocum was recov- 
 ered from the wreck by one of the divers. The hose was 
 burned at both ends and on a fold in the middle, as though it 
 had never been unreeled. 
 
 Former Fire Marshal Freel, who examined the section of 
 hose, said that while it might serve its purpose if an attempt 
 had been made to use it in the case of the Slocum, it would be 
 seriously defective if the hose had to be used at any consider- 
 able range. He said: 
 
 "The rough weave of the canvas on the inside causes a 
 considerable loss of force at the nozzle on account of the fric- 
 tion with the water. Roughly, in such hose as that the loss 
 due to friction would be about fofty pounds to a hundred feet 
 of hose. The hose is porous also and leaks somewhat. That 
 is, it 'sweats,' causing a further loss of power, until the fiber of 
 the hose swells and makes the coating thoroughly impervious 
 to water. That would take about ten minutes." 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 55 
 
 STEEL WIRES ON THE BOATS 
 
 From the sunken vessel one of the starboard steel lifeboats 
 was also brought up. The boat was still attached to the 
 davits, to which it was lashed by steel wires instead of ropes. 
 The boat was crumpled up in the middle, as if it had been 
 paper, and great gaps had been sprung in its bow, but boat- 
 men say it would have been serviceable if it had ever been got 
 into the water. 
 
 STORY OF FIRE'S START 
 
 Charles H. Lang, who used to be a lifeguard at Coney 
 Island, said the General Slocum was on fire between Fiftieth 
 and Fifty-fifth streets. As a result of his statement made to 
 the police at the Information Bureau, he was summoned to 
 appear before the coroner. 
 
 Lang said he was on the upper deck with his wife, his 
 brother-in-law and sister-in-law and his five-year-old son when 
 two of the crew came on that deck and told another deck- 
 hand, in his hearing, that there was a fire on board. Lang 
 said he looked at the Manhattan shore and knew the boat 
 was between Fiftieth and Fifty-fifth streets by the brewery he 
 recognized. He gathered his family together, told them 
 something was wrong and got them to a place on the boat 
 where the crowd was small. 
 
 Just above Eighty-eighth street he saw an officer of the 
 boat come on deck and tell two deckhands there was a fire on 
 board. Lang and his family knew how to swim and all 
 escaped save his cousin, Amelia. 
 
 TO REASSURE THE PUBLIC 
 
 Everything indicated that steamboats carrying passengers 
 in New York harbor and neighboring waters would come in 
 
56 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 for a rigid reinspection by the federal officials, in spite of the 
 opposition of Robert S. Rodie, supervising inspector of this 
 district. Mr. Rodie's devotion to the rules and regulations of 
 the department was weakened apparently by the disclosures 
 concerning rotten life preservers and inadequate fire-fighting 
 facilities since the Slocum disaster happened. He declared 
 repeatedly that he saw no necessity for another inspection of 
 the excursion vessels and that none would be made unless 
 upon the written application of the owners or masters of the 
 boats. 
 
 OTHER BOATS TO BE INSPECTED 
 
 His attitude aroused the city officials, who felt that the 
 people would never be satisfied until assured in the most posi- 
 tive manner that every excursion steamer, barge and ferry 
 boat was properly equipped for the protection of life in case of 
 an accident. 
 
 The following letter was sent to Secretary Cortelyou by 
 Mayor McClellan: 
 
 "The awful calamity which has befallen the city in the loss 
 of the lives of so many hundreds of its inhabitants while on 
 board the steamer General Slocum in the Sound on the 15th 
 instant, impels me to invite your attention to the propriety of 
 an immediate inspection by the United States government of 
 all passenger carrying boats in the waters adjacent to New 
 York City." 
 
 COULD NOT USE THE HOSE 
 
 W. E. Ortman, who had charge of the icecream stand on 
 the Slocum, said that he was near the wheel-house at the time 
 the fire became known. He saw several of the crew trying to 
 fasten the hose to the standpipe. After much difficulty they 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 57 
 
 succeeded in doing so, but the threads on the hose were so 
 worn that when the water was turned on the hose at once 
 fell off. 
 
 "I then saw," he said, "that the boat was doomed. I 
 noticed a man standing on the ledge which runs around the 
 wheel-house, and I got out there with him. A woman was 
 standing beside him. Finally he jumped, but made no effort 
 to save the woman. I finally jumped off and managed to keep 
 my head above water until I was picked up by a tug." 
 
 MORGUK HELPER INSANE 
 
 Driven insane by the long strain of his work among the 
 bodies of the victims of the General Slocum, Walter Watson, 
 twenty-nine years old, one of the attendants at the morgue, 
 was found wandering aimlessly about the streets, the morning 
 after the disaster, by a policeman. He was stumbling along 
 with vacant eyes, and occasionally broke forth into incoherent 
 mutterings which were like this: 
 
 "I can't identify that body. Take it away. Bring me 
 another one. No, I can't identify that, either. Take it away." 
 
 Schneider took him into custody, and he was later sent to 
 the psychopathic ward of Bellevue. The physicians there 
 found that he had been at work steadily in the temporary 
 morgue on the Charities Department pier from the time the 
 bodies began to arrive till Saturday night, when he disap- 
 peared. 
 
 NUMBER OF DEAD UNDERESTIMATED 
 
 Dr. Darlington, health commissioner, who went to the 
 morgue to see how the work there was advancing, reiterated 
 his previous statements that the number of dead would eventu- 
 
58 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 ally be found to be much larger than now was apparent. Dr. 
 Darlington said: 
 
 "In explanation of what to the uninformed might seem to 
 be so high an estimate, the fact should be remembered that 
 most of the bodies recovered near North Brother Island were 
 at the northerly end of the island. People began jumping or 
 were thrown or pushed off when the steamer was at the 
 sound end, and there was a continuous stream of unfortunates 
 going into the water long before the steamer was beached. 
 Few of these have been found. 
 
 "In the last tvv^o days it has been learned that aboard the 
 steamer were many young women — most of them domestics — 
 who had not been long in this country. Though they had 
 been attending St. Mark's Church, there is no certainty that 
 they were sufficiently well known to have been reported as 
 missing." 
 
 IDENTIFIED BY WEARING APPAREL 
 
 Alfonse Ebling went to the morgue looking for the bodies 
 of his wife and his son, George, five years old. The identifi- 
 cation of his wife's body was made from pieces of wearing 
 apparel and jewelry. When directed to the box containing 
 the body Ebling threw himself across the box and wept. He 
 repeated his wife's name again and again and called to her to 
 return to him. Finally he fainted. Two policemen carried 
 him away. When he revived he returned to the coffin. 
 
 RATHER DROWN THAN BURN 
 
 In a family in Seventh street a little girl is now alive 
 because of what one of the victims of the accident — a man — did 
 before he perished himself. Grabbing the little girl, whose 
 dress had already caught fire, he said: 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 59 
 
 "I would rather see you drown than burn to death." 
 Fortunately neither of these alternatives proved to be the 
 
 fate of the little girl, for when she struck the water she was 
 
 seen by the crew of a tugboat and pulled out. 
 
 SUPPLY OF COFFINS RUNS SHORT 
 
 Another sad feature revealed by the visitations was the dis- 
 covery that because of the great demand made upon East Side 
 undertakers the funerals were delayed, and coffins could not 
 be furnished fast enough. In one of the homes so distressed, 
 a funeral had been arranged. The mourners all collected and 
 were sitting in the rooms adjoining the little parlor, but had 
 to be informed in the end that the funeral could not take 
 place. 
 
 a: sad feature 
 
 It was a noticeable fact that the homes of the victims of 
 the accident were generally neat and comfortable, typical in 
 many ways of the care of the German housewives, in some 
 instances lying dead in the rooms they took so much pride in 
 keeping tidy. In one of these little homes on Fourth street a 
 very aged woman sat alone beside the coffin in which lay her 
 only sister. 
 
 The dead woman had for years been employed as gov- 
 erness in a family up town. She had taken her charges, three 
 of them, to the excursion and perished with them. Although 
 the family in which she had served so long had begged the 
 privilege of burying the governess, the sister, though living 
 alone, would not consent, and there she sat alone with her 
 body. 
 
6o NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 HOPED IN VAIN 
 
 It was Otto Harnes, a twelve-year-old lad, who declared 
 that among those he saw on North Brother Island after he 
 swam ashore were his brother Herman, eighteen years old, 
 and Rosa Wallace, a golden-haired little girl of eleven years, 
 who lived at 214 East Eleventh street. 
 
 "Rose was my only child," said Mr. Wallace, "and was one 
 of the prettiest little girls in this neighborhood. I hired a 
 boat, and went to North Brother Island and inquired for her, 
 but could find no trace of a child answering her description. 
 A search of the hospitals was just as fruitless. 
 
 "Of course, I fear she is among the dead, but I cannot keep 
 from hoping that maybe after all Otto really did see her, and 
 that eventually she will be returned to me." Later, the 
 bodies of both the children were found. 
 
 AN ENTIRE FAMILY GONE 
 
 On the top floor of a tenement sat Fred Diehl, with several 
 friends who were trying to soothe his grief over the loss of his 
 entire family — his wife and three children. When any one 
 knocked at his door Mr. Diehl sprang up and opened it. A 
 look of expectation was on his face, but it gave way to disap- 
 pointment when he said, "Oh, I thought it was some one 
 bringing them to me." 
 
 He told who his missing ones were and then said, "I have 
 almost walked my feet off looking for them, and I can't find 
 a trace of a single one. If this keeps up much longer I shall 
 go crazy. I walk through the house and at every step a pain 
 goes through my heart. 
 
 "There are their schoolbooks, just where they left them^ 
 I open a closet door and see their clothes, and I have to turn 
 
HARROWING DETAILS 6i 
 
 away. I cannot believe that they will never return. Oh, they 
 must come back! This is just a bad dream I am having, and 
 soon I shall awake to find my wife and the little ones about me 
 just as they have been in the past." 
 
 WENT WITHOUT PERMISSION 
 
 Willie Keppler had gone on the excursion without his par- 
 ents' permission. He said he had first learned to swim at the 
 foot of Pike street. So when he saw the fire on board the 
 Slocum he shouted to two other boys who were with him, 
 telling them they had better jump overboard and swim around 
 until a boat picked them up. Keppler, who was on the hurri- 
 cane deck, dived overboard. 
 
 "'As soon as I hit the water," he said, "I started to swim 
 out toward the center of the stream, but the tide was so strong 
 I went back five strokes every time I took one, so I made up 
 my mind that I would not tire myself out, so I jist turned over 
 on me back and floated. That's what we used to do down at 
 the docks. You see, if a fellow wants to stay in the water 
 longer than some one else, he must jist hold back his 
 strength. 
 
 "So while I was a-floating they were a-jumping over the 
 side of the steamer. Twenty would jump at once, and right 
 on top of 'em twenty more would jump. Then there would 
 be a skirmish of grabbing at heads and arms, and the fellows 
 what could swim would be pulled down and had to fight their 
 way up. Two women who got near me shouted for me to 
 help them, and I tried to, but they were too big, and I had to 
 break away to save meself. When I was in the water about 
 half an hour they pulled me on a tugboat and chucked me 
 up on the dock. I was so scared that I might git a licking for 
 
62 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 going on the excursion without being let go that I stayed up 
 in Harlem and slept in a park. Yesterday when I picked up a 
 newspaper I saw me name among the missing, so I thought 
 I'd come home and git the licking instead of breaking me 
 mudder's heart. So I'm home, and me mudder only kissed 
 me and me fadder give me half a dollar for being a good 
 swimmer." 
 
 LOST HIS MOTHER 
 
 One little white-headed chap spent all day sitting on the 
 stoop of his home, in Sixth street, waiting for the return of 
 his mother, whose name was among those of the missing, 
 "But I really don't think she will come back," he said, 
 "because the last time I saw her she was standing beneath the 
 place where the deck fell. I tried to get her to jump over- 
 board before that, but she wouldn't because she had my sister 
 with her. A big woman knocked me away from her, and I 
 was thrown into the water. As a big man put me on the shore 
 I looked around, and could not see mamma because the deck 
 had fallen down." 
 
 CITY DECIDED TO RAISE THE WRECK 
 
 The owners of the General Slocum having refused to raise 
 the wreck, claiming that it was the property of the insurance 
 companies, the city decided to undertake the task in order to 
 facilitate the recovery of any bodies that might be buried 
 beneath it, and for the obtaining of any physical evidence that 
 may throw light upon the cause of the disaster. The cost of 
 raising the wreck was approximately $12,000, and by Mayor 
 McClellan's action Police Commissioner McAdoo was author- 
 ized to contract for the work at that price. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 HEROIC RESCUERS 
 
 Bravery of the Nurses-Florence Denning Saves Seven Women-Other 
 Heroines-The Bravery of a Switchboard Girl-A Courageous Irish 
 Girl-Iashed to the Burning Steamship— Flannery the Hero-Heart- 
 Rending Appeals for Aid-Tugboat Men to the Eescue-The Awful 
 Death of Three Little Babies-Two Men Save Sixteen Persons-Saves 
 His Sweetheart-An Eleven- Year-Old Boy Shows Great Presence of 
 Mind— Van Tassel the Intrepid Policeman. 
 
 It was through the heroic work of persons employed on 
 North Brother Island, including physicians, nurses and order- 
 lies, that many of the passengers on the General Slocum were 
 saved. Even the patients in the tuberculosis hospital, though 
 weakened by disease, rushed down to the beach as the victims 
 were struggling in the water and aided in the rescue. 
 
 A DARING DEED 
 
 One of the bravest feats accomplished was that of Miss 
 Florence Denning, a nurse in the tuberculosis hospital, who, 
 aided by the other nurses, rescued seven women whose lives 
 would have been lost but for her courage and the fact that she 
 was a strong swimmer. 
 
 Miss Denning was standing on the east shore of the island 
 when she saw the General Slocum, with flames shooting from 
 her sides, pass by. Passengers were then jumping overboard 
 m large numbers. Miss Denning, realizing that many persons 
 were losing their lives, plunged into the water and swam with 
 
 63 
 
64 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 all her strength toward them. Though hampered by her 
 clothing, the young woman did not cease her work, swimming 
 to the shore and back again until seven women had been 
 saved by her. She then sank exhausted on the beach. 
 
 Though the other nurses could not swim, they boldly 
 waded in the water to receive the unconscious victims brought 
 to them by Miss Denning. The nurses who made it possible 
 for Miss Denning to accomplish so much were Miss Martha 
 Rutledge, Miss Eleanor Wrenn, Miss Hattie Walker, Miss 
 Lamb, Miss Anna Lay, Miss Sloan, Miss S. C. Wolfstenholm, 
 Miss Atkins, Miss Florence Rhodes and Miss E. Smith, Mrs. 
 White, the matron, also assisted in the rescue work and later 
 assisted in caring for the injured. 
 
 GIRL SAVES TWO BABIES 
 
 Miss Lou McKibbin, a young woman who operates the 
 telephone switchboard on the island, when she learned that the 
 Slocum was on fire, immediately telephoned to the police head- 
 quarters and then, throwing down her receiver, rushed to the 
 shore. Seeing two babies floating near by, she plunged into 
 the water and rescued them. The babies proved to be a little 
 boy six months old and a girl somewhat younger. 
 
 One of the first persons on the island to see the burning 
 vessel was Dr. McLaughlin. He immediately leaped into a 
 boat and, rowing out, rescued four or five women. One of 
 these was Miss Alfreda Rebenklau of 28 Eldert street, 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 PHYSICIANS USE BOATS 
 
 Drs. Lord, Weihman, Herowitz, Cannon, Algeson and 
 Watson, who are stationed on the island, also leaped into 
 boats and rescued many women and children, and in the work 
 
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HEROIC RESCUERS 65 
 
 the physicians were assisted by the male nurses and orderlies 
 several of whom swam to the struggling passengers and held 
 them up till the boats arrived. In all about sixty persons were 
 saved in this way. 
 
 Miss Mary McCann, a ward helper who came to this coun- 
 try from Ireland less than a month ago, proved herself one of 
 the most courageous of all of the brave persons about her. 
 She swam out to where the helpless passengers were strug- 
 gling four times, each time bringing back some drowning 
 person. 
 
 Dr. McLaughlin, in describing the destruction of the boat, 
 said the upper deck seemed to suddenly collapse and disap- 
 pear. In his opinion no less than 150 persons fell with the 
 deck and lost their lives in the fire. 
 
 SAVES SCORES OF LIVES 
 
 The following description of the scene aboard the burn- 
 ing General Slocum was given by Captain Flannery of the 
 tug Walter Tracey, who lashed his vessel to the burning 
 steamship and took off 200 passengers. 
 
 "Until my dying day I will hear the anguished cry that 
 went up as I cut loose from the burning boat," he said. "I 
 stuck until my pilot house was afire. Then I cast loose and 
 followed my men, leaning over the gunwales and grabbing at 
 the children as they floated by in the river." 
 
 Captain Flannery and his men worked aboard the Slo- 
 cum until the heat burned their shoes. His story of the 
 panic and the work of rescue and the manifold horrors of 
 death by fire and drowning is the most complete and graphic 
 of the actual participants in the disaster. After landing his 
 200 passengers in Port Mori is, he said: 
 
66 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 "The Slocum was going through Hell Gate when I found 
 that she was in distress and steered for her. I reached her 
 side before any other craft and found that she was on fire. I 
 ordered my men to lash us alongside and then we began the 
 work of taking off the frantic children. 
 
 "It was terrible work, and my heart fails me now as I think 
 of it. The little ones seemed to have lost all reason, and their 
 cries and screams will echo in my mind for years to come. 
 
 CHILDREN REMOVED TO TUG 
 
 "I Stayed alongside just so long as I could. It was getting 
 hotter and hotter every moment, until the deck boards burned 
 through the leather of our shoes. We didn't think of that at 
 the time, however, and it wasn't until the flames burst from 
 our pilot house that I gave the order to sheer off. 
 
 CRIES OF TERROR AND DESPAIR 
 
 "The cries that went up from the Slocum as we backed 
 away were expressions of utter despair and terror. 
 
 "We extinguished the flames which had attacked the pilot 
 house and continued through the Gate after the Slocum. 
 
 "As the children began to leap into the water I ordered all 
 hands to catch them as they floated past. 
 
 MANY CHILDREN TAKEN OFF BY BOATS 
 
 "Every man on the boat that could be spared helped in 
 this work of rescue. We could only make one grab for each 
 body, for the reason that there were so many bumping that 
 we could not devote our time to any particular one. To see 
 the faces of those little ones, who drifted by struggling against 
 death, but just out of our reach, was agony to every one of 
 us. It was almost as great suffering for us as it was for 
 them. 
 
HEROIC RESCUERS 67 
 
 "We followed until the Slocum ran into water that was too 
 shallow for our depth. 1 then ordered away several small 
 boats and they succeeded in taking off loads of children. All 
 those recovered by us were unhurt, so far as I could see. 
 
 "The scenes on board the Slocum as I came alongside 
 were too horrifying for description. The little ones were run- 
 ning hither and thither, uttering heart-rending cries and 
 appeals for aid. We could only do our best at helping the 
 unfortunates, although it made a man feel like a criminal to 
 to think that he could not save every innocent life on 
 board." 
 
 FIFTY WOMEN AND CHILDREN RESCUED 
 
 Rescue work of a courageous nature was done by Henry 
 Rock, captain of the tugboat Franklin Edson, which is used 
 to transfer patients to North Brother Island, and by Charles 
 Johnson, the mate. The tug boat was lying at the foot of 
 East One Hundred and Thirty-sixth street when Captain 
 Rock saw the blazing steamboat pass by. 
 
 Quickly throwing off the lines which held the Edson to the 
 pier, the captain rang for full speed and started for the Slo- 
 cum. Running close alongside the blazing vessel, the crew of 
 the Edson succeeded in rescuing fifty women and children, all 
 more or less burned, and also recovered the bodies of nine 
 women and a child. 
 
 So intense was the heat as the tug lay alongside the Slo- 
 cum that her paint was blistered and her woodwork caught 
 fire several times. Anticipating the danger before them, the 
 crew of the Edson had uncoiled the fire hose of the boat ready 
 for an emergency, and as fast as the woodwork caught fire it 
 
68 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 was extinguished by the deckhands, who kept a stream play- 
 ing continuously from the hose. 
 
 HEAT WAS UNBEARABLE 
 
 The heat was almost unbearable, but Captain Rock and his 
 crew worked with desperate haste until they were forced to 
 draw away or lose their lives and those of the passengers they 
 had rescued. The members of the tug's crew expressed sur- 
 prise that the captain of the General Slocum had not beached 
 the steamboat before he did. They declared he could have 
 run the vessel ashore on Manhattan Island, but instead pro- 
 ceeded farther up toward the Sound. 
 
 Another tug, which steamed up to the burning vessel and 
 succeeded in recovering nine bodies, was the Margaret. All 
 the bodies were those of women. 
 
 A SAD STORY 
 
 Lucy Hencken, fifteen years old, of 169 South Second 
 street, Brooklyn, who lost her mother and brother, told the 
 following thrilling story of her experience: 
 
 "When the fire started I was sitting with my mother in the 
 rear of the boat. My brother was on one of the lower decks. 
 As soon as we saw the smoke and heard the cries of 'fire!' my 
 mother asked me to go below and find my brother. When I 
 got down the stairway I found the crushed bodies of three 
 little babies, who had been trambled upon in the terrible 
 scramble. They were all still living, and I carried them up to 
 my mother and put them on her lap. Then I went below 
 again to find my brother. I saw him for a moment, and then 
 he was swept away from me in the surge of men and women 
 who were rushing from the flames. 
 
 "I succeeded in getting back to the upper deck, but when 
 
HEROIC RESCUERS 69 
 
 I went to look for my mother and the three babies I had 
 rescued, they were gone. With my mother and brother gone 
 from me I didn't want to Hve any longer, so I jumped in. As 
 I was going down a man on the tugboat Theo caught me with 
 a boat-hook and dragged me on the deck of the boat." 
 
 HEROIC WORK OF TUGMEN 
 
 A tugman named Olsen and his partner, Andersen, jumped 
 into the water and brought to the side of the tugboat Arnott 
 eight persons, six women and two children. Three of the 
 women were unconscious. 
 
 Olsen saw three children, not more than six years of age, 
 floating near the shore. Jumping overboard, he rescued two. 
 Holding their heads out of the water with his left arm, he used 
 the right in swimming to the shore, where they were lifted to 
 the bank by willing hands. Returning to the other child float- 
 ing in the water, Olsen swam with it to the island. Although 
 greatly exhausted, Olsen returned to the Arnott and was 
 pulled aboard. Three times the tugboat caught fire from the 
 flames from the Slocum. 
 
 YOUNG MAN SAVES SWEETHEART 
 
 "I was sitting on the lower deck with Miss Swartz when 
 the fire started," related Henry Iden. "We had smelled 
 smoke for about four minutes, but thought it came from the 
 kitchen, where clam chowder was being cooked. 
 
 "Suddenly I noticed persons on shore waving their arms 
 and I could hear them shouting. Then came the fire. I got 
 two life preservers and put one on Miss Swartz and another 
 on myself. 
 
 "We crowded to the rail and stayed there until the boat 
 went aground, when over we went. The fire was so hot that 
 
;o NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 I kept ducking Miss Swartz under water every minute or so, 
 and did the same myself. After a while we were pulled 
 aboard a tug." 
 
 The faces of both Iden and Miss Swartz were blistered. 
 
 BOY SURVIVOR SAVES THREE GIRLS 
 
 Some of the survivors of the awful tragedy tell thrilling 
 stories of their escape from the jaws of death. 
 
 George Gray, aged thirteen years, of 309 East Fourteenth 
 street, told the following story of his experience: 
 
 "I was sitting on the rear of the upper deck with my two 
 friends, Otto Hans and Albert Greenwall. The boat was just 
 passing out of Hell Gate and going toward an island when I 
 smelled fire. 
 
 "I said to Otto and Albert, 'Hey, boys, there's a fire,' and 
 we jumped up on a seat and tried to pull down some life 
 preservers. 
 
 "A lot of them were rotten and all the cork came out of 
 them. Women and children around us were yelling some- 
 thing awful. While we were pulling at the life preservers a 
 big cloud of smoke and flame came right up out of the center 
 of the boat. Then the boat seemed to stop and the women 
 began jumping overboard, and I saw some of them throw their 
 babies in the water and jump after them. 
 
 PASSENGERS JUMP FROM THE STEAMER 
 
 "After the fire came up all around the deck the boat got 
 started again, but the people kept jumping over. There were 
 not any tugboats near us then, but soon I saw a lot coming to 
 us. I was afraid to jump over, and got Otto and Albert to 
 stay with me. 
 
HEROIC RESCUERS 71 
 
 "We all had got life preservers for ourselves and for three 
 little girls, whom we held on to when they tried to jump. 
 
 "While we were working getting the life preservers the 
 tugs were coming at us fast, but all back of us in the water I 
 could see men, women and children going down. Most of 
 them couldn't swim at all, and went right down as soon as 
 they jumped over. 
 
 "The first tug that came to us was the Director. It was a 
 big boat and came right up near us as we were going toward 
 the island. 
 
 "I jumped on to the boat, and then a whole crowd of 
 people jumped on top of me. Half of them that jumped on 
 the boat fell into the water between the side of the tug and 
 the steamer. 
 
 RESCUES A LITTLE GIRL 
 
 "Pretty soon there were so many on her that her rear end 
 was way down in the water and her bow way up in the air, but 
 they kept jumping and slipping into the river and going down. 
 I got a hold of a little girl's leg who was falling over, pulled 
 her up and sat on her so as to keep her from being pushed 
 over. 
 
 "As I was on the boat I saw a man on the upper deck take 
 a baby and throw it into the water. The baby's hair was all 
 on fire and she fell into the water near the tug and a man 
 jumped over and got her and brought her on to the Director. 
 
 "As the tugs came around the boat everybody that was left 
 tried to jump on them, and they jumped on top of each other, 
 lots of them rolling off the decks of the tugs into the water. I 
 saw a lot of young girls swimming tov/ard the island who were 
 picked up b}'' rowboats. 
 
72 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 "I saw two little girls who hadn't life preservers on, but 
 who could swim, sink when a wave made by one of the tugs 
 rolled over them. The women and kids couldn't hear the 
 shouts of the men who had come on the tugs to rescue 
 us. 
 
 "I saw about ten men jump overboard long before the tugs 
 came and not one of them could swim. They were shouting 
 for help and they all went down. After the Director had so 
 many on her that I thought she was going to sink or turn 
 over, she steamed for the New York shore, where we got off 
 and a few were taken in wagons to the Elevated Rail- 
 road." 
 
 SAVES HIS GIRL FRIEND 
 
 John Tischner, aged eleven years, of 404 Fifth street, 
 another survivor, described his experience and his rescue as 
 follows: 
 
 "I was down on the lower deck with Ida Wousky, fourteen 
 years old, who lives in the same house with me. We were 
 eating ice cream when the flames burst out right near us. 
 Everybody seemed to be yelling 'Fire!' and I saw a lot of 
 women with their hair and dresses burning jump into the 
 water long before any boats came near us. 
 
 "My friend, Ida Wousky, was going to faint, but I kicked 
 her on the shins and waked her up. Then I got a lot of life 
 preservers, most of them rotten, and after a long time I got 
 one on Ida. 
 
 "The tugs were coming near us then, and I told her to 
 jump. She wouldn't jump and I pushed her over. Then I 
 jumped in the water myself and I got hold of her hair and 
 held her up until the tug came and we were pulled out." 
 
HEROIC RESCUERS 73 
 
 TUG'S MAD RACE 
 
 An exciting incident of the disaster was the attempt of the 
 White Star Towing Company's Goldenrod to overhaul the 
 flaming steamer after a hot pursuit. 
 
 "I sighted her coming up back of me about One Hundred 
 and Thirty-second street," said Captain Hillery, of the 
 Goldenrod. "I had the schooner Allison in tow. As she 
 swept past me, I cast my schooner and put on all speed after 
 the Slocum. She went like the wind. I only got to her after 
 she had driven her nose into the sandbar at North Brother 
 Island. 
 
 "Head first, sidewise, any way, hitting the rail, the deck, 
 the water, men, women and children hailed down upon my 
 decks from the Slocum's lower and middle decks. The crew 
 and myself began to pass them to the stern. With eighty-five 
 maimed and crippled, either aboard or hanging to the bow, I 
 put for the Bronx shore. 
 
 "Back I ran, and with eighty-five more I raced for the New 
 York shore. On the third trip the flames had eaten so far aft 
 that I got but fifteen or twenty. I counted two hundred in all 
 that I landed." 
 
 WORKHOUSE HEROES 
 
 Two of those who performed heroic duty in the deathwake 
 of the General Slocum were John Merther and Dan Casey, 
 prisoners in the workhouse on Riker's Island. 
 
 They sighted the burning vessel coming around Light 
 House Point of North Brother Island, and without stopping 
 to get permission of their guards launched a boat beached 
 near at hand. Dr. Broder, of the workhouse staff, joined 
 them. They were among the first to reach the burning 
 
74 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 steamer. Going in almost to the blazing hull, they began the 
 work of rescue. 
 
 Two trips to the shore and a record of thirteen dead and 
 five living did they achieve before a collision with a fireboat 
 wrecked their boat. 
 
 WHAT TWO STEVEDORES DID 
 
 Two stevedores were unloading lumber when the Slocum 
 swept by ablaze. As the steamer passed within two hundred 
 feet of the lumber-yard these men saw her port-rail forward 
 give way before the awful pressure of the panic-stricken crowd, 
 and hundreds of women and children fell into the water. The 
 paddle-wheel beat down upon them and they were seen no 
 more. 
 
 The two stevedores ran to the yawl hanging on the davits 
 of one of the schooners, cut the falls, rowed her over to North 
 Brother Island and got close as possible to the burning Gen- 
 eral Slocum. It was so hot under the lee of the fire that they 
 had to jump overboard to keep their clothes from burning off. 
 Each of them was scorched and blistered on face, head, neck 
 and hands. But they saved more than thirty lives and they 
 were happy. 
 
 'T'll never forget the horrors we saw," said one of these 
 heroes. "We were among the first to get near the General 
 Slocum, for we started before she was beached. There were 
 so many women and children in the water that we could 
 hardly dip the oars without striking a head. 
 
 "We picked up women and children by the hair. If they 
 were alive we drew them into the boat; if not, we let the dead 
 drop back in the water to wait until we had rescued the 
 living." 
 
HEROIC RESCUERS 75 
 
 THROUGH FIRE AND WATER 
 
 Mention has been made before of the splendid heroism of 
 the employees of the hospital on North Brother Island. Not 
 only men, but women unhesitatingly risked their lives to save 
 those of others, and none were braver than the women nurses 
 in charge of the wards set apart for the treatment of con- 
 tagious diseases. Living almost isolated, as they do, many of 
 the nurses have become expert swimmers, and several of these 
 women struck boldly out from the shore and rescued many 
 lives, while others stood in the river and aided struggling vic- 
 tims to gain the land. So intense was the heat, while they 
 worked to save drowning men and women, that except in such 
 an emergency they would not have thought it safe to remain 
 within a hundred feet of the spot where the vessel was blazing. 
 
 But in spite of the heat there stood in the shallow water 
 near the shore until the boat was lifted by the tide and drifted 
 away into the main channel more than a score of men, and 
 here and there a woman, who gave no thought except to the 
 work they were called upon to do. 
 
 As a body was carried toward them they grasped it and 
 passed it to the sea wall, where others stood ready to lift it to 
 the bank. Small boats found ready hands to aid in lifting out 
 the rescued and to speed the craft again to the side of the 
 floating furnace. 
 
 In the beginning of what was the end for so many, a fev^ 
 had saved themselves by springing across a gangplank which 
 was thrown from the vessel toward the shore, but while some 
 thus saved themselves more were pushed from it before they 
 had more than touched foot to it, so great was the rush made 
 by the panic-stricken excursionists. 
 
76 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 A BRAVE POLICEMAN 
 
 Van Tassel, the gallant policeman who worked so bravely 
 saving women and children, was only stopped from his rescue 
 work by utter exhaustion. 
 
 "I was detailed for duty on the General Slocum," said Van 
 Tassel, "and when the fire broke out I thought only of the best 
 way to save the children. 
 
 "I stood on the outside of the rail, passing the children into 
 the tugs and trying to keep order. Every time I saw a little 
 face turning its pitiful appeal to me I thought of my own two 
 children at home, and struggled harder than ever to save 
 them." 
 
 The heroic policeman worked at his life-saving on the out- 
 side of the rail, which was the only thing that saved his life 
 when the deck fell. 
 
 After he had been there for what seemed ages to him, he 
 felt a terrible blow on the back of the neck and fell uncon- 
 scious into the water. 
 
 "I thought it was the deck that struck me, but people who 
 saw say that it was the body of a big, fat woman who jumped 
 from the deck. 
 
 MADE HIMSELF A HUMAN RAFT 
 
 "The water, of course, revived me, and I started for the 
 shore. I found that I was too weak to swim, so I turned over 
 on my back to float. I was soon surrounded by women and 
 children, grabbing at me to save themselves. I called to them 
 to keep calm and I would save them. Then I floated into 
 North Brother Island with women and children clinging to me 
 from head to foot." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SUNKEN SEPULCHER 
 
 A Grewsome Task — Diver Finds Eighty Bodies of Women and Children 
 — Pinned Down by Metal and Wood— In the Clutch of the Tide— A 
 Shapeless Heap of Dead — Pitiful Forms Crushed by Beams — Bodies 
 Floating Rapidly Away — The Work of Rice and Other Divers. 
 
 The following authentic story of the aftermath to the ter- 
 rible disaster is told by Diver Charles P. Everett, who explored 
 the ruined General Slocum. He found pitiful evidences of 
 the [fury of the fire in the charred hulk, many bodies being 
 pinioned near the center of the vessel. Mr. Everett was 
 engaged by the United States Government in 1898 to explore 
 the wreck of the Maine in Havana harbor. 
 
 "With assistants and the crew of the steamer William E. 
 Chapman I started for the scene of the disaster. We left 
 East Twenty-third street, and I was inside the 175-pound armor 
 by 6:15 p. m. The Slocum lay listed at about an angle of 
 forty-five degrees to port. Her low side was in twenty-five 
 feet of water, her stern in about sixty. 
 
 "Although the parts above water sweltered from the slowly 
 dying heat, there was little smoke to impede my work. I was 
 commissioned, if possible, to loosen the debris and beams 
 which might hold, pent up, any bodies in the hold and to make 
 
 a general survey of the real fury of the fire. 
 
 77 
 
78 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 INDICATED AN EXPLOSION 
 
 "If I had not known what caused the frightful wreck I 
 would have thought an explosion of some character had ripped 
 the very bowels from the vessel and torn and lacerated her 
 superstructure. The wreck was complete, absolute, and there 
 is no use in trying to restore the hulk to any semblance of a 
 vessel. The appetite of the fire must have been insatiable 
 and probably could never by any human means have been 
 curbed unless by just such submersion as occurred. 
 
 "I really dislike to get down to the important part of the 
 story. No man cares to hurry the grewsome. Finally, after 
 surveying the surface, I vv^ent slowly down into the tomb. 
 
 SIGHT MADE HIM LOSE NERVE 
 
 "While groping about in an endeavor to remove an intri- 
 cate mass of wire rail guards from my path, or to plunge my 
 way through it, I noticed a section of the hold, on my right, 
 sag less than a foot. Immediately the ends of dresses and 
 long, slowly moving, disheveled hair floated about from under 
 beams and the general wreckage. 
 
 "I was at this time about the middle of the vessel. I 
 crawled gingerly through the gloomy, disemboweled section to 
 amidships. I thought I had my nerves under control. But I 
 had had only a foretaste of the real extent of this calamity, 
 which has wrung so many hearts and disrupted so many 
 homes. 
 
 "There were at least eighty charred or pitifully distorted 
 bodies of women and children in the center of the vessel. Like 
 those I had just left, they were nearly all held in the same 
 awful embrace of the flames. 
 
 "I finally came to the conclusion, after making many efforts 
 
THE SUNKEN SEPULCHER 79 
 
 ro extricate the bodies, that nothing but machinery can raise 
 ihe shapeless mass of metal and wood that lies between the 
 poor victims and human burial. 
 
 SCORES OF BODIES IN HEAPS 
 
 "The shadow of the walking beam — one of the only objects 
 protruding above the surface — fell athwart something which 
 was held, as in a vise, by a stanchion of what used to be a taff- 
 rail. A beam lay on it, and on the beam lay the pitiful little 
 frame of a child whose dress was held in the clutches of the 
 thing beneath — the mother, evidently. I braced myself for 
 what was to come and I peered around. 
 
 "Over on the leeward, or port side, where the debris lay in 
 a shapeless heap as the thought of a drunken man, there were 
 more things. Oh, a score of them! All caught in that 
 implacable, fatal grip supplied by the crunching together of 
 beams and stanchions and wooden supports and a thousand 
 and one appurtenances of every excursion steamer. 
 
 EXTRICATED SEVERAL CORPSES 
 
 "One by one, so far as I could avoid the obstacles and pre- 
 vent my lines becoming tangled in the maze, I tried to extri- 
 cate the forms of those for whom mothers, or brothers, or 
 sisters were wailing in hospitals or homes. A couple of bodies 
 floated free of the tanglewood, but drifted away slowly — like 
 the movement of a funeral, I thought at the time — into dark, 
 obscure corners of the thing that men used to call a graceful, 
 speedy steamer. 
 
 "Some of those waiting mothers and sisters and brothers 
 will probably never again see the faces they loved, for the tide 
 that swirls angrily around the watery grave is a thing not to 
 
8o NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 be cheated of its dead. I do not like to become a prophet of 
 evil, nor to be mistaken for one. But I will hazard a guess 
 that many bodies from which life was crushed in that awful 
 tragedy will never again be seen. The tide will swirl them 
 away. 
 
 ANGUISH ON VICTIM'S FACE 
 
 "If anybody had told me that the human countenance was 
 capable of expressing such deep, unutterable anguish I would 
 not have believed him — even if he were endowed with the 
 superhuman power to fittingly depict it. I never fully realized 
 the profound depth of this mother love until I summoned 
 strength enough to peer into the faces that glimmered at me 
 fitfully through the waters of the sound. 
 
 "Of those who, wooing pleasure, won death, a small group 
 impressed itself indelibly upon my memory. Three children 
 and a woman, who certainly was their mother, were pinioned 
 against what I took to be part of a cabin detached from the 
 whole. 
 
 CLUNG TO MOTHER'S DRESS 
 
 "The children clung to her dress just as if the life was still 
 throbbing in their little hearts. But the mother, with a look 
 of agony on her face, was kept from grasping the little ones 
 by a big piece of iron — probably hurled aft from the machinery 
 when the grounding crash came — which lay diagonally across 
 her breast. 
 
 "The mangled remains of the General Slocum formed as 
 complete a wreck as I have ever seen. I have been asked to 
 draw a parallel, if possible, between this disaster and that 
 which befell the battleship Maine. Comparison is impossible. 
 Had that which overtook the Maine happened to the Slocum 
 
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THE SUNKEN SEPULCHER 8i 
 
 there would have been no wreck to explore to-day and there 
 doubtless would be no list of survivors to print. 
 
 "The vessels are so totally different that no line can be 
 drawn to connect the two catastrophes. The Slocum's fate 
 was less swift than the Maine's, but the former is irreparable. 
 
 "They tell me I was down in the tomb about an hour and a 
 half. That must be a mistake. I was down there a year. 
 There must be near a hundred bodies in the wreck." 
 WHAT OTHER DIVERS SAW 
 
 John Rice and David Tulloch, divers in the employ of the 
 dock department, and Harry Hayer and Albert Blumberg, in 
 the employ of the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company, 
 explored the burned hull of the steamboat, which lay on the 
 port side in sixty feet of water. Only part of her starboard 
 paddlebox and the smokepipe of her donkey engine were 
 above the surface, her big smokestacks having gone by the 
 board. 
 
 Before the divers could explore the starboard paddlebox it 
 was necessary to tear away part of its covering. It was not 
 possible to get into the port paddlebox. Police Commissioner 
 McAdoo gave authority to use dynamite, if necessary, to break 
 up the wreck, but the divers said the wreck was going to 
 pieces gradually. The divers found twenty-six bodies, which 
 were taken to North Brother Island in launches before noon, 
 and sent with other bodies to the morgue. 
 
 BURNED BODIES FOUND 
 
 After several hours of grewsome toil the divers reported 
 to Police Inspector Albertson, at North Brother Island, 
 that they had explored the entire wreck, and did not believe 
 any more bodies would be found in it. Later, Rice found in 
 
82 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 the hull a section of the spine and a part of the trunk of a 
 boy, apparently eight or ten years old. Close to the paddle- 
 box the diver found the badly burned body of a girl, probably 
 ten or twelve years old. On one foot was an Oxford tie with 
 a spring heel. 
 
 While the divers were working in the waters near the 
 shore of North Brother Island, men in boats were dragging 
 the bottom with boat-hooks at low tide. In this search 
 twenty-five bodies were recovered, mostly by the men in the 
 boats. 
 
 PULVERIZED CORK ROUND ONE BODY 
 
 One of these bodies was that of a woman about forty years 
 old. Around her neck was what looked like a life preserver 
 covering. Coroner O'Gorman found a quantity of pulverized 
 cork inside of the woman's waist. He thinks she tried to save 
 her life by donning a life preserver, and that it failed to work. 
 When Coroner O'Gorman discovered the cork he called Cap- 
 tain Dean, of the Harbor Squad, and several reporters to 
 see it. 
 
 "I may use this cork in fixing the blame for the death of 
 this woman when her body is identified," said Coroner O'Gor- 
 man. "She had been cool enough to put on the life preserver, 
 and had it been in good condition she might have had a 
 chance for her life." 
 
 CORONER O'GORMAN AROUSED 
 
 The ghastly discoveries of the divers stirred Coroner 
 O'Gorman deeply. Diver Rice secured a section of one of 
 the Slocum's standpipes, which were placed in the steamer for 
 no other purpose than to supply water in case of fire. Said 
 Coroner O'Gorman: 
 
THE SUNKEN SEPULCHER 83 
 
 "The section Rice gave me shows absolutely that the crew 
 of the Slocum made no attempt to fight the fire. The valve 
 was closed tightly. My opinion is that when we get hold of 
 the other standpipe its valve will be found closed also. I am 
 one of those coroners who have got to be shown. I don't put 
 a bit of stock in the pretty tales of heroic fire fighting told to 
 the reporters by the crew when it was all over. 
 
 MORE WATERLOGGED LIFE DESTROYERS 
 
 "I found to-day more life preservers, or life killers rather, 
 with rotten canvas coverings split, and rotten, granulated cork 
 half dribbled out of the place where good, honest, solid cork 
 ought to have been. I found several life preservers that had 
 been removed from bodies dragged from the bottom of the 
 river. These were waterlogged, not burst. 
 
 "The evidence that Rice handed me I sealed up and sent 
 to my office in The Bronx. When the people who are 
 responsible for criminal neglect, criminal carelessness and 
 criminal cowardice come to business with the coroner's office 
 they will find an office that won't stand for any bamboozling. 
 I may not sit myself, but you can bet every cent you've got 
 that I'll make a good witness against somebody. 
 
 QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED 
 
 "Why wasn't that fire apparatus in order instead of being 
 absolutely useless? Why was there no fire drill, no discipline 
 that would have fought back the flames? Who of the crew 
 tried to turn the standpipe valves? Why is it that the per- 
 centage of the crew lost is 4 i-3 (one man), while probably 75 
 per cent of the helpless passengers died? Why didn't Captain 
 Van Schaick take that boat to shore a mile below North 
 Brother Island? Why didn't he turn in at at least a half- 
 
84 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 dozen perfectly safe and easily accessible places? Why were 
 the life preservers rotten? Why were the lifeboats not swung 
 from their davits into the river when the steamer ran a mile 
 and a half from the time fire was first discovered? These 
 questions will have to be answered. 
 
 "I've counted 508 dead persons, women and children for 
 the most part, and have seen things that made water rats who 
 worked with me sick, and I have smoked a cigarette and 
 tried to keep a smile going all the time, but when these things 
 come to light I get mad all over. That's all I've got to say, 
 except this — I like my fiction between the covers of a book." 
 
 CANNON CALLED INTO PLAY 
 
 Toward the end of the search cannon were used to hasten 
 the recovery of the Slocum's dead, after the thunderstorm 
 brought up many bodies, and many more had been recovered. 
 Under the direction of Police Inspector Albertson, dyna- 
 mite was also called into pla3^ Sticks of the explosive were 
 attached to short pieces of timber to serve as buoys, the free 
 ends riding clear of the water, while the dynamite was several 
 feet below the surface. The improvised mines were placed at 
 intervals of about one hundred yards around the wreck and 
 touched off by time fuses. 
 
 Two of the Second Battery's field pieces, in charge of a 
 firing squad, were put aboard a railroad float, and in tow of a 
 tug conveyed to the wreck. Firing was begun as soon as the 
 tug and float cleared the shore, and was continued as the 
 journey toward the hull of the Slocum progressed, until thirty 
 rounds had been fired. 
 
 Around Riker's Island the floating battery circled. Coroner 
 O'Gorman following in a launch. The guns were discharged 
 
THE SUNKEN SEPULCHER 85 
 
 at short intervals. A turn was made and the float was towed 
 past the wreck, until it was abreast of North Brother Island; 
 near the pier on the island six rounds were fired. '' 
 
 BODIES COME UP BY THE DOZEN 
 
 With the discharge of the last gun bodies began to appear 
 upon the surface. Within five minutes no fewer than sixteen 
 rose within a few yards of the coroner's launch, and the crews 
 of the patrol boats were kept busy picking them up. Further 
 search in the wake of the battery revealed fourteen more 
 bodies. Before the firing began a large number of bodies had 
 been recovered, and before the Fidelity left for the morgue 
 with its first load of dead, the temporary morgue at North 
 Brother Island was more heavily stocked with bodies than at 
 any time since the day following the loss of the Slocum. 
 
 Rapid progress was made by the Merritt-Chapman Der- 
 rick and Wrecking Company in raising the wreck of the Slo- 
 cum. The hull was lifted fifteen feet from the rocks on which 
 it rested, and the placing of the chains necessary for bringing 
 the hulk to the surface was rendered comparatively easy. 
 Contrary to expectations, there were comparatively few bodies 
 released when the wreck was lifted from the bottom. Only 
 Uwo bodies, both those of women, were found beneath the 
 paddleboxes, terribly disfigured. 
 
 IDENTIFICATIONS MADE RAPIDLY 
 
 The identification of bodies began almost immediatel}^ and 
 within a short while not fewer than two dozen bodies had been 
 claimed. The rapidity with which the identifications were 
 made was considered remarkable. The bodies were in almost 
 every instance identified by the clothing upon them. 
 
 Orders were then sent out by Health Commissioner Dar- 
 
86 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 lington that all bodies must first be stripped of their clothing 
 and effects, which should be numbered, and the bodies placed 
 in metallic coffins, bearing a corresponding number, and sealed 
 up. The bodies were then to be sent to the morgue at 
 Bellevue, but were not to be kept there for identification, but 
 forwarded at once to the Lutheran Cemetery and buried in 
 the plot set apart for the unknown dead. The place where 
 each body was buried was to be carefully marked, so that if 
 bodies could be identified from the clothing or effects, they 
 could be disinterred and buried elsewhere if the relatives so 
 desired. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 SCENES AT THE MORGUE 
 
 Awaiting the Arrival of the Dead— First Boatload of Thirty Bodies— Eighty 
 Corpses on the Massasoit— Rows of Pine Boxes — Wide Open Eyes Star- 
 ing Upward— A Father Finds His Baby Daughter — Wife and Children 
 Gone — The Tireless Search at the Hospitals— Human Tragedies. 
 
 Many heart-rending scenes have been witnessed in New 
 York's morgue, and many harrowing tales have come from 
 that temporary home of the city's dead, but all were eclipsed 
 by the scenes and doings there when the bodies of many of 
 the General Slocum's victims were laid side by side for the 
 purpose of identification. 
 
 It was one of the first places that distracted fathers and 
 mothers, wives, and sisters sought for tidings of those who had 
 left their homes earlier in the day for a bright June day's out- 
 ing. Relatives hurried there to learn whether those they 
 loved had been saved, or, if burned or drowned, they were in 
 readiness to establish the identity of a body by a piece of 
 clothing or a trinket, or perhaps by marks that perhaps had 
 been left unharmed. 
 
 COFFINS WAIT FOR DEAD 
 
 Scores of rough pine boxes, those grewsome, coffin-shaped 
 receptacles that the city furnishes for temporary use, were 
 carried from storerooms in Bellevue Hospital and deposited in 
 piles in the morgue and in the department of charities' long 
 
 87 
 
88 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 shedded pier, waiting the arrival of the steamboats Fidelity 
 and Massasoit with their loads of dead. 
 
 It was the Fidelity that was first sighted in midstream head- 
 ing for the morgue, with its forward deck covered with a bur- 
 den kept from sight by the spreading of blankets. The 
 Fidelity drew closer and closer and finally made fast at the 
 north side of the morgue and at the door of the building. 
 A dozen men, morgue attaches, were in readiness, and when 
 the gangplank was thrown out two men supporting a pine 
 coffin stepped upon it and to the Fidelity's deck. 
 
 DECK COVERED WITH BODIES 
 
 There were twenty-one bodies of adult women on the 
 steamboat and the remains of nine children whose ages ran 
 from a few months to ten years. One after another the bodies 
 were lifted from the deck and placed in coffins to be picked 
 up and carried into the morgue, where they were placed side 
 by side. 
 
 Men had worked over the Fidelity's dreadful cargo for 
 almost an hour, when the Massasoit was reported. Its for- 
 ward deck was covered with bodies that lay side by side, and 
 through the deckhouse windows and doors forward it could be 
 seen that the wain deck was completely covered with bodies, 
 between which there was only room left for the deck hands to 
 move about. 
 
 DEAD BABE IN DEAD MOTHER'S ARMS 
 There were eighty bodies on the Massasoit. Of these 
 nearly all were women and small children of ages running 
 from three months to fifteen years. On the deck, side by 
 side, lay bodies numbered 21 and 22. The first was a mother, 
 who when picked up from the water had clasped to her bosom 
 
SCENES AT THE MORGUE 89 
 
 her little babe, to be numbered 23 when gently removed from 
 her mother's arms. 
 
 One after another the bodies were placed in the pine boxes 
 and carried into the pier, where they were arranged in two 
 long rows, between which room was left so that relatives or 
 friends could pass between them for the purpose of recogniz- 
 ing features or articles of clothing. 
 
 A SMILE UPON THEIR FACES 
 
 As fast as the bodies were carried in on stretchers, some 
 with faces covered by a bit of skirt or a wet handkerchief, and 
 others quite uncovered, their wide open eyes staring upward, 
 their faces twisted by the agony that was upon them when 
 they died, they were laid upon the bare board floor of the 
 great square room. They lay side by side in regular rows, 
 the women in the center of the room, the little children, some 
 of them with a smile upon their faces, in a corner. 
 
 There were no men, nothing but drowned women and 
 children. Few showed traces of the fire; one or two were 
 burned about the hands or arms, or had hair and eyebrows 
 singed, but it was death by water they had all met. 
 
 FATHER TAKES UP WEARY HUNT 
 
 The first into the room was Joseph Volmer of 123 First 
 avenue. He looked fearfully at the rows of dead, gasped, and 
 covered his face. Then he started the terrible task of trying 
 to find his wife and children. Volmer, trembling and weep- 
 ing, passed up and down the rows. He was about to leave, 
 convinced that none of his loved ones was there, when a gray 
 plaid skirt caught his eye. He cried out like an animal in 
 torture and fell forward on the body of a woman. He did not 
 need to lift the cloth from her face. The dress that he had 
 
90 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 seen her put on in the morning when she bade him good-by 
 and started for the boat hand in hand with their three chil- 
 dren told him all that he wanted to know. 
 
 FINDS BABY HE SOUGHT, DEAD 
 
 A big German, Franz Boeger, whose child and wife had 
 gone from their home in Brooklyn to the boat, came stumbling 
 into the room. It didn't take him long to find the baby face 
 he sought, that of his little three-year-old daughter, Florence, 
 whose body lay in the corner with other drowned children. 
 Boeger didn't cry. He acted as if he could not; but the awful 
 silence and calm, the whiteness of the man's face, were more 
 terrible than the frenzied screams of others. 
 
 WIFE AND CHILDREN GONE 
 
 Men and women whose faces were tear-stained and their 
 eyes red from weeping tried to control themselves until they 
 might be admitted to the coffin-strewn pier or morgue. 
 Among those waiting was Mangus Harting, who was in search 
 of his wife, Louise, and their children, Minnie, twenty-four 
 years old, who sang in the choir of St. Mark's Lutheran 
 church; Frances, seventeen years old, who was a teacher in 
 the Sunday school of the church; Harry, fifteen; Willie, thir- 
 teen; Elias, six; and Clara, eleven years old. The distracted 
 husband and father had been to North Brother Island, but 
 could get no, tidings of his loved ones. 
 
 BOY FIRE HEROpEAD 
 
 Mrs. Minnie Leitz was among those who stood waiting. 
 She knew that her sister-in-law, Mrs. Mary Wolmer, was lying 
 dead in the Alexander avenue police station in the Bronx. 
 But Mrs. Leitz was in quest of Magdalena, seven, and Minnie 
 
SCENES AT THE MORGUE 91 
 
 Leitz, nine years old, and Joseph, seventeen. It was the lat- 
 ter, Mrs. Leitz said, who, at 457 Broome street, where he was 
 employed as an office boy, during a fire, took charge of the 
 elevator after it had been deserted by the regular attendant, 
 and ran it up and down, thereby saving thirty or forty lives of 
 persons employed in that building. 
 
 PASTOR'S FAMILY GONE 
 
 The Rev. John A. W. Haas, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran 
 church, in West One Hundred and Twenty-third street, and a 
 brother of the Rev. George C. F. Haas of St. Mark's church, 
 was at the morgue in search of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Anna S. 
 Haas, and her and his brother's daughter Gertrude, twelve 
 years old. 
 
 The scenes at the hospitals and police station at Alexander 
 avenue, where many bodies were carried, were pitiful in the 
 extreme. 
 
 The corpses found floating near the Bronx shore, south of 
 North Brother Island, immediately after the General Slocum 
 was beached, were piled in heaps at the One Hundred and 
 Thirty-eighth street dock until the police were organized to 
 handle the great crowds that assembled, and arrangements 
 were made to lay them out for identification at the police 
 station. 
 
 Then they were carried from the dock to the station in 
 patrol wagons as fast as they were brought in by tugs, 
 launches, and rowboats. 
 
 CRAZED BY SUSPENSE 
 
 An hour later there were ten thousand in the streets strug- 
 gling to beat down the solid wall of policemen that guarded 
 
Q2 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 the doorways and sidewalks. These came most of them from 
 the neighborhood of St. Mark's church. They knew that a 
 large proportion of the General Slocum's passengers had per- 
 ished and they were determined to fight their way into the 
 station house to find out if a sister or a mother or a sweetheart 
 or a child was in there dead. 
 
 Men were cursing and shouting. Women were crying, 
 embracing one another, calling out through the crowd to know 
 if any one had heard of this one or that one, begging the 
 police to let them in to set their fears at rest. 
 
 One desperate rush was made. Detective Prundy, guard- 
 ing the front with fifty plain clothes and uniformed men, 
 slammed the heavy doors and policemen set their backs 
 against them. Prundy called out in a voice that was heard 
 above the tumult of curses and screams: 
 
 "Men and women, we must keep you out now. We are 
 sorry for you. We will help you in every way, but you must 
 wait until we have made arrangements to let in a few at a 
 time. If you force us, we'll have to fight back." 
 
 HOPING AGAINST HOPE 
 
 It was a sorrowful procession of anxious men and women 
 who climbed the steps of the Harlem hospital in quest of 
 missing relatives and friends. In their faces could be read 
 the forlorn hope that still lingered, in spite of a tireless search 
 of hospitals in the Bronx, that those whom they sought might 
 possibly be in the Harlem institution. 
 
 "It means a wife and five children to me," said a broad- 
 shouldered man, who looked to be a mechanic, to Dr. Kraus- 
 kopf, "and if there are tears in my eyes they are tears of 
 sorrow, not of weakness. For four hours I have looked for a 
 
SCENES AT THE MORGUE 93 
 
 trace of them, but to no purpose. God is good, though, and I 
 may yet find my darlings," he added, as he stifled a sob and 
 slowly walked from the hospital. 
 
 PITIFUL SIGHTS 
 
 "Oh, tell me, tell me, my boy is not there," one woman 
 kept crying, and to quiet her she was told that he was not, 
 and she seemed satisfied, not thinking that no one in the 
 crowd had any idea who her boy was. 
 
 In many cases the little ones were still half clasped in the 
 arms of their mothers, who had died trying to save them, and 
 as these bodies were uncovered, several of the men who were 
 carrying them out had to quit their work. 
 
 The sight was too much for even the strongest, and not a 
 few of those who were admitted inside the lines were 
 obliged to assume charge of the situation and the work of 
 identification was systematized so far as possible. 
 
 THROW CHILDREN AT BOATS 
 
 "When I reached the island," said Commissioner of Police 
 McAdoo, "I found that every soul was already at work rescu- 
 ing the living and bringing in the dead. 
 
 "My men tell me that the women were frantic. Some of 
 them were seen to throw their children at the boats as they 
 edged close to the burning vessel. Up to four o'clock the 
 greater number of bodies brought in were those of women. 
 After that time, as the tide went down, just off the point where 
 the vessel was beached, bodies of children were taken out at 
 the rate of fifty an hour. We had determined to put up 
 temporary morgues, converting a coal shed and a disinfecting 
 building for that purpose, but the finding of this great number 
 of bodies changed our plans. 
 
94 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 DEAD MAY NEVER BE KNOWN 
 
 "My idea is that the number of the dead will not be known 
 for some time, if it ever is known. When the General Slocum 
 was beached the tide was running strongly and most of the 
 unfortunates jumped from the off side of the vessel, the side 
 toward the New York shore. These must have been carried 
 out by the tide. The proof of this is that bodies were picked 
 up on the New York side and all along the channel down the 
 river. The bodies brought ashore after the tide went down 
 off the point, most of which were children, had sunk at once. 
 While there have been many charred bodies brought in, some 
 of them horribly burned, the majority of those I saw died 
 from drowning." 
 
 FINDS ONE CHILD IN FIVE 
 
 Many pathetic scenes were witnessed at the various hos- 
 pitals, where the relatives sought their loved ones. Wild-eyed 
 men, tremulous women, and frightened children begged to 
 know if any of their family were in the hospitals. Eagerly 
 they seized upon survivors. Most of the interrogations were 
 in German. 
 
 "Have you seen my wife? My children? I have lost all." 
 
 "I had five children," said a distracted woman at the Lin- 
 coln hospital, "the oldest nineteen and the youngest five years 
 of age. They were all on this excursion. Let me pass." 
 
 The men on guard stepped back and she ran, panting, up 
 the stairs. The nurses helped her, and presently she came 
 upon a girl in a bed in one of the wards, so bandaged that 
 none but a mother would have recognized her. The girl was 
 burned about the head and limbs, but she leaped from the 
 bed at the sight of her mother, and the two descended to the 
 lower hall, where they sat side by side in a tearful embrace. 
 
SCENES AT THE MORGUE 9$ 
 
 "I had five children this morning, now I have only this one, 
 my dear love," said the woman, holding the girl as if she 
 feared she might 3^et be taken from her. 
 
 DYING SEND KEEPSAKES TO RELATWES 
 
 Health Commissioner Darlington, on his return from 
 North Brother Island, carried in his pocket a chatelaine bag 
 and a gold watch which had been handed him by two young 
 girls who died as they were being carried ashore, before they 
 could make known their identity. 
 
 "The chatelaine," said Dr. Darlington, "was given me by a 
 girl of about seventeen, who was brought in half drowned and 
 terribly crushed, soon after I reached the island. As I bent 
 over to help her she opened her eyes and held out this little 
 bag. 
 
 " 'Give this to mother,' she said, 'and say Amelia ' 
 
 "Then, without finishing, she fell back and died. The 
 handbag contained only three unmarked handkerchiefs." 
 
 Soon after this, Dr. Darlington said, his attention was 
 drawn to a young girl who lay on the grass near the shore. 
 As he approached she took off her watch. Her lips quivered. 
 He knelt beside her and raised her head. 
 
 "Speak," he said. 
 
 The girl's eyes opened; then closed. She, too, was dead. 
 
 THE NIGHT OF THE DISASTER 
 
 The scenes enacted at the Charities pier on Wednesday 
 night were weird and sad beyond the power of description. 
 The charities department tenders plied back and forth in the 
 darkness between the municipal islands and other points 
 where bodies had accumulated, bringing in loads of burned 
 
90 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 and drowned victims of the dreadful catastrophe. Some of 
 the bodies were encased in rough pine boxes, such as are used 
 to inter the dead on Hart's Island — the unclaimed and pauper 
 dead. 
 
 Other bodies were rolled in blankets, canvas and sheeting. 
 But all were lifted from the decks of the boats and laid out in 
 long rows upon the floors of the wharf and morgue, where 
 electric lights lit up their pallid features and made death more 
 hideous than is its wont. All night long Commissioner Dar- 
 lington, of the health department, remained upon the pier, as 
 did also Acting Superintendent Rickard, of the morgue. 
 These officials acted with great humanity, directing, advising 
 and assisting the grief-stricken thousands who came to the 
 place of death in search of loved ones. 
 
 DRIVEN AWAY BY FORCE 
 
 The crowd was large all day, and toward evening the jam 
 became so great that a detachment of eighty patrolmen, under 
 Captain Shire, of the East Thirty-fifth street station, had all it 
 could do to hold the throng in check. While thirty-nine 
 bodies were being taken from the steamer Massasoit, hun- 
 dreds of relatives were barred from the pier at the foot of 
 East Twenty-sixth street. They had to be driven out by force 
 and then the doors were barred. 
 
 Crying and fretting on the outside, they soon worked them- 
 selves into such a frenzy that they threw their weight upon the 
 doors, shoulder to shoulder. The police were for the moment 
 swept aside. The screams of two women who were trampled 
 on, drew the attention of the other police reserves, and the 
 doors were again barred. Neither of the frightened women 
 was seriously hurt. 
 
SCENES AT THE MORGUE 97 
 
 ICE WATER FLOODS THE PIER 
 
 The floor of the whole pier was soaked with ice water that 
 dripped from the bodies of the dead. Women held up their 
 skirts and men turned up their trousers to wade through the 
 slop. Off to one side five or six men were chopping more ice 
 for the coffins. Would-be identifiers searched the coffins for 
 some sign or token by which they might recognize the dead, 
 until their fingers were almost frozen. Sometimes a ring, 
 more often a piece of clothing, would furnish the necessary 
 clew. 
 
 UNDERTAKERS FIGHT FOR BODIES 
 
 The police had great trouble all day with the undertakers 
 who gathered at the pier. Their wagons stood around the 
 entrance to the temporary morgue so thickly that it was with 
 difficulty people could effect an entrance. The undertakers 
 approached every one who walked in the direction of the 
 pier, asking to be allowed to take charge of the bodies of 
 friends if they succeeded in identifying them. Many times 
 several undertakers, or their runners, would grasp some man 
 or woman and force him to listen to them. Two of these men 
 got into a fight and several blows were exchanged before the 
 police separated them. Both were arrested, charged with 
 disorderly conduct. 
 
 A PATHETIC SCENE 
 
 Thursday saw a repetition at the morgue of the human 
 tragedies which were enacted there the day before. In the 
 drizzling rain of the early part of the day there stood hun- 
 dreds of anxious ones waiting for their chance to see the dead, 
 and with them were scores of others who had made the 
 gloomy trip between the rows of coffins time and again with- 
 
98 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 out finding those they sought, yet waited on in the hope that 
 the next consignment of bodies would include them. 
 
 There was a pathetic scene at the pier when a stricken 
 father found the body of his little girl in a coffin. He could 
 not be controlled for the moment and, standing over the rude 
 white box, he threw his watch and his ring and his purse in 
 beside the body of the child, exclaiming: 
 
 "Take all, take all, now that you have taken her!" 
 
 GRIEF DRIVES FATHER INSANE 
 
 He had a boy still missing, but the little girl was his favor- 
 ite. Right behind the father, who was led away with diffi- 
 culty, came two men, one of whom was obviously maddened 
 by the grief he had undergone. He was searching for his 
 daughter, but he could not find her. He was turning over a 
 lot of empty coffins when the police decided to take him away. 
 The man fought desperately. 
 
 "You've got her body," he yelled. "You're trying to keep 
 her from me. Give me my little girl." 
 
 He was finally removed. His companion refused to give 
 his name. 
 
 A DESPERATE CROWD 
 
 Such scenes as were witnessed all day long about the 
 morgue can scarcely ever be repeated. Thousands gathered 
 in the streets and fought to get through the police lines that 
 held them back from the morgue and Charities pier, where 
 five hundred or more of the bodies of the victims were laid 
 out in rude coffins for identification. 
 
 Two blocks up a strong police line had been established 
 and only those who were there to search for the bodies of 
 relatives or friends were supposed to be admitted. But this 
 
SCENES AT THE MORGUE 
 
 99 
 
 rule at times was almost wholly ignored, for thousands of 
 morbidly curious men, women and children gathered, and kept 
 up a constant struggle to slip through the lines and see the 
 spectacle that made many a strong heart throb fiercely. 
 
 In this respect the women were the greatest offenders. 
 Many of them appeared to be filled with an insane desire to 
 reach the death-filled pier. All day long and late into the 
 night there was a constant stream of grief-stricken fathers, 
 mothers, brothers and sisters looking for their dead. 
 
 RUSH BREAKS THE LINE 
 
 Late in the afternoon several thousand struggling men, 
 women and children were jammed up close to the police cor- 
 don. The pressure became so great that the line wavered, 
 and none of the policemen had the heart to draw his club. 
 Before they could prevent it several hundred of these morbid 
 people had plunged through the line and started for the 
 morgue and pier where the long rows of coffins had been 
 placed. There was no stopping the rush. Within two min- 
 utes the crowd was at the wide doors of the pier, where they 
 were met by another detachment of policemen who were 
 there to keep all out except those who had business there. 
 
 But even there the crowd was not disposed to be stopped. 
 The leaders elbowed their way through the doors and the 
 others followed as if mad. The police were hurled back and 
 in an instant half a hundred men and women were through 
 the doors. In their stampede two old women there in search 
 of dead loved ones were thrown to the floor and trampled 
 upon. Not until then was a police club raised, but at that 
 point the bluecoats saw the necessity for stern measures. 
 They raised their clubs and the vanguard of the crowd hesi- 
 
100 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 tated and stopped. That was the turning point, and within 
 two minutes the idly curious scores were rushed out through 
 the doors into the street. 
 
 A CURIOSITY SEEKER 
 
 In this crowd was a richly dressed woman who had come 
 there for no other purpose than to gratify her curiosity. She 
 arrived at Twenty-sixth street and First avenue in a big auto- 
 mobile. With her was another woman, who remained in the 
 automobile and waited while her companion joined in the 
 crowd that was to rush the police line. She first attempted to 
 get through the line by a ruse. She told the sergeant in com- 
 mand that her sister had gone on the fatal excursion and that 
 she was there in search of the body. But the police were not 
 satisfied with her representations and told her that she must 
 see Captain Shire, of the East Thirty-fifth Street Station. 
 
 At that the persistent woman burst into tears and pleaded 
 with still more emphasis. It was at this moment that the 
 ever-growing crowd behind her made the rush and swept back 
 the police guards, giving her the opportunity she had tearfully 
 sought. 
 
 SEEKING LOVED ONES 
 
 Pitiful scenes were enacted every minute of the time as the 
 long procession of grief-stricken men, women and children 
 moved around the death-freighted pier. Mothers stooped 
 over little coffins in search of little ones who were counted 
 among the missing. Fathers were there seeking whole 
 families. Young men marched down the line peering into 
 one coffin after another seeking mothers, sisters brothers or 
 sweethearts. 
 
 Early in the day a woman of about thirty years begged the 
 
SCENES AT THE MORGUE loi 
 
 police to admit her. She said that her mother and two chil- 
 dren had been killed in the disaster and that she was there to 
 get their bodies. She knew they were among the dead, for 
 only a few hours after the burnine^ of the Slocum a tugboat- 
 man had told her that he saw tnem crushed under the deck 
 when it fell. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 
 
 Rev. George C. F. Haas Relates His Experiences — An Inhuman Brut^ — 
 Heat of the Flames Prevents the Work of Rescue — Story of a Deck- 
 hand — A Fireman Loses his Family — Rail of the Boat Gives Way — 
 Left with Only His Baby— Watching V/hile Mother Dies— The Chil- 
 dren's Side of the Disaster the Most Pathetic — Gave Tip Life Preserver 
 — Priests Comfort the Bereaved Ones — Mother and Child Die Together 
 — Pickpockets — Twenty-nine Relatives Gone. 
 
 Rev. George C. F. Haas, the pastor of the church which 
 was giving the excursion, was saved, but his wife, Gertrude, 
 and his daughter, Anna, were among the dead. 
 
 THE MINISTER'S STORY 
 
 "The fire started in the kitchen, in the forward part, when 
 we were off One Hundred and Thirty-fourth street," said Mr. 
 Haas. "I understand that some fat that boiled over started 
 the blaze. At that time most of the women and children were 
 jammed in the rear end of the boat, where the band w^as 
 playing. 
 
 "Why the captain did not point the boat for the Meadows 
 I do not understand. He kept on and the fresh wind from 
 the Sound drove the fire back through the decks. 
 
 "In three minutes from the time the fire started all the 
 decks were ablaze. Such scenes as followed I do not think 
 were ever witnessed before. I was in the rear of the boat with 
 my wife and daughter. Women were shrieking and clasping 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 103 
 
 their children in their arms. Some mothers had as many as 
 three or four with them. 
 
 "When the fire shot up to the top deck and drove the 
 crowd back the panic was terrible to witness. The women 
 and children clung to the railings and stanchions, but could 
 not keep their hold. With my wife and daughter, I was 
 swept along with the rest. 
 
 DRIVEN OVERBOARD BY THE CRUSH 
 
 "I believe that the first that fell into the water were 
 crushed overboard. When they went there seemed to be a 
 general inclination to jump. The women and children went 
 over the railings like flies. 
 
 "In the great crush many women fainted and fell to the 
 deck, to be trampled upon. Little children were knocked 
 down. 
 
 "I got my wife and daughter out on the rail and then we 
 went overboard. I was in such an excited state that I do not 
 remember whether we were pushed or jumped. 
 
 "When I struck the water I sank and when I rose there 
 were scores about me fighting to keep afloat. One by one I 
 saw them sink around me, but I was powerless to do anything. 
 
 "With a great effort I managed to keep afloat, but my 
 strength was about gone when a man on one of the tugs 
 picked me up." 
 
 DROWNING MAN DROWNS A CHILD 
 
 P. Edward Kessell with his wife, Annie, and their two chil- 
 dren, Edward, three years old, and Annie, tvv^o years old, were 
 among the excursionists. Both Kessell and his wife are 
 expert swimmers. When it was seen the boat was doomed, 
 Kessell and his wife jumped overboard with the children. 
 
104 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Kessell, holding to the boy, swam for the North Brother 
 Island shore, followed by his wife, who was swimming with the 
 little girl. 
 
 A short distance from the boat a man who could not swim 
 grabbed the little girl and held on in an effort to save him- 
 self. Mrs. Kessell fought frantically with the man and tried 
 to drag her child from his grasp, but the man's strength 
 proved the greater and Mrs. Kessell saw her little girl disap- 
 pear beneath the water with the drowning man. 
 
 Mrs. Kessell then swam to shore and joined her husband 
 and son. 
 
 TUGS STOPPED BY BODIES 
 
 j^erbert S. Nulson, an employee of the Delavergen Refrig- 
 erator Company, said he was working in a tower in the 
 company's factory, at the foot of East One Hundred and 
 Thirty-eighth street, when a fellow employee called: "Here 
 comes a big boat up the river, and I believe she is on fire." 
 
 "I looked down the river," said Nulson, "and saw the 
 steamboat which I was sure then was the General Slocum. 
 The flames were just beginning to make headway when I first 
 saw her, and by the time she came opposite us I could see that 
 her decks were crowded with women and children, who began 
 to jump into the water. 
 
 "Tugs began to put out to the burning boat, but they could 
 not get near enough to do any good on account of the heat of 
 the flames. 
 
 "A lot of rowboats had put out by this time, and those, with 
 the tugs, went as near the General Slocum as they could, but 
 the water was so full of bodies that they made their way only 
 with difficulty and the smaller of them were in danger of being 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS W5 
 
 swamped by those in the water trying to climb over the 
 
 ^""Tsaw one tugboat push right up through the smoke and 
 flames. She had a long, flat, empty barge in tow, and I suppose 
 she ran this against the Slocum and took off many people 
 m It. 
 
 VICTIMS FIGHT IN WATER 
 
 Peter J. Tremble, a deck hand of the Slocum, was arrested 
 by the police as he was wandering aimlessly about the beach. 
 
 "We left the Third street dock at to a. m.," he told them 
 •■I was polishing brasswork soon after, when a deck hand 
 called my attention to smoke coming out of a forward cabm 
 I ran forward and helped the first assistant engmeer to stretch 
 
 a hose. , .1, 
 
 •■We could not get any water. The fire spread so rap.dly 
 that we were driven to the forward promenade deck, which 
 was covered with panic-stricken women and children 1 
 pulled down an armful of life preservers and distributed them, 
 I then put a life preserver around my shoulders and jumped 
 overboard with two children. 
 
 "They were torn away from me by the impact of the water. 
 I managed to grasp one of the blades of the paddle wheels 
 and climbed up in the paddle box. The water beneath me 
 was a perfect hell. Men and women were clawing at my legs 
 as I climbed and my trousers were torn away in my efforts to 
 escape from them. I was subsequently rescued by a rowboat 
 
 and put on shore." 
 
 COMPLETELY UNNERVED 
 Fred Hoffman, a fireman, and one of the excursionists, was 
 brought ashore, unnerved and hysterical. At first all that 
 
io6 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 could be got from him was that he had lost his mother and 
 sister-in-law, his brother's two children and a young woman 
 with him. 
 
 "I was on the upper deck with my family," he finally 
 explained, "and little Edna, my brother's three-year-old child, 
 was in my arms. Beside me were my mother, Mrs. Sophia 
 Hoffman; my brother's wife, Celia; her boy Raymond, aged 
 four, and Jane Workman, my friend, aged twenty. 
 
 "I don't remember much about the fire. It seemed to 
 come from below. I grabbed the boy and called upon the 
 women to follow me. First the women were separated from 
 me, then the crowd swept me and the little ones toward the 
 stern of the boat. 
 
 "In trying to reach the women folks of my family I got lost 
 in the crowd and went overboard with it. I remember noth- 
 ing but being trampled upon. When I came to the surface a 
 life preserver was within my reach and I clung to that. My 
 strength was gone and it seemed as if I could not hold on a 
 bit longer when some one pulled me out of the water and 
 took me ashore." 
 
 SEES BROTHER SINK TO DEATH 
 
 Fred Liberman of White Plains, N. Y., who was on board, 
 said: 
 
 "My poor mother, brother and sister were on that boat, 
 too. I don't know what became of them. I was standing 
 with the other three boys at the right side of the boat leaning 
 against the rail. 
 
 "We were almost to North Brother Island when the rail 
 gave way and many people tumbled into the water. My 
 brother and I were two of these. 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 107 
 
 "I caught hold of Johnny's hand and tried to save him. 
 He lost his hold on my hand and the last I saw of him he was 
 looking at me with an appeal on his face that was terrible. 
 I was picked up by a boat." 
 
 RESCUED BY A BARGE HAND 
 
 Miss Marie Krueger of 451 West End avenue, one of those 
 injured, is at the Harlem hospital. 
 
 "I was sitting on the upper deck when there was a cry of 
 fire," she said. "Men came among us and told us to be quiet. 
 The women and children were panic-stricken. I slid down 
 a pole to the water and held on by a rope by the side of the 
 boat. 
 
 "The flames began to shoot out of the portholes and I had 
 to let go. A little boy was near me holding a life preserver. 
 A coal barge was near and a deck hand threw us a rope, which 
 vv'c got, and were pulled aboard the coal barge. I saw my 
 cousin and sister, but they disappeared. An ambulance with 
 Dr. Krauskopf of Harlem hospital came along and brought 
 us here. The barge first put in to the landing on Randall's 
 Island and, after putting the people ashore, went out for 
 another trip of rescue." 
 
 NO TRACE OF HIS FAMILY 
 
 August Schneider, a musician, appeared at the Alexander 
 avenue station with his baby Augusta in his arms, looking for 
 his wife and two other children. The only information 
 Schneider could impart was that he was with his family on 
 the main deck near the stern and saw the steamboat "break 
 in two in the middle." The next he knew he found himself 
 with his baby in his arms on the deck of a tug. Whether he 
 
io8 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 had been in the water or not the man did not know. His 
 clothing was dry. There was no trace of his family. 
 
 THE BAND WAS PLAYING 
 
 John Edell, twenty-two years old, one of the survivors of 
 the Slocum disaster, gave a graphic account of his terrible 
 experience, his mother and little brother having been drowned 
 before his eyes. 
 
 "When we left the pier the decks were packed to the limit 
 of their capacity," he said. "The band was playing, the chil- 
 dren were frolicking about and we were all having a fine time. 
 
 "As we neared Hell Gate the children were called down to 
 the lower deck, where ice cream and soda water were served. 
 The children were falling all over each other in an effort to 
 get to the tables which held the refreshments. With my 
 mother and my little brother Paul, I went to the engine-room 
 to watch the machinery. 
 
 "Suddenly and without the least warning there was a burst 
 of flames from the furnace-room that rushed up through the 
 engine-room and flashed out about us. The flames spread 
 quickly, setting fire to the clothing of the women and children 
 who were grouped about the engine-room watching the 
 machinery. 
 
 HIS MOTHER SWEPT AWAY 
 
 "There was the most terrible panic as the burning women 
 and children rushed out among those surrounding the ice 
 cream and soda water tables screaming with pain. 
 
 "I endeavored for a few minutes to break through the mad 
 crush and get to my mother and little brother, but I was swept 
 into one corner of the boat and held there unable to move. 
 They were swept overboard by the crush against the rail. 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 109 
 
 "At one time it seemed to me as if the women and children 
 were pouring over the sides like a waterfall. As we made for 
 the shore the captain blew his whistle in one continuous blast 
 and soon boats of all descriptions were making for us from 
 every direction. 
 
 "I was rescued by a launch just as the boat settled close to 
 the shore. 
 
 "The men from the tugs who could get near the steamboat 
 shouted for those on board to jump and then the small boats 
 picked them up by scores." 
 
 A PECULIAR COINCIDENCE 
 
 The children's side of the Slocum disaster was perhaps the 
 most pathetic of all. 
 
 One, a little girl about seven years old, walked sobbingly 
 along the line of dead on the pier. She said she had lost her 
 mother and grandmother. By a peculiar coincidence the 
 bodies were found side by side and identified by the little girl. 
 The mother was Mrs. Annie E. Bucheidt and the grand- 
 mother Mrs. Louisa Schwartz. 
 
 A HEROIC SACRIFICE 
 
 In the same hospital were little boys. 
 
 "My mother gave me a life preserver, that's how I got 
 saved," said one whose name was Muller. "I guess she didn't 
 have none herself, because they can't find her," 
 
 "I didn't have no life preserver at all," said his bedfellow, 
 Henry Fernweiser. "I went down twice and I swallowed a 
 whole lot of water, but pretty soon I caught hold of a dead 
 woman and then somebody grabbed me with a hook. If it 
 hadn't been for that dead woman I'd been drowned sure." 
 
no NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 TOO YOUNG TO REALIZE 
 
 Up and down the wards and corridors tramped a little lad 
 two years of age. He had yellow hair and was neatly dressed 
 in white. He could talk little, and that little was German, so 
 he and the nurses took each other on faith. He spoke of his 
 mother and it was understood that he had been with her on 
 the excursion. After he had been in the hospital for several 
 hours his father came, sad of face, and kissed the little boy 
 and took him away. 
 
 "I cannot find her," he said, when asked about the boy's 
 mother, but the little chap smiled, waved his hands in fare- 
 well and went av/ay hugging a toy. 
 
 PRIESTS GIVE EXTREME UNCTION 
 
 Priests went about administering the last rites to the dying. 
 Among them was Father Donlin of St. Jerome's Church, who 
 gave the extreme unction to forty-four persons, of whom 
 forty-two died. 
 
 Fathers Boyle and Christian, both of St. Luke's Church, 
 went about administering the last rites for the dying or com- 
 forting the bereaved ones gathered about their dead. 
 
 Sometimes one would hear the strange sound of hysterical 
 laughter, and looking in the direction whence it came, would 
 see some entire family united. They had not seen one 
 another in many cases since the fire occurred, and they had 
 grieved for the missing ones as lost until they met on the 
 island. 
 
 The bright sun and the laughing waters seemed out of 
 place on this lonely island with its weeping, wailing groups, its 
 long row of silent bodies and the boats off shore landing fre- 
 quently with more bodies to place with the others. 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS in 
 
 MOTHER AND CHILD DEAD TOGETHER 
 
 A sight that brought tears to the eyes of all beholders was 
 the body of Mrs. Lillian Granefire. Clasped to her breast was 
 the body of her nine-nionths-old baby. Both had been 
 burned to death, the mother vainly endeavoring to protect her 
 child. 
 
 A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE 
 
 Fred Keeler, a lad of fourteen years, who resides at 115 
 Avenue A with his aunt, went on the excursion alone. Here 
 is the boy's description of his terrible experience: 
 
 "The first thing I knew of the fire was when the lemonade 
 man came and said that there was a small fire in the engine- 
 room, but there was no danger and we need not be afraid. 
 We all sat down and an officer of the boat came in and told 
 us there was no danger, but just then the black smoke began 
 to pour out of the middle of the ship. 
 
 "I ran for a life preserver and got one and put it on. 
 There was a terrible rush to get life preservers, and women 
 and children fought for them. Those who got them put them 
 on and many people climbed over the railing and hung to it 
 on the outside, hoping that the flames might be checked. 
 
 "The flames spread rapidly, and a big yellow tugboat came 
 alongside of the steamer. I saw a chance and jumped aboard 
 her with a lot of other people. We were landed at North 
 Brother Island. Ambulances were waiting there and many of 
 those who escaped on the tug needed help, for some of them 
 had been badly burned. 
 
 "But the most awful thing was the babies. Women either 
 dropped them or were torn away from them during the 
 struggle to get life preservers or to get overboard. I looked 
 
112 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 back after we had left the burning boat and I could see lots 
 of them lying in the flames near the edge of the boat. They 
 screamed and tried to get away from the flames, but it was no 
 use for them to try, and pretty soon they would lie still, and I 
 knew they were dead." 
 
 WEAK ONES BEAR THE BRUNT 
 
 For as usual it was the women and the little children who- 
 bore the brunt of the death agony. The crew, stalwart sea- 
 men, all escaped unharmed with one or two exceptions. Most 
 of the men on board the ship were saved. But the women and 
 the children, the mothers with the babies in their arms and 
 the toddlers clinging to their skirts, were crushed, buffeted, 
 maimed and burned beyond recognition. Helpless, screaming 
 and praying for mercy, they were shriveled before the fiery 
 breath of the flames. 
 
 WOMEN PROVE HEROINES 
 
 No brain can imagine the fullness of that horror; no pen 
 can write it. There were deeds of heroism done on board 
 that burning ship that equaled any recorded in history. 
 
 Feeble mothers covered their babies with their bodies, pre' 
 scnting a living barrier of flesh and blood to the flames that 
 leaped toward their darlings. That many little children were 
 thus spared the agony of death by the flames was mutely 
 attested by the charred bodies of the mothers and the corpses 
 of the little children beneath them untouched by the flames. 
 
 FOUGHT LIKE ANIMALS 
 
 Other mothers fought like trapped animals to reach the 
 edge of the crowded decks, in order that they might give their 
 little ones the more merciful death of drowning. 
 
 Still others, separated from their children by the onward 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 113 
 
 rush of the maddened crowd, rushed Hke maniacs into the 
 very heart of the flames in the vain search for their httle ones. 
 It v/as the triumph of m.other love over terror of death. It 
 placed anew the laurel crov/n upon the brow of the mother. 
 
 TWO BOY HEROES PERISH 
 
 Two boys, Fred and Charles Schaler, brothers, were last 
 seen just before the upper deck gave way. They w^re work- 
 ing in a bucket brigade and disappeared when the deck 
 crashed down into the flames below. Their father was 
 searching at the hospitals and morgue at night for news of 
 his heroic sons, but had not found them at midnight. 
 
 Henry Alt was one of the boys who went on the excursion. 
 His mother, father and brother, it is believed, accompanied 
 him. All were missing from their home at night. The 
 rooms were dark. 
 
 TELLS STORY OF HORROR 
 
 August Balzer was the first of the survivors to return to 
 the parish with the tale of horror. He and his wife, with the 
 family and servant of Peter J. Fickbaum, formed a party of 
 merry excursionists. Balzer, dripping wet, his hands and face 
 burned, returned to break the news. He staggered into the 
 saloon of his friend Fickbaum, and fell to the floor uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 "What's the matter, Gus?" cried Fickbaum, after Balzer 
 had been revived. 
 
 "They're lost — burned — all gone," gasped Balzer. Then in 
 incoherent sentences he told the story of the disaster. Like 
 wildfire it spread throughout the neighborhood. 
 
 "My wife! My Catherine!" Balzer would exclaim time and 
 again. Later, surrounded by a group of anxious and fearful 
 
114 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 inquirers, he became more composed. This is the story he 
 told: 
 
 "Shortly after leaving the pier I left my wife and the Fick- 
 baums on the middle deck. They were sitting in the bow. I 
 took little Freddy Fickbaum on the top deck to show him the 
 points of interest. 
 
 FIRE COMES FROM BELOW 
 
 "We were approaching the island when, looking forward, I 
 saw flames shooting up from the deck below. Unclasping my 
 knife, I slashed at the fastenings of the life rafts near by. But 
 they were secured by wire instead of rope. I told Freddy to 
 stay with me, but when I returned he had disappeared. I then 
 started for my party, but was driven back by the flames. 
 
 "The whole front part of the boat by this time was a mass 
 of fire. For the time being so near were we to shore that 
 there was no panic. The passengers, mostly women and chil- 
 dren, retreated before the flames. 
 
 "All thought the boat would put into shore at once, but it 
 seemed fully Ave minutes or more before she swung in shore. 
 By this time the scene was terrifying. Women threw their 
 children overboard and then followed. They had no other 
 refuge from the flames, which swept everything before them. 
 
 "I rushed aft, calling to my wife, but I could not see her, 
 and in the roar of the fire and the cries of the panic-stricken 
 passengers she could not hear me. I was driven back to the 
 wheelhouse by the fire. I thought I was trapped. There was 
 no chance for me to go farther aft, and below was the fire. 
 
 SEARCHED IN VAIN FOR HIS WIFE 
 
 "I threw myself over the railing and dropped into the 
 Vv^ater on the side farthest from the land. It was then I 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 115 
 
 received these burns. The water only came to my arm-pits 
 and I could have walked to the shore. When I finally 
 emerged I looked back and to my dying day I'll never forget 
 the scene. 
 
 "Around me were a score of bodies, most of them charred 
 and burned. I helped as many as possible of those living to 
 the land. From the stern of the boat, where hundreds of 
 persons were huddled, fighting like mad to leap into the water, 
 I saw dozens of women with babies in their arms throw them- 
 selves over the side. 
 
 "I searched in vain for my wife. Body after body wjLsifaid 
 on the shore, but hers was not among them. Then some one 
 said that a party of women and children had been sent to the 
 city, and a neighbor told me my wife was among them. As 
 he spoke, her hat, the feather burned, was washed ashore. 
 
 "I grabbed it and then hurried here. But she's lost! 
 Catherine's gone!" 
 
 A TWO DAYS' SEARCH 
 
 For forty-eight hours, with scarcely any sleep, Adolph 
 Molitor searched for his wife and three children and four 
 other relatives who were on board the General Slocum, but he 
 was able to find the bodies of only four of his missing loved 
 ones. He could not get any trace of his three children, Carl, 
 Eva and Joseph, who were last seen on the steamboat, just 
 before she ran on North Brother Island shore. 
 
 "I don't know what has become of my children," said Mr. 
 Molitor. "I searched high and low for them, but can get no 
 trace. I believe they are drowned and are floating somewhere 
 in the Sound. It is very mysterious and I am almost heart- 
 broken over their loss. 
 
ii6 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 "I found the body of my wife and my sisters-in-law. I 
 have searched the morgues, hospitals and police stations, but 
 I cannot get any word of my children." Later the bodies of 
 the missing children were found and identified. 
 
 ALDERMAN IS UHNEEVED 
 
 'Alderman Doherty was one of my volunteers when we 
 found a tiny baby girl four years old to whose little foot a 
 blue baby shoe was hanging by a ribbon," said Coroner 
 O'Gorman. "The alderman broke down for the first time. 
 He was able to stand up under the horrible phases of the 
 thing, but the sight of the baby and the little shoe unnerved 
 him. He asked me for the shoe and I gave it to him. That 
 shoe is the only piece of property that I have permitted to be 
 taken off the island. 
 
 "No one who stood on the beach on Wednesday night 
 when our men vvere fishing out bodies as fast as they could 
 row back and forth will ever forget the scene. It is the kind 
 of thing that a man will wake up nights and see again before 
 him in the darkness. 
 
 HELD BABES IN HER DEATH AGONY 
 
 "Only one of a hundred such instances was a mother and 
 her three children fished up locked in each others' arms. The 
 mother had clutched them so fiercely in her death agony that 
 it was hard to release her arms from the babes. Two young 
 girls were found clinging to each other just as they had 
 jumped from the steamer. A little boy with his right arm 
 clasped about a little girl's neck, her arms around his waist — 
 that was another one of the death groups that was enough to 
 make any man weep. 
 
HEART-RENDING INCIDENTS 117 
 
 CARRIAGE WITH DEAD BABY 
 
 "Wc found one giant. He was six feet five inches tall, a 
 perfect Hercules of a man, and must have weighed three hun- 
 dred pounds. On a handkerchief, in indelible ink, was printed 
 the name 'Grifiing.'- He must have made a terrible fight for 
 life. His limbs and face showed that only too plainly. 
 
 "One of my men, S. H. Berg, raked up a baby carriage, with 
 a six-months-o!d girl in it. The baby had been strapped in 
 the carriage and the hood of the vehicle was pulled down 
 over it. 
 
 T could tell of fifty such horrors that would make you 
 gasp. But a man doesn't want to think of too many of these 
 things, and they don't look well in print. They are not pleas- 
 ant to remember either.'' 
 
 PICKPOCKETS AT WORK 
 
 Many heartless pickpockets took advantage of the crowds 
 of afflicted people in front of St. Mark's Church and at the 
 morgue to ply their mean trade. 
 
 Detectives from the East Side Station were detailed to all 
 of the places where the bereaved people were likely to gather 
 to get information about their loved ones. 
 
 A detective watched tvv^o small boys who were acting sus- 
 piciously in front of St. Mark's Church. He saw one of the 
 boys slip his hand into the skirt pocket of a woman who was 
 weeping bitterly. The other boy was acting as a lookout. 
 Both boys were arrested and sent to the House of Refuge. 
 The judge who sentenced them said: 
 
 'T am. very sorry I cannot send you to State Prison. Any- 
 body who has so little heart as to rob a sorrowing mother who 
 
ii8 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HOI 
 
 is hunting for little children that are in all probability dead, 
 deserves the severest penalty that the law can inflict." 
 ATTACKED A WOMAN TO SAVE SELF 
 
 A young girl survivor relates the following incident that 
 occurred on the Slocum: 
 
 "So far as I could see, not one of the steamer's crew did 
 anything to help the passengers. The life preservers were 
 hanging on wires, and we had to get them as best we could. 
 Mamma and sister Grace and I were standing together. I 
 climbed up on a camp stool and pulled down three life pre- 
 servers. As I did so I became separated from mamma and 
 sister, and when I tried to find them they were gone. 
 
 "Then I tried to fasten on a life preserver myself. The 
 string which I tried to tie around my waist came off, and then 
 the life preserver seemed to come apart. At any rate, a lot of 
 powdered .cork fell out on the deck. 
 
 "Everybody seemed to be jumping overboard, so I put the 
 life preserver under one arm and the camp stool under the 
 other and jumped. When I fell into the water the camp stool 
 seemed to open and it held me up. I floated around for a 
 while near the steamer, and I saw a woman hanging to the 
 rail. The steamer was then near the beach. 
 
 "Had the woman been able to hang on a little longer she 
 could have walked ashore. But a man climbed over the rail 
 from the boat, and, not being able to get a place to catch hold 
 of, I saw him bite the woman's hand until she had to let go. 
 She dropped into the water and I don't know whether she was 
 saved or not." 
 
 TWENTY-NINE RELATIVES LOST 
 
 One single family connection counted its loss by the Gen- 
 eral Slocum disaster at twenty-nine persons. Henry A. 
 
HEART RENDING INCIDENTS 119 
 
 Kohler, who lived at 315 East Thirteenth street, and was 
 engaged in an insurance business, went on the excursion with 
 his wife and his son, Henry, ten years old. With him also in 
 the family party on the boat were cousins, sisters-in-law, and 
 connections of every sort by blood and law, In the fire or 
 in the water afterward perished Kohler, his wife, his son, and 
 twenty-six others of the kinship. 
 
 Henry A. Kohler's body was found in the water. The body 
 of the boy also was recovered and identified, but that of the 
 mother was not found. 
 
 Of the twenty-six remoter kin many, too, were among the 
 missing, but all day many others lay in one of the undertaking 
 shops, while every now and then hearses came and went and 
 now one and now another body was borne out for burial, some 
 of which made up the grim family party lying so quiet in the 
 long black boxes in the back room of the undertaker's shop. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STORY 
 
 The First Alarm of Fire — Knew that the Sloeum was Doomed — Could Not 
 Swing the Boat Against the Tide — No Chance to Beach the Steamer — 
 Scores Pitched into the Uiver — Tried by Fire — Did the Captain 
 Blunder? — Other Means of Escape — The Crew Blamed. 
 
 The captain of the General Sloeum, W. H. Van Schaick; 
 Edward Van Wart, his first pilot; and Edward N. Weaver, 
 second pilot, all of whom jumped overboard and swam for 
 North Brother Island when the flames drove them from the 
 pilot house, were at once arrested. 
 
 The three men, burned, dripping wet, and overcome by the 
 horror of the things they had seen, were taken to the police 
 station, where they were questioned by the coroner. 
 
 Captain Van Shaick, shaken and nerve shattered, told the 
 following story by fits and starts. 
 
 "I was in the pilot house with Van Wart and Weaver, first 
 and second pilots, when I heard the cry of 'Fire!' raised in the 
 fore part of the steamer. I remember that the German band 
 on board was playing, that the children were romping all over 
 the upper decks, and their mothers and elders were singing, 
 keeping time to the band. 
 
 "At first nobody in the after part of the steamer seemed to 
 realize what had happened. 
 
 KNEW THE BOAT WAS DOOMED 
 
 "I saw a big spurt of flame shoot up and I had had enough 
 experience with river fires to know that the Sloeum was 
 
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY 121 
 
 doomed. The boat was running perhaps twelve miles an 
 hour. Consequently the stiff breeze caught the flame and 
 fanned it backward all through the open decks. 
 
 "I looked around trying to make up my mind where would 
 be the best place to make a landing. We were just off the 
 Sunken Meadows. I thought at first of trying to run in there 
 or somewhere along the Bronx shore of the river. But the 
 tide was running so strong that I knew it would be a hard job 
 to svv'ing the boat around at right angles. I was afraid, too, 
 that the steering gear would break down under such a strain 
 and leave us helpless in the middle of the river. 
 
 WARNED OFF ONE LANDING 
 
 "A tugboat captain saw me turn the boat ahead a little 
 towards 184th street on the Bronx side. He yelled at me to 
 keep off, as the fire would ignite the lumber stored there, and 
 the oil tanks on the pier. Then I made up my mind to run 
 for North Brother Island. It seemed the best under the cir- 
 cumstances. I may have been wrong, but there was a chance 
 there to beach the Slocum sidewise and give everybody a chance 
 to get off. At the Meadows along the Bronx shore that, too, 
 would have been impossible. There are many rocks there. 
 
 "Then the panic began. I kept my eyes ahead, but it was 
 impossible to keep from seeing the frightened scramble for 
 the boat's side, the side towards the Bronx shore. Men 
 fought each other, yelling like mad. Women clawed each 
 other's faces and screamed for their babies. Children cried 
 and screamed and were trampled under foot. 
 
 HUNDREDS PITCH INTO RIVER 
 
 "The rush to the rail on the port side of the boat caused it 
 to heel over a little. This forced a mass of crazed men, 
 
122 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 women, and children against the guard rail of the upper deck. 
 It broke, and scores — God knows how many — were pitched 
 into the river by the weight from behind. 
 
 "I saw Mate Ed Flannagan and yelled to him to get the 
 fire apparatus to work. Flannagan got all the men he could 
 find together and rigged up two hose lines. 
 
 "He got these playing on the fore part of the boat, but it 
 was like trying to put out hell itself. The flames had too 
 much of a start, and by then were roaring all through the 
 boat, for the most part on the starboard or Brooklyn side. 
 Besides that, hundreds of women snatched at Flannagan and 
 his men, falling over them, pulling them down, making it 
 impossible to work. 
 
 JUMP WITH BABIES IN ARMS 
 
 "The fire made the fiercest and wildest blaze I ever saw. 
 It was impossible to live near it. I saw, I don't know how 
 many, stand it as long as they could and then jump into the 
 river, some of the women bearing babies in their arms, others 
 holding fast to older children. 
 
 "I got the General Slocum beached sidewise. It struck 
 twenty-five feet from shore. Before that the flames had crept 
 to the pilot house, blistering my feet. Van Wart, Weaver, 
 and I got out some way, I can't tell how, and jumped into the 
 river. We swam to shore, burned and sick, and stood around 
 until we got a chance to get to the mainland in a small 
 boat.', 
 
 All that a man is must be brought out in an experience 
 such as Captain Van Schaick of the Slocum went through. 
 He proved his courage, even if his judgment shall be 
 impeached. But if he erred in judgment his critics must not 
 
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY 123 
 
 lose sight of the strain upon the man and the horror of the 
 situation from which he could not run away. 
 
 When the seriousness of the fire came to him the Sunken 
 Meadows virtually were passed by his vessel. The strong, 
 irregular tides that have made Hell Gate a menace to ship- 
 ping made turning back seem impossible. He was in a chan- 
 nel varying from 140 to 300 yards wide, and under the Slocum's 
 keel were 16 to 150 feet of churning water. He had been 
 warned off from lumber yards and oil tanks at One Hundred 
 and Twenty-fourth street, and in the fraction of a second in 
 which his mind had to act he fixed upon North Brother Island 
 for beaching the doomed craft. From his place on the bridge 
 the tragedies of the fire were behind him, veiled in black 
 smoke. It was a question whether, if the vessel were turned 
 nose on to the rocks sheer at the edge of deep water, the cur- 
 rent might not swing the boat helpless into the stream again. 
 He had fixed upon North Brother Island, however, and his 
 purpose held according to his first judgment. With his feet 
 blistered and his hat burned from his head, he beached the 
 boat on the north shore of the island, with his engineer dead 
 at his post below. Van Schaick could not tell how he 
 escaped. When he had been arrested with his pilot he was 
 burned so that a hospital ward was his place of detention. 
 
 Many a man lacking in judgment has been a hero in his 
 unselfish duty. Van Schaick was tried in literal fire and did 
 not flinch. Even his judgment may be left to him when the 
 technical critic is done. 
 
 DID CAPTAIN VAN SCHAICK BLUNDER? 
 
 In respect to the allegation that many lives were sacrificed 
 because the captain of the Slocum delayed too long and went 
 
124 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 too far to beach the boat, much was learned by going over the 
 actual course followed by the General Slocum with expert 
 river men v/ho have worked the upper East River and sound 
 for years. There are no less than seven points, all more than 
 one mile nearer the point at which the fire was discovered on 
 the Slocum than the one where it was beached, to which Cap- 
 tain Van Schaick might have taken the Slocum and beached it 
 safely and saved many hundreds of lives. 
 
 NEARER POINTS THAN BROTHER ISLAND 
 
 At the time the fire alarm was given on the Slocum the 
 vessel was in the East River, opposite the northeast corner of 
 Ward's Island — not two hundred feet away. It was not in 
 mid-stream, and was much nearer the Ward's Island shore 
 than the Astoria shore. A list of the places at which the Slo- 
 cum could have been beached which offered either good means 
 for the escape of the passengers or better means than they 
 found at North Brother Island, in the opinion of expert navi- 
 gators, is as follows: 
 
 The northeast corner of Ward's Island, where there is shal- 
 low water for 150 feet out, and well within reach of hundreds 
 of boats, small and large, on the shores of Oak Point and Port 
 Morris, from which point many might have swum ashore. 
 
 Little Hell Gate, a narrow passage between Ward's and 
 Randall's Islands, in which a safe beaching point could have 
 been reached at a distance of no more than 1,000 feet from 
 the point of the Slocum's course, opposite the eastern mouth 
 of Little Hell Gate. 
 
 SUNKEN MEADOWS EASY OF ACCESS 
 
 Sunken Meadows, a large area of grass-grown meadow, 
 v.'hich at its nearest point was not more than 400 feet from the 
 
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY 125 
 
 course of the Slocum when opposite Sunken Meadows' light. 
 This point is easy of access from Oak Point and Port Morris. 
 
 Casino Beach in Astoria, not 600 feet from the easternmost 
 point attained by the Slocum in its course north vv^hen the 
 captain was wavering between the east and west. At this 
 point there is a wide shelving beach of sand, and at the time 
 there vv^ere 300 men standing on the beach watching the burn- 
 ing boat. 
 
 Lav^^rence Point, 300 yards north of Casino Beach, where 
 there is a shoal for more than the Slocum's length, and easy 
 of access for men from Casino Beach. 
 
 A narrow passage east of Lawrence Point, between that 
 land and Berrian's Island, and in reach of men from Casino 
 
 Beach. 
 
 Two points on Oak Point, both a mile or more south of 
 Port Morris, both in reach of the fire department, and within 
 a stone's throv/ of the yacht club, where 100 small boats could 
 ,have been manned for rescue work in ten minutes. 
 
 SHOULD NOT HAVE FACED WIND 
 
 All these places are so situated that they could have been 
 reached without the necessity of turning the Slocum's head to 
 the vv^ind, and thus sweeping the fire aft over the vessel. 
 
 Defenders of the action of the captain say in reply that he 
 had a strong tide with him in the course he took, and in such 
 a current he would have lost much time in swinging the big 
 boat around. 
 
 One authority stated that Captain Van Schaick's course in 
 keeping the boat under motion was the principal cause of the 
 loss of life. Every turn of his wheel murdered a score of 
 women and children. Had the boat been stopped— we mean 
 
126 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 simply stopped by shutting off the steam and leaving the boat 
 to drift in the tideway — several things would have happened. 
 
 WHEN A BOAT IS ON FIRE— STOP 
 
 In the first place, there would have been no such draught 
 to force the fire, and the chances of putting it out would have 
 been tenfold better. In the second place, if it could not be 
 extinguished, it would have burned more slowly, and there 
 would have been a great deal more time to save the passen- 
 gers. In the third place, the direction of the flames would 
 have been the natural direction, perpendicularly into the air, 
 not backward to roast the passengers. In the fourth place, 
 other vessels would have had opportunity to gather around 
 the doomed steamer and take the passengers off, and in the 
 fifth place there would have been opportunity to launch the 
 lifeboats, throw overboard the life rafts, to get down the life 
 preservers and put them on, and, without outside help, many 
 more would have been saved. In short, the running of the 
 boat consumed it in the most rapid possible manner, and in 
 the most dangerous possible manner. To stand still would 
 have given time, the one great essential thing that was needed 
 to save lives. 
 
 The thing which happened was the worst possible thing 
 that could have happened. The final beaching of the boat 
 did not save a single life, did not tend to the saving of any 
 lives. If instead of that the General Slocum had even drifted 
 on the rocks and sunk at the start there could not have been 
 any more lives lost than there were lost. It is impossible to 
 imagine any untoward circumstances, any disastrous complica- 
 tion, anything whatever, that could have increased the death 
 roll. To have stopped the boat, therefore, even supposing the 
 
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY 12; 
 
 worst, could not have increased the chances of loss one iota, 
 while it would have increased the chances of salvation a hun- 
 dredfold. The great lesson of the whole disaster is summed 
 up in the orders of the national government — "When a boat 
 is on fire, stop." Nothing can happen to a vessel standing still 
 so bad as what is brought upon it by going ahead. 
 
 THE CHIEF ENGINEER'S STORY 
 
 Chief Engineer Conklin, of the General Slocum, who had a 
 miraculous escape from the burning boat, said: 
 
 "Never in my forty years of seagoing have I seen such a 
 disaster or dreamed that such a thing could possibly happen. 
 When I close my eyes at night I can see those children and 
 women with their white faces, upon which an agony of fear 
 and horror are stamped. I can hear the screams of mothers 
 and the cries of anguish from the helpless little ones, and it is 
 impossible for me to sleep. 
 
 "We left the Third street pier on Wednesday morning 
 about nine o'clock. The steamer was well filled, but we were 
 not overcrowded. We proceeded up the stream at a good 
 rate of speed, and I was standing near my engine watching it 
 work. I had just turned to my assistant, Everett Brandow, 
 and remarked that I had never seen it work so smoothly, when 
 the mate came running up to me with his face very pale and 
 told me that the boat was on fire forward. 
 
 "There were women and children near the engine-room 
 watching the machinery, but I do not think that they heard 
 what the mate said. I at once informed the captain of the 
 fact and, telling my assistant to stand by the engine, I sprang 
 to the pumps and started them going. The captain ordered 
 
128 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 the hose laid and in less than two minutes after the fire was 
 discovered water was being thrown upon the flames. 
 
 THE FIRST CRY OF FIRE 
 
 'A moment after the pumps started to work some one on 
 the deck above shouted 'Fire!' and in an instant there was a 
 roar Hke a cyclone as the people made a rush for the stern of 
 the vessel. They talk about a handful of men, twenty-one in 
 number, controlling a crowd of sixteen hundred panic-stricken 
 jjcople. It was simply impossible. No power on earth could 
 check them or calm their fears. They rushed about as 
 though bereft of their senses. 
 
 "I never saw flames spread with such rapidity. In less than 
 two m.inutes the whole forvv^ard part of the vessel was on fire. 
 The captain, from time to time, kept calling to my engineer, 
 asking how the fire was progressing, and ordered a full head of 
 steam on. 
 
 'I stood near the pumps all the time, even when it v/as evi- 
 dent that the water would not extinguish the flames. 
 
 "The part of the boat where I stood was filled with a dense 
 black smoke and I was obliged to cover my mouth with my 
 arm in order to breathe. The boat had been freshly painted 
 and that caused the woodwork to burn more fiercely. As far 
 as I could see the crew worked nobly and did all they could. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN DID THE BEST THING 
 
 "When I saw that the steamer was headed for North 
 Brother Island, I knew that Captain Van Schaick was doing 
 the best thing possible. Every one who has been on the river 
 knows that Hell Gate is a treacherous place, and I was fear- 
 ful if the pilot put about we would ground on a rock, and then 
 
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THE CAPTAIN'S STORY 129 
 
 the loss of life would be even greater, for a person, no matter 
 how good a swimmer he might be, would have been carried 
 down like a dead weight and there would have been little or 
 no chance of saving them. The docks at that point were cov- 
 ered with oil and other inflammable material, and to have 
 attempted a landing there would have been extremely unwise. 
 "In my opinion the captain did the only thing possible, and 
 had he not done so, very few, if any, on the boat would have 
 
 survived." 
 
 DIFFERENT OPINIONS 
 
 Shipping men expressed diverse opinions concerning the 
 action of Captain Van Schaick in beaching his vessel on North 
 Brother Island. In every steamboat office the chart of the 
 waters about Hell Gate was carefully gone over in considering 
 whether or not the captain of the vessel did all that he could 
 have done to save the lives of his passengers. 
 
 Along the Manhattan shore, from the point at which the 
 fire was discovered to where the steamboat v/as beached, is a 
 line of gas works and lumber piles, and many held that had 
 the vessel put in there she would have started a blaze ashore. 
 Some expressed the belief that Captain Van Schaick 
 refrained from going in there because he did not want to 
 cause any extra damage for which his company would be held 
 liable. Others said that he had probably kept on his course 
 thinking that he could extinguish the flames, and that he did 
 not attempt to beach his vessel until he saw that all hope of 
 saving her was gone. 
 
 VIOLATED AN UNWRITTEN LAW 
 
 An officer attached to the local revenue cutter service, after 
 looking over the chart, said that Van Schaick was guilty of 
 having violated one of the great unwritten laws of the sea 
 
130 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 that says to put the tail of your vessel to the wind when hre is 
 discovered forward. His course, when the fire started, was 
 almost east. The wind was coming from across his port and 
 fanned the flames so that in a very short time they enveloped 
 the entire vessel, running, as they did, straight aft. 
 
 DEFENDS THE ACTION OF VAN SCHAICK 
 
 One of the river captains expressed the belief that it was 
 impossible for Van Schaick to have done otherwise, because 
 of the depth of water and the nature of the tides about Hell 
 Gate. "The Slocum could not have run up to the Sunken 
 Meadows," he said, "because to have done so she would have 
 had to turn about, and while trying to accomplish that she 
 would have been carried by the tide as far as North Brother 
 Island. 
 
 "On the New York shore are rocks suddenly falling off to 
 a depth of seventy to eighty feet, down which, had she 
 attempted to ground, she would have slid, when she sank, with 
 all those aboard. 
 
 "South Brother Island offered only a bad rocky shore, and 
 Riker's Island was too far away, so that the only alternative 
 was to send her where she was beached, out of the tide and on 
 a sandy bottom. To have sent her into a dock on the New 
 York side would probably have fetched her up alongside of 
 one of the naphtha boats that always lie there, and think what 
 would have happened then!" 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 HISTORY OF THE GENERAL SLOCUM 
 
 Built in 1891 — Made Entirely of Wood — Overhauled and Inspected Shortly 
 Before Disaster — A Victim of Many Mishaps — Present Laws Which 
 Govern Inspection of Steamboats — Same Accident May Occur to Any 
 Excursion Steamer — Stop the Building of Boats with Flimsy Upper 
 Decks — A Boiler Always a Danger Spot — Age of the Boat Does Not 
 Count. 
 
 The General Slociim was built in i8qi by Divine Burtis, Jr., 
 in Brooklyn. It was built for the Knickerbocker Steamboat 
 Company, and at that time was one of the handsomest and 
 most perfectly equipped excursion steamers in this port. 
 
 It was launched April i8, 1891. As soon as it was com- 
 pleted it was used for summer excursions by churches, Sunday 
 schools, and various societies, and when not chartered for 
 those purposes ran as a public excursion boat. It was built 
 chiefly of white oak, locust, and yellow pine. It was 235 feet 
 long on the water line and 250 feet on deck. It was seventy 
 feet beam on the deck and drew about seven feet of water. 
 The Slocum had three decks, also built of wood, which 
 extended the entire length of the vessel. The pilot house 
 was on the hurricane deck, and on this deck were lifeboats, 
 and rafts, the boats being hung on davits outboard and the 
 rafts lying on deck at the outside rail. 
 
 WAS THOROUGHLY INSPECTED 
 
 The boat was thoroughly overhauled this year before going 
 into commission, and v^as inspected as required by law. 
 
132 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Inspector Henry Lundberg, of the local board of steamboat 
 inspectors, thoroughly examined the vessel five weeks ago. 
 The Slocum had a large steam fire pump, with a hose that 
 extended the entire length of the vessel. It only was neces- 
 sary for the engineer to open a wheel valve and the full force 
 of water was ready for those who wanted it. It also had two 
 hand pumps and hose, and these two together extended the 
 length of the vessel. It carried six lifeboats and four life 
 rafts. The boats and rafts would carry about 250 persons. 
 There were on board 2,550 life preservers. On the inspection 
 license issued the Slocum could carry 2,500 passengers. 
 
 A SERIES OF MISHAPS 
 
 The General Slocum had had many mishaps since it was 
 launched thirteen years ago, but none serious. On Aug. 14, 
 1891, four months after it was launched, it ran aground on a 
 mud bank at Rockaway Beach, and two days later it ran into 
 the steamer Monmouth off pier 6, North River, and was 
 slightly damaged. 
 
 While returning from Rockaway Beach on July 29, 1894, it 
 ran aground at Rockaway Inlet, and there was a panic among 
 the passengers. On August 15th of that same year it went 
 aground off Manhattan Beach in a storm. The passengers 
 were taken off by the steamboat Angler and brought to the 
 city. 
 
 On Sept. I, 1894, the Slocum backed into the tug Robert 
 Sayre and was disabled. At that time it had 400 passengers 
 on board and it drifted helplessly until picked up by two tugs. 
 It collided on July 8, 1898, with the steam lighter Amelia off 
 pier 12, East River. 
 
 On July 14, 1901, the Slocum with 750 passengers aboard 
 
HISTORY OF THE GENERAL SLOCUM i33 
 
 went aground on a bar about five miles off Barren Island. It 
 was on the way back to the city after having made a short 
 excursion out to sea. 
 
 On June 15, 1902, when it had 2,0(X> passengers on board, it 
 stuck hard and fast on a bar in Jamaica Bay, and the passen- 
 gers were on board a greater part of the night. They finally 
 were tak-en ashore in small boats. On July 6, 1Q02, the Slo- 
 cum and the Thomas Patten collided off the battery 
 
 AN OFFICIAL OPINION 
 
 General Dumont of the steamboat inspection department 
 in New York City spoke freely about the present laws which 
 govern inspection of steamboats. He said that the same con- 
 ditions which ended in the awful disaster on board the Gen- 
 eral Slocum exist on every steamboat in New York engaged 
 in excursion business. "The laws of the United States," he 
 said, "lay down certain rules as to the inspection of steam- 
 boats. We have to see that a boat carries only a safe number 
 of passengers according to her tonnage. In the case of the 
 General Slocum she could only carry, according to law, 2,500 
 passengers. It is conceded that she did not carry anywhere 
 near her legal quota. 
 
 "The law, however, does not touch upon the construction 
 of a boat. She may have a wooden hull or a steel hull. That 
 is all within the province of her designers and owners. We 
 have to determine just whether her hull is seaworthy and con- 
 structed in a safe manner. 
 
 MADE ATTRACTIVE TO THE EYE 
 
 "In the case of the General Slocum, her hull was of wood. 
 Next, the General Slocum had all of her upper works built of 
 wood. She was painted and varnished and generally made 
 
134 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 attractive to the eye, so that passengers on excursions could 
 have pleasing surroundings. In this she was just like her sis- 
 ter ship of the same line, the Grand Republic, or, in fact, like 
 the Coney Island boats, the Starin Glen Island boats, the 
 Staten Island Line vessels or any other line or individual 
 excursion boat that plies New York harbor. 
 
 "All of this paint plastered on thin and flimsy joiner work 
 makes highly intlammable material. People off for a holiday, 
 men especially, smoke cigars and cigarettes. Women and 
 men read papers and throw them away. There is a puff of 
 wind while the boat is going fast through the water, thus cre- 
 ating a breeze. A newspaper is blown under a seat, a lighted 
 end of a cigar or cigarette touches the paper and in a second 
 there is a blaze. Unless a fire on any excursion boat in our 
 harbor to-day can be quelled immediately there is little hope 
 for the people aboard. The only way to stop such disasters 
 as hajipened aboard the General Slocum is to stop the build- 
 ing of boats with flimsy upper decks. 
 
 THERE IS NO LAW TO STOP IT 
 
 "There is no law to stop this manner of building boats. 
 We do not make the laws. That is up to Washington. We 
 only try to enforce the law as we find it. In this case we have 
 done so. So far as the General Slocum is concerned we feel 
 that our board has fully attended to its duty. The boat 
 Slocum was certainly equipped in every way with the require- 
 ments of the law. I am candid in saying that there is not an 
 excursion boat in New York harbor to-day that is not liable to 
 the same accident. All are in danger of fire, and fire is the 
 most deadly peril to be feared. 
 
 "A good many years ago I pointed out that another danger 
 
HISTORY OF THE GENERAL SLOCUM 135 
 
 spot on the excursion boat was about the boiler. A boiler 
 with a fire in it is always a danger spot. The laws ought to 
 be changed so that no flimsy joiner work is used in any boat 
 designed for excursion traffic, and all boilers should be fully 
 sheeted in steel. Then the public can be carried in safety. 
 
 PASSENGER ON ISAAC NEWTON 
 
 "I have known all this since 1880. I was then a passenger 
 on the old Isaac Newton, which was burned on her night trip 
 to Albany off Fort Lee, and several persons were killed. I 
 saw then the dangers of the light wooden material. 
 
 "The fact that the Slocum was old did not make her any 
 more unsafe. If a boat is thoroughly overhauled yearly, age 
 does not count. The Mary Powell, now plying on the Hud- 
 son River, is thirty-five years old, but she is as safe as any of 
 the modern boats. The Sound-going steamers, whenever 
 wooden upper works are used, are dangerous. Any boat built 
 the way that the General Slocum was is dangerous. The 
 wonder to me is not that accidents liappen, but that they do 
 not happen more often." 
 
 EXPERT OPINIONS 
 
 It was the opinion of several of the foremost shipbuilders 
 and naval architects of New York, that it is possible to con- 
 struct vessels of the type of the General Slocum in such a way 
 as to make them comparatively safe; but these experts 
 believed that the free use of steel in the construction of the 
 upper works would involve a greater expense than builders of 
 excursion craft are ready to incur. 
 
 These builders and architects believed that a safe boat, 
 constructed with bulkheads, corrugated iron partitions and 
 fireproof materials, might be built for about twenty to thirty 
 
136 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 per cent more than the cost of a wooden vessel, such as the 
 General Slocum. 
 
 BOATS CAN BE MADS SAFE 
 
 The designers of the New Staten Island ferry boats said 
 that they would undertake to build an excursion boat of five 
 thousand capacity, in every way as safe from fire as an ocean 
 liner, but it would cost more money than builders would pay. 
 It could be designed almost entirely of iron and steel, with 
 ample deck room, and of a model that could be handled in 
 any spot where New York excursion boats go. Such a boat 
 would cost from twenty to thirty per cent more than a wooden 
 boat of the same capacity. 
 
 But it is not necessary to build iron excursion boats. Take, 
 for example, the Hudson River or Fall River line boats. 
 They are constructed on the same general plan as the ordi- 
 nary excursion boats, yet they are comparatively safe from 
 fire, because they have larger and well-trained crews, regular 
 and careful inspection, and their passengers are all the time 
 under control. 
 
 IRON BOATS NOT NECESSARY 
 
 According to well-known naval authority, the burning of 
 wooden ships in warfare taught us to build fire-proof battle- 
 ships. We have learned to build safe ships for ocean travel, 
 but we are building excursion boats as we built them half a 
 century ago. Under present conditions it would not be 
 feasible to build iron excursion boats, but practically safe boats 
 could be constructed at a cost not much greater than that of 
 wooden boats. 
 
 Corrugated iron is not much heavier than wood. Probably 
 it would be necessary to have the decks of wood, but much of 
 
HISTORY OF THE GENERAL SLOCUM 137 
 
 the structure could be of metal. The uprights should be firm, 
 but not necessarily large. 
 
 The machinery for putting out fire should be greatly 
 improved. There are many precautions that should and prob- 
 ably now will be taken for the safeguarding of the lives of 
 those who go on excursion boats. But the situation is no 
 worse in New York than elsewhere. All over America excur- 
 sion craft are of about the same type. It is marvelous that the 
 loss of life is not greater. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SPECTACLE FROM THE SHORE 
 
 An Ominous Cloud of Smoke — Enveloped in Flame — A Huddled Mass of 
 Women and Children — Bodies in the Wake of the Burning Boat — The 
 Dead Tangled in the Debris — A Floating Crematory — Shrieking Mass 
 in the Water — The Beach Strewn with Disfigured Dead. 
 
 Tragic in the extreme were the descriptions given by per- 
 sons who witnessed the passing of the General Slocum from 
 the moment the big excursion steamer passed through Hell 
 Gate until she grounded off Hunt's Point, a mass of flame, 
 with the passengers who five minutes before had been 
 absorbed in the pleasure of their outing fighting for life 
 between fire and water. 
 
 THE CHILDREN WERE DANCING 
 
 It was at ten o'clock that the steamer entered Hell Gate. 
 The employees of the Astoria ferryboat Haarlaem, which 
 passed under the Slocum's stern, said that at that time there 
 were not the slightest evidences to foreshadow the disaster 
 that was to overtake the General Slocum in a few moments. 
 The band was playing the "Marseillaise," the children of the 
 St. Mark's Lutheran Sunday school were dancing, after the 
 manner of the East Side children, to the stirring music, the 
 steamer was decorated with pennants and strings of flags, 
 while her decks were bright with the gay summer dresses and 
 parasols of women and children. 
 
 As the vessel swept past the Haarlaem, one of the deck 
 
 hands waved to a knot of children who had come to the rail 
 
 138 
 
THE SPECTACLE FROM THE SHORE 139 
 
 to see the ferryboat pass. The children returned the greeting, 
 and presently a good-natured excursionist ovation was given 
 to the old Haarlaem. 
 
 Then the Slocum slipped past Mill Rock and the ferry 
 employees saw her no more; but several Astoria people said 
 that before the steamer disappeared around the bend in the 
 river at Hackett's Point there v/as a cloud of white smoke 
 hanging over her. This, however, was thought nothing of at 
 the time, as the strains of band music were still plainly audible. 
 OMINOUS CLOUD OF SMOKE 
 
 But the moment the General Slocum disappeared from the 
 sight of the casual watchers at Astoria the steamer attracted 
 t!ie attention of Superintendent Grafling of the new gas works 
 at Casino Beach. Mr. Grafling noticed that there was some 
 smoke coming from the forward part of the vessel. At the 
 same moment one of the gas works laborers spoke to the 
 superintendent about the smoke, which increased in volume 
 every moment. Then it was realized that the vessel was 
 on fire, although it was a hard thing to believe, for the band 
 was still playing. 
 
 At this time the Slocum was just off the Sunken Meadows. 
 While the gas works employees were curiously regarding her 
 the band suddenly ceased playing right in the middle of a 
 popular air. Simultaneously there came from the throats of 
 over fifteen hundred people a cry that was heard from the 
 Casino Beach to Riker's Island and the New York shore. 
 
 THE WAIL OF THE WHISTLE 
 
 Superintendent Grafling ran for his field glasses and, when 
 he got them focused, he was just in time to see a great sheet of 
 flame burst from the cloud of smoke that enveloped the 
 
140 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 steamer, whose head was now directed straight for the breast 
 of North Brother Island. 
 
 The shrieks of the panic-stricken women and children were 
 plainly audible on both sides of the river, while over all arose 
 the prolonged wail of the Slocum's whistle. The gas works 
 people say that not until a few moments before the vessel slid 
 in behind North Brother Island did the real catastrophe occur. 
 But the huddled mass of women and children were discernible 
 on the hurricane and 'tween decks, while above all a long 
 flagstring, the lower part of which had been eaten through by 
 the flames, was flying frantically loose in the breezes of the 
 Sound. 
 
 SHRIEKING MASS IN THE WATER 
 
 While Superintendent Grafling of the gas works was watch- 
 ing he suddenly saw the starboard rail of the upper deck col- 
 lapse, and a huddled, shrieking mass of women fall with the 
 burning debris into the water. It was then, according to the 
 witnesses around Casino Beach, that the real panic occurred. 
 Women and children, nearly all dressed in white or light 
 colors, were to be seen leaping wildly from the doomed 
 steamer, which a few moments later was obscJured from the 
 sight of the gas works people by North Brother Island. 
 Superintendent Grafling afterward went to the scene of the 
 disaster in a rowboat, but did not care to discuss what he had 
 seen when he returned. 
 
 At the same time William Henry Muff, who runs a hotel 
 and a boathouse at Steinway, L. I., about a quarter of a mile 
 farther up the Sound, was a more active witness of the catas- 
 trophe. 
 
 Muff was eating his breakfast on the veranda of the boat- 
 
THE SPECTACLE FROM THE SHORE 141 
 
 house, when all at once, from behind the hillock known as 
 Berrians Island, came the General Slocum in flames. Muff 
 dispatched a messenger to Steinway to tell the engineer of the 
 steam launch Gloria, which he owns, that the Slocum was on 
 fire, and that he wanted steam at once. 
 
 While the engineer was being found the Slocum ran behind 
 North Brother Island, but not before Muff had witnessed the 
 breaking of the guardrail and the terrible panic that followed. 
 
 COURSE OF FiaE AND SMOKE 
 
 The flame and smoke ascending from the vessel arose from 
 behind the island, plainly marking the course of the General 
 Slocum, although nothing could be seen of the vessel itself 
 except now and then the top of a smokestack. 
 
 Just as the Gloria was about to start to the possible rescue 
 of some of the Slocum's passengers a number of reserves from 
 the Seventy-fourth Precinct, Long Island City, ran onto the 
 wharf and boarded the launch. 
 
 The boat followed directly in the larger vessel's wake, 
 picking up bodies as she went along. By the time she arrived 
 at the point where the General Slocum was grounded and 
 burning to the water's edge, the Gloria had picked up so many 
 bodies that before she could be of further service the dead 
 had to be turned over to the Fidelity, and the police reserves 
 landed on North Brother Island. 
 
 A MASS OF DEBRIS AND BODIES 
 
 "After that," said Muff, "we made a second trip over the 
 wake of the Slocum. The water was simply a mass of debris 
 and bodies. 
 
 "We came upon a larger mass of floating debris and mixed 
 up with it we found several women and children, all tangled 
 
142 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 together, as if they had fallen in a panic-stricken heap into 
 the water with the rail, and gripped one another tighter in 
 their death struggle. We had to disengage them one by one 
 before we could get them into the Gloria. They were all 
 dead. 
 
 "Altogether my engineer and I, assisted by the police, who 
 came with us, picked up twenty-two bodies, which we turned 
 over to the Fidelity. 
 
 "The saddest thing I saw was the body of a baby which we 
 tried to extricate from the wreck, only to find that the seem- 
 ing debris was the arms of the infant's mother, who was under- 
 neath." 
 
 A FEARFUL SIGHT 
 
 Racing up stream with sheets of flame shooting from every 
 part of her, the doomed boat, with its load of burning, mad- 
 dened, dying humanity, dropping by twos, threes and groups 
 into the water to meet death by drowning, furnished a spec- 
 tacle for thousands that drove them frantic. 
 
 Many proved themselves heroes, and fought with the 
 energy of giants to save loved ones. Some saved one or two, 
 but lost others. Some weeping, almost insane men, parted 
 from those they loved by the mad rush of the panic-stricken 
 throng, were able to save only their own lives, valueless to 
 them when they realized that wives and children had perished. 
 
 A WAKE OF STRUGGLING HUMANITY 
 
 These fought to get to the railings to jump into the water, 
 and they pushed those before them over the rail. Men and 
 women went mad. Men pushed wives or children into the 
 water and then sought to follow and save them by holding 
 them up in the water, Others tried to hold to the railing and 
 
THE SPECTACLE FROM THE SHORE I43 
 
 sides of the vessel, but the fighting crowd behind pushed them 
 over and they fell into the river. 
 
 Behind the flaming vessel as she bore on up the stream was 
 a wake of struggling humanity. The heads of men, women 
 and children bobbed up and down on the foam-crested waves 
 for a few minutes and then went out of sight. 
 
 Clusters clung to the sides of the vessel. Flames were 
 shooting from all parts of the boat, and as the heat became 
 too great the men and women clinging to the sides like flies 
 dropped off two and three at a time, then in bunches of half a 
 dozen or more. 
 
 The life preservers had saved only a few. Those who had 
 been able to get them found that for the most part they were 
 old and rotten and would not support a person in the water. 
 Mothers who had managed to get some sobbed in despair, 
 threw them away and leaped to death in the river with their 
 children. 
 
 A MAD RUSH 
 
 Almost with the first cry of fire the throng of excursionists 
 became panic-stricken. A few excited inquiries were made, 
 men and women glanced about with frightened looks, and 
 then came a cloud of smoke and a glimpse of flame. The 
 next instant a shriek went up from the women and there was 
 a mad rush. 
 
 Mothers rushed to and fro for a moment to find children 
 that had been playing about, and men tried to find wives and 
 little ones, then all were caught in the mad rush for the sides 
 and stern of the boat. Men shouted, women and children 
 screamed and shrieked, and the mad fight for life was on. 
 
 In the terrible rush old men, women, girls and little onei 
 
144 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 were knocked down and trampled into insensibility on the 
 decks of the vessel. The band had made a feeble effort for 
 an instant to restore calm by trying to play an air, but in a 
 moment the musicians were swept from their feet and they, 
 too, were fighting for their lives. 
 
 A HELL OF FLAME 
 
 The flames carried back through the boat by the current of 
 air caused by the boat's swift rush up stream swept through 
 the entire vessel. It spread so quickly that those in the for- 
 ward part of the boat were cut off and doomed to a terrible 
 death almost in an instant. 
 
 The others on the boat were driven to the after part of the 
 decks. Men tried to get life preservers, but only a few could 
 reach the racks, the others being carried to the railings by 
 the mad rush. 
 
 Then the flames began their deadly work. Catching the 
 clothing of those on the edge of the throng, the fire drove 
 them mad with pain. 
 
 Their bodies licked by flames until they fell and were 
 roasted to death, leaping into the river to go down with the 
 water bubbling into their lungs, trampled and crushed in a 
 mad panic, these thousand merry excursionists, most of them 
 women and children, died within a few minutes. 
 
 The horror of the scene was almost beyond conception. 
 Men who passed through it and lived were dazed and seemed 
 to remember little of what happened. There were terrible 
 incidents seared on their brains, but for hours they seemed 
 unable to realize the whole horror of the holocaust. 
 
 An eye-witness who saw much of what happened to the 
 boat said: 
 
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THE SPECTACLE FROM THE SHORE 145 
 
 "The steamer's whistle was blowing for assistance as she 
 came up the river. I saw several persons jump into the water 
 before she was headed for the northwest shore of North 
 Brother Island. Her position in the water made it impossible 
 for those aboard to reach land except by swimming. I saw 
 perhaps fifty or a hundred persons, mostly women and chil- 
 dren, jump overboard. Most of the throng was on the hurri- 
 cane deck when I plainly saw a part of it collapse. Many 
 must have been killed instantly. The greatest loss of life was 
 caused by the collapsing of the upper deck. It fell with a 
 crash soon after the fire started, crushing hundreds of persons 
 who had gathered on the lower deck. It was then that the 
 greatest panic ensued amid the living stream of persons going 
 over the rail into the water," 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES 
 
 Clara Hartmann's Story — Alive, but Tagged with a Deathmark of Identifica- 
 tion — Thrilling Story — Boyish Pluck — Clung to a Paddlewheel— APile 
 of Heads, Legs and Arms — Hair and Clothing on Fire — Dragged under 
 Water — Plucked from the Waves. 
 
 The story of twelve-year-old Clara Hartmann was prob- 
 ably the most remarkable one among the many tales told by 
 survivors of the General Slocum disaster. The seemingly 
 dead body of the little girl had been picked up by the crew of 
 a launch already laden beyond its capacity with victims of the 
 disaster. There was neither time to lift Clara's body from the 
 water nor space upon the deck of the launch for another body, 
 so a rope was fastened to the waist and the launch towed 
 Clara to the pier at the foot of East One Hundred and 
 Thirty-eighth street. 
 
 AISUPPOSED CORPSE 
 
 Clara was the last to be raised to the wharf, where a man 
 
 from a neighboring coal yard wrapped what he supposed to be 
 
 the corpse of the little girl in a tarpaulin. Then Clara was 
 
 loaded on a truck with a dozen dead bodies of women and 
 
 children and was transported to the Alexander avenue police 
 
 station. The bodies were taken from the truck and laid in a 
 
 row, according to their number, on the floor of the station 
 
 house. 
 
 146 
 
HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES 147 
 
 ASKED FOR HER DEATH TAG 
 
 Clara's number was twenty-four, twice her age. She said 
 she never would forget that number, and she asked the sergeant 
 of the station house to give her the death tag which the kind 
 surgeon removed from her dress when it was discovered that 
 she was alive. She will save the tag as a memento of her dual 
 escapes from death and being sent to the morgue. 
 
 "THIS GIRL IS ALIVE" 
 
 It was a woman volunteer who had entered the station 
 house to aid the police and the doctors to establish identifying 
 marks of the dead women and children, who made the dis- 
 covery that "No. 24" was yet alive. She was examining the 
 child's clothing, when a sudden convulsive movement Indicated 
 the presence of life. A moment later the woman's cries of 
 "This little girl is alive! Come, quick!" at once brought the 
 doctors and nurses to Clara's side. Their prompt attendance 
 and efforts saved the girl's life. 
 
 HELD HANDS AND THEN JUMPED 
 
 "I shall never forget when mamma and sister Margery said 
 'God help us!' when they saw the fire come up out of the front 
 end of the boat, and the people, many of whom we knew, 
 began to rush around the big boat," said Clara. "Mamma 
 called me to her and she took hold of Margery's hand and 
 mine and she said, 'Stay with me.' 
 
 "Margery only recently graduated from the public school 
 and was confirmed, and I was proud of her. She was a good 
 sister, but she and mamma are lost now. I don't see how they 
 could have reached the shore. Mamma and Margery and I 
 remained on the boat, still holding hands, until the flames got 
 awfully close and hot. Everybody was then jumping Into the 
 
I4S NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 water, and, as we didn't want to get burned up, we decided to 
 jump, too. 
 
 TRIED TO SAVE MOTHER AND SISTER 
 
 "There were so many in the water near where we wanted 
 to jump that we had to wait a while before the space was 
 clear, and then all jumped together, still holding hands. But 
 the moment we got into the water we had to let go of each 
 other to do what we could for ourselves. 
 
 "I felt 1 wasn't going down and, seeing Margery and 
 mamma near by, I tried to save them, for lliey were struggling 
 awfully. Then a lot of swimmers got around us and we were 
 separated. I heard Margery say again, 'God save us!' then 
 she gave a gasp and sank out of sight. I guess Margery's 
 heart gave way. Mamma 1 didn't see after that. 
 
 "While I was keeping afloat a man came near me, and I 
 grabbed him around tlie neck, lie was awfully mean, for he 
 tried to push me away, but I just hung onto him as hard as I 
 could. He tried again to push me away, but I told him that I 
 could hold on and we would soon be ashore, but he pushed 
 harder than ever, and my head went under the water often. 
 Then I felt him sinking, and 1 let go, and 1 must have fainted. 
 That was the hrst time that I ever fainted in my life. 
 
 SHE LOST CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 "I don't know what happened to me after that until I came 
 to life, they tell me, in the Alexander avenue station house, 
 but I must have floated and been picked up by a boat. They 
 told me afterward that 1 was towed behind a launch, but I 
 didn't' feel it. 
 
 "When I got out of my faint it was in tlu; afternoon, when 
 I thought it was yet morning. 1 lu;ard men tramping on the 
 
HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES 149 
 
 floor and felt I was lying on something very hard and that my 
 head was covered. Then there was talk about taking the 
 dead people away and then I remembered the fire and the 
 people drowning all around me. 
 
 "1 thought that I was still in the water, too. My stomach 
 got sick — I had swallowed a whole lot of salty water and I did 
 want awfully to get rid of that water. Then it began to gush 
 out of my mouth and a woman said, 'This little girl ain't dead/ 
 and she called, 'Doctor, doctor!' quick, like that. 
 
 TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL 
 
 "They pulled the cover off my head and I began to feel 
 very much better and the air came to me. It felt good, too. 
 They took me up from the floor and put me on a soft couch, 
 and then I was taken to the hospital, where they treated me 
 nicely. I cried when I remembered mam,ma and Margery, 
 but the hospital nurses told me they were safe, but they 
 haven't come home yet. 
 
 "Willie Reitz, my cousin, found me in the hospital and I 
 was glad to see him. lie is only thirteen, but he went around 
 to all the hospitals looking for me, Margery and mamma, he 
 told me when the nurses let him come to my couch. He 
 hurried home and they brought me clothes and took me here. 
 
 "Pauline Jordan, of No. 37 Third avenue, who plays with 
 mc, was in the next cot to me in the hospital, and we talked 
 over the excursion and the fire while we were getting better. 
 I think Pauline lost her mamma, too, and her sister Catherine 
 was dreadfully burned. 
 
 "I am going to have my hair cut off to-day, for it is all 
 matted and can't be combed out. I hate to lose my curls, but 
 the hair will grow out again." 
 
150 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 SAVED A LITTLE GIRL 
 
 "I seized a life preserver," said a boy survivor, "and pulled 
 down the wire netting, and half a dozen life preservers fell to 
 the floor. The first one I picked up came to pieces in my 
 hands. It was full of straw. The next one also came to 
 pieces. It was full of powdered cork. I tried all the six life 
 preservers, and they were all rotten. The stuff they were 
 made of tore all apart. 
 
 "So I had to jump overboard just as I was. A little girl 
 grabbed me by the back of my collar and held on tight. I did 
 not try to get rid of her. I swam to the shore, where one of 
 the nurses took the child from my back, and then I turned and 
 swam back to where I saw a little girl held up by a life 
 preserver. 
 
 "She grabbed me first b}^ the heel, then by the hand, out I 
 
 brought her near shore and one of the nurses threw us a 
 
 rope." 
 
 CLUNG TO A PADDLE BLADE 
 
 Said Mrs. Lena De Luccia: "My life was saved by cling- 
 ing to a paddle blade while the fire burned furiously around 
 me, blistering my hands and face. The torture was terrible. 
 I had lost my baby and was separated from my three other 
 children, whom I have since heard from. When the fire 
 started I picked up my baby and told my other children to 
 cling to me. I was close to the rail when a wave of frenzied 
 women and children forced us overboard. I was just about 
 to abandon hope and let go, for the blaze was right over me, 
 when a rowboat came along and I was picked up." 
 
 PICKED UP BY A BOAT 
 
 "I was on the railing when the fire started," said George 
 Heinz, "and I was pushed over by the rush. Before I fell I 
 
HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES 151 
 
 saw a little boy with pretty light curls looking up. Then a big 
 sheet of flame came and his face was burned beyond recogni- 
 tion. I can still see that little fellow. I was in the water only 
 a minute when I was picked up by a boat. My brother, 
 Henry Heinz, who was struck dumb with fright, was able to 
 speak to-day for the first time since the disaster. I stood right 
 alongside of the lifeboats and not once was an attempt made 
 by any of the crew to launch them. Instead, the men acted 
 as if they were crazy. They were worse than the women. 
 The captain was yelling at them to do something, but they 
 gave no heed to him." 
 
 TOO AWFUL TO REMEMBER 
 
 "It was too awful to remember about," said Susan Schulz, 
 "and I wish I could forget it all. Such tearing, pushing and 
 hauling I never saw before. In the water it was worse. 
 Women fought for small pieces of board, grabbed each other 
 for support, some of them begging others to save their chil- 
 dren. I could not tell you all the things that passed through 
 my mind. The blaze sprang up all of a sudden. Then the 
 wild rush began. I don't know how I got into the water, but 
 after I had been in a short time I felt a sort of suffocation. I 
 could not breathe. My ears tingled and I seemed to hear 
 sounds like music afar off. I don't remember any more until 
 I found myself on the island with the doctor working over me. 
 Later I was taken to Lincoln Hospital." 
 
 GAVE UP HOPE 
 
 Mrs. Mary Waurer said: "When the fire started and the 
 crowd began to rush, I got excited as I felt myself carried 
 along to the side of the boat. I don't remember whether I 
 
152 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 jumped, for I was pretty badly burned, or was pushed over- 
 board. In the water I grabbed at a man but missed him. 
 Then I tried to catch hold of a life preserver, but just as I was 
 about to seize it it sank. I gave up hope, thinking I was going 
 to be drowned. I felt a ringing sensation in my head and 
 seemed as if I were going to fall asleep, when somebody 
 grabbed me and pulled me aboa-rd a boat. I was taken to 
 North Brother Island and from there sent to Lincoln 
 Hospital." 
 
 SOMEBODY SHOUTED, "FIRE!" 
 
 "I was on the top deck," said William Vassner, "when some 
 one shouted 'Fire!' Everybody tried to jump and I tried to 
 jump, too, but there were so many ahead of me that I couldn't. 
 I kept getting pushed back from the railing, so I grabbed a 
 post. Just then the deck caved in and the people went crash- 
 ing down with it. It was an awful sight — a big pile of heads, 
 legs and arms, like a football game, only a thousand times 
 worse. I clung to the pole about two minutes and then 
 jumped into the water. I was not afraid, for I knew that I 
 could swim as well as any one on the East Side. I swam 
 around to five different tugs, but they were filled with women 
 and children who couldn't swim. I helped three little fellows 
 to board, and then, getting tired, I swam toward a launch that 
 had only a few on it. I had to push bodies out of my way 
 to reach it. A very large and stout woman grabbed me 
 and pulled me under water. When I came up I was pulled 
 aboard the launch. So was the big woman. I didn't find out 
 her name, but when we got to Riker's Island she was alive. 
 The life preservers were no good. As fast as any one tried to 
 use them they would burst open or the straps would come off." 
 
HAIRBREADTH ESCAPES 153 
 
 MUST HAVE FAINTED 
 
 The following statement is from Mrs. Albertina Lembach: 
 "My attention was first attracted to the fire by the screams of 
 the women. I saw a big sheet of flame shoot up the stairway, 
 and, gathering my five children about me, I told them to cling 
 tight to me. Pastor Haas ran forward to try to calm the 
 screaming women, and Mrs. Haas got her children and told 
 me to stay on the boat as long as we could. Then there was a 
 fearful rush. People ran shrieking to the rail and it gave way, 
 letting most of them fall into the water. In the rush three of 
 my children were swept away. Taking the two remaining 
 under my arms, I prepared to jump. The flames had ignited 
 my clothing, and my face and neck were burned. A man 
 rushed past me and jumped. I think it was one of the crew. 
 As he jumped his arm struck me and I fell into the water with 
 my children. I tried to cling to them, but must have fainted, 
 for I don't remember anything more until I found myself in 
 the Lincoln Hospital. All my children perished except Her- 
 man, my oldest boy." 
 
 LIFE PRESERVER OF NO USE 
 
 Said Walter Mueller: "After papa tied the life preserver 
 around me I jumped into the water. The life preserver was 
 of no use, for it broke right off me and I thought I was going 
 to drown. I grabbed a man's neck and went under the water. 
 When I came up again I seized a woman by the hair and she 
 scratched my face. I let go of her and was sinking again 
 when a man in a boat picked me up." 
 
 SAVED BY A DEAD MAN 
 
 Katherine Jordan, the last of the General Slocum victims 
 in the hospital of the Department of Correction on Riker's 
 
154 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Island, stated that, had it not been for the dead body of an 
 unknown man, she would surely have drowned, despite the 
 fact that she wore a life preserver. She said: 
 
 "Instead of being supported by the life preserver I wore, I 
 found that it was of no use to me at all. I could not keep my 
 head above the waves. In my desperation I grasped for any- 
 thing that might be within reach and my hand fell across the 
 corpse of a man that was floating past. 
 
 "Getting a secure hold on it, and kicking my feet as fast as 
 I could, I managed to keep alive until picked up by a tug." 
 
 Miss Jordan was terribly burned about the face and arms. 
 
 A LUCKY BOY 
 
 John Roseman, eleven years old, walked into the informa- 
 tion bureau established in St. Mark's Church and said he 
 wanted to contradict a report that he had been drowned. His 
 name appeared on the missing list in the newspapers. He 
 said he had intended to go on the excursion, but, just as the 
 boat was about to leave, a member of the church committee 
 discovered him and put him back on the pier. Roseman was 
 told that he was lucky, and he said he guessed he was. One 
 of his companions, who knew he had gone on board the Slo- 
 cum before she started up the river, had reported Roseman as 
 missing. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 A HOUSE OF LAMENTATION 
 
 Thriving Neighborhood Plunged in Woe— Once Happy Church Turned into 
 a Place of Mourning — Sorrow for the Lost — Woeful Trips of the Under- 
 takers' Wagons— The Missing— St. Mark's Church an Old One— The 
 Streets Thronged With Mourners — Crowds Round the Church — People 
 Clamoring for Information — Crape-Hung Doorways. 
 
 The burning of the General Slocum changed the entire 
 aspect of New York's swarming East Side and filled the 
 streets with lamentations and made the tens of thousands 
 almost forget their business, their pleasures, and even their 
 individual troubles. Not a block but mourned from East 
 Fourteenth to Houston street, and a few that did not feel the 
 shock directly or indirectly through the lower part of the city. 
 
 GRIEF-STRICKEN GROUPS 
 
 From the time when the first news of the disaster reached 
 the neighborhood of the Evangelical Lutheran German 
 Church until the early hours of the next morning, every street 
 and alley resounded with the weeping of the grief-stricken 
 fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters of the victims. 
 On every tenement stoop groups of excited men and women 
 talked of nothing but the great disaster. In front of the 
 church thousands gathered to read the hastily prepared bulle- 
 tins posted there. Hundreds of carriages and wagons passed 
 to and fro throughout the afternoon and evening, each bring- 
 ing home some injured survivor of the steamboat or restoring 
 
 155 
 
156 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 to their waiting relatives those who had been fortunate 
 enough to escape unscathed. 
 
 A little before noon a woman alighted from a Second 
 avenue car at Sixth street, the tears streaming down her face, 
 and her hand clinching an afternoon newspaper in which was 
 the first news of the disaster. She rushed to the church, half 
 a block away, and, upon finding the doors closed, fell weeping 
 and hysterical to the sidewalk. 
 
 THE FIRST TIDINGS 
 
 It was the first tidings Sixth street had received of the 
 accident. The woman was the first of the hundreds who had 
 lost kin or friends on the excursion boat. Ten minutes after 
 her arrival the whole vicinity was aroused. Newsboys with 
 extra editions thronged the sidewalks. In front of the church 
 a crowd had collected. Another excited crowd had gathered 
 into Seventh street, and was vainly seeking information at the 
 home of the Rev. G. C. F. Haas, pastor of the church. 
 
 PASTOR'S SON'S SUFFERING 
 
 Inside the minister's house his nineteen-year-old son, the 
 only member of the family who had not gone on the excur- 
 sion, was hearing over the telephone that his parents, two 
 aunts, and a sister were supposed to have perished in the 
 flames. Hours passed before he heard of his father's safety. 
 
 While the streets round about grew more excited and scat- 
 tered survivors began to find their way down town from hos- 
 pitals or police stations or piers, the minister's house became 
 a general bureau of information, and a score of the family's 
 friends went in to give their aid. 
 
A HOUSE OF LAMENTATION 157 
 
 AN ESTABLISHED CUSTOM 
 
 From these church members and from the church records 
 in the house, it was learned that the annual excursion of the 
 Sunday school had been a custom of the last seventeen years. 
 
 The picnic was organized by the Social Committee of the 
 Sunday school teachers, most of whom are young unmarried 
 women. Miss Mary Abendschein of 325 East Eighteenth street 
 was chairman of the committee. The tickets — costing fifty 
 cents for adults and twenty-five cents for children — were dis- 
 tributed among the scholars to be sold. While most of them 
 undoubtedly went to German Lutherans, not a few were held 
 by others. Among the excursionists was a scattering of Jews, 
 Italians, and others. 
 
 Although lunch-counter privileges were sold for the steam- 
 boat, most of the provisions, such as sandwiches, ice cream 
 and the like, were contributed by church members, and, 
 according to the annual custom, many who bought tickets 
 never intended to go on the trip, but meraly paid to help 
 along the outing. Locust Grove, on the Sound, had been the 
 picnic grounds of the Sunday school ever since the church 
 members could remember, and the start always had been 
 made from the same pier — at the foot of East Third street, 
 
 STUDENTS CAME FROM ALL OVER 
 
 The students, like the teachers, came from varied districts, 
 though most of them were of the East Side. There were 
 some from as far away as Hoboken and Flatbush. The 
 church for fifty-seven years has been growing steadily, and its 
 membership spread more than ever in the twenty-seven years 
 of Mr. Haas's pastorate. It was estimated that practically all 
 of the five hundred students were on the excursion. Added 
 
158 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 to these were the scores of infants in arms, mothers, invited 
 friends, and a few fathers and other male relations. 
 
 "The proportion of men was very small," said the Rev. 
 John A. W. Haas, brother of the minister of the church and 
 formerly pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in New York. 
 "Among the children were many so small that their mothers 
 took them aboard the boat in baby carriages." 
 
 A BUREAU OF INFORMATION 
 
 The crush of anxious relatives became so great around the 
 pastor's house that it was decided shortly after noon to estab- 
 lish a temporary bureau of information in the church in Sixth 
 street. Long tables were placed just inside the entrance, and 
 conspicuous bulletins were posted outside, announcing that 
 survivors should report their safety inside, and that relatives 
 should come in to inquire about those who were missing. 
 
 Within a few minutes the street was packed from Second 
 avenue to First avenue. A score of policemen, detailed to 
 keep order, were busy all day and night maintaining the line 
 of those who wanted to enter. As news came from the scene 
 of the wreck it was posted outside. Before nightfall the 
 church members sitting at the inquiry tables had catalogued 
 hundreds of names, sent out as many alarms to the police, 
 and listened to the weeping stories of scores of those who had 
 lost their relatives or in some cases their whole families. 
 
 EXHAUSTED WITH GRIEF AND FATIGUE 
 
 Wednesday night a quiet, grief-stricken crowd stood in 
 front of St. Mark's Church, in Sixth street, until a cheerless 
 dawn found them, exhausted with grief and fatigue, lying and 
 sitting on the sidewalks, still patiently waiting for news. All 
 night the police and newspaper men had taken lists of the 
 
A HOUSE OF LAMENTATION 159 
 
 dead, the saved and missing to the church, but no sooner had 
 some one in the crowd been made happy by the announce- 
 ment that some loved one had been saved than a fresh Hst of 
 dead was posted. 
 
 At first only lists of the dead were put up by the informa- 
 tion bureau on the outside of the church, but a teacher in one 
 of the public schools urged on behalf of the people gathered 
 in front that a list of the saved be also given out. Those in 
 charge of the bureau did this at once, and many waiting an 
 opportunity to enter the church learned that their children 
 had been saved 
 
 UNDERTAKERS' WAGONS BUSY 
 
 All day hearses and undertakers' wagons rumbled through 
 the streets. Sometimes when they stopped only a tiny coffin 
 would be taken off, to be carried into a tenement house under 
 the arm of the driver. Across the street would be another 
 wagon, piled to the roof with seven or eight coffins containing 
 the bodies of women and children. There was scarcely a 
 house in the district bounded by East First and Twelfth 
 streets and Avenue A and Third avenue, but had at least one 
 knot of crape on its door. Directly in front of St. Mark's is 
 the home of August Dippert, whose entire family, mother, 
 wife and three children, perished. 
 
 The undertakers in the neighborhood did not know how 
 they could handle the situation. Every establishment had 
 already reached its full capacity and orders were piling in. 
 All their rooms were small, and many of the undertakers had 
 to refuse to care for any more bodies. They were also ham- 
 pered by the relatives of the dead. When one or two in the 
 family were missing, the relatives would ask the undertakers 
 
i6o NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 to delay the funerals in the hope that the others might be 
 found 
 
 FOURTEEN DEAD IN ONE HOUSE 
 
 As each hearse drove through the streets it was followed 
 by men and women until it stopped in front of some house. 
 Once there and the identity of the victim established, the 
 crowd did not press around the wagon, but silently retracexl 
 its steps, waiting for the next wagon. 
 
 In one house in Seventh street five pieces of crape, all 
 white, were tied to the door, but fourteen children lay dead 
 there. In other houses the one or two pieces of fluttering 
 crape failed to indicate the sorrow behind the doors, for 
 often a streamer represented the death of four or five chil- 
 dren in a single family. 
 
 All day Thursday, as when the news of the disaster first 
 reached the district, groups of sad-eyed men and women stood 
 on corners and on the stoops of houses, drearily waiting for 
 news. At the foot of the steps leading to the Eighth street 
 and Ninth street stations of the elevated road were other 
 groups waiting for those who had been discharged from the 
 hospitals. As the burned, dazed survivors came down they 
 were almost mobbed by those crazy for information about 
 their lost. Too often the survivors could tell only that they 
 had seen the friends of the inquirers burn and drown before 
 their eyes, and it was seldom that the joyful tidings were given, 
 "She is in the hospital, and will be out soon." 
 
 SOENES IN ST. MARK'S 
 
 The affecting scenes that followed the first news of the 
 accident were duplicated all day Thursday in front of St. 
 Mark's Church. Soon after five o'clock a man reeled into the 
 
A HOUSE OF LAMENTATION i6i 
 
 church to a seat and broke into sobs, crying aloud the loss of 
 his wife and two young daughters. Women, heartbroken 
 with their own loss, tried to console him, but he would not be 
 comforted, and after a long and bitter prayer he staggered 
 into the street again, reeling like a drunken man. Scarcely 
 had he gone when a middle-aged woman cried out hysterically 
 from the steps of the church that her daughter and grandson 
 were dead. It was long before she could be quieted. Later 
 in the day a young woman, scarcely more than a girl, learned 
 at the church that her six-months-old boy, her firstborn, whom 
 her sister had taken to the excursion, was dead, with his aunt. 
 She burst out laughing, and it was not until a physician had 
 given her an opiate that she could be moved to her home. 
 
 Coupled with scenes like these was the quiet, subdued 
 weeping of men and women. Now and then a woman would 
 reel and faint as she heard the names of her dead called out. 
 Those fortunate enough to have their people return to them 
 rushed at once to the bureau of information to have the names 
 stricken from the list of dead and missing and to give such 
 news as the saved ones had been able to tell. 
 
 SIX WENT AWAY, ONE RETURNED 
 
 Andrew Ottinger stood before his home and kept watch 
 for his wife and two little ones, who, he had been assured by 
 his friends, had certainly lost their lives with the burning and 
 sinking of the steamer. But Ottinger kept hoping against 
 hope. Two others of his children, Charley and Emma, twins, 
 fifteen years old, were lying at the morgue dead, and of the 
 mother and five children who set out in the morning to enjoy 
 the excursion only Willie, the thirteen-year-old son, came 
 limping in late at night from the hospital, badly burned. 
 
i62 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Willie Ottinger said that when the steamer caught fire he 
 was with his mother and his two younger brothers, Andrew, 
 seven years old, and Arthur, five years old, on the lower deck. 
 
 SAID SOMETHING LIKE A PRAYER 
 
 "We saw the boat was going to burn up," said the small 
 survivor, "when mamma grabs a life preserver and wants to tie 
 it around me, but I told her I could swim and to hurry and put 
 it on one of my brothers. With that she said something like 
 a pra^'er and then pushed me into the water. 
 
 "I kept swimmin' around awhile, and saw mother fixin' the 
 life preserver about the little boys, and after a long time I 
 was picked up by some men on a tugboat. The first thing I 
 did I looked over to the Slocum and saw one of my little 
 brothers bein' led along by the hand by the captain of the 
 boat. Then I don't remember nothin' else until I finds myself 
 in the hospital." 
 
 The bodies of Emma and Charley Ottinger were found in 
 the water. The girl was clasped in the arms of a schoolmate. 
 
 TOO YOUNG TO COMPREHEND 
 
 At No. 1 19 Seventh street, a few doors away from the 
 Ottinger home, a little golden-haired girl was playing about a 
 bunch of white crape tied with pretty fiowers. This was the 
 Schmindling home, and the little girl looked up at the visitors 
 and volunteered: 
 
 "Annie is dead, and Georgie is dead, and " The bodies 
 
 of Annie and George, fifteen and eighteen years old, had been 
 brought home, and were lying upstairs. 
 
 THEY MISS MOTHER GALEWISKI 
 
 Two doors farther down the street, at No. 123, there were 
 two other pieces of crape, one of black and one of white. 
 
A HOUSE OF LAMENTATION 163 
 
 Still farther on, a little distance, is Tompkins Square, and 
 among those who sat under the shade of the trees were a 
 number of men and women with handkerchiefs to their faces, 
 as if they had come to this, the quietest spot, to grieve alone. 
 The shaded square recalled the death on the ill-fated excur- 
 sion of A.nna Galewiski — "Mother Galewiski," as she was 
 known all over the neighborhood — a fine little gray-haired 
 Samaritan who for many years was in the habit of taking 
 large herds of children out into the square on fine days and 
 minding them all day long while their mothers were at work. 
 Down Avenue A, one block, past a busy undertaker's shop, 
 where the sobs of women were heard at intervals in the crowd 
 that gathered about the incoming dead wagons, to Sixth 
 street, and here on door after door were the emblems of 
 death, crape and flowers. At No. 430 a knot of sad-faced 
 women and awe-stricken children were gathered. Two fam- 
 ilies in this house had been almost entirely wiped out in the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 SUBSCRIPTION BUREAU STARTED 
 
 Under the leadership of Rev. F. Holter of the Lutheran 
 Church in Summit avenue, Jersey City, a subscription bureau 
 for the needy was established in the churchyard. Mr. Holter 
 sat at a table taking small and large contributions. As soon 
 as the crowd discovered what was afoot there was a rush to 
 reach the minister, and hundreds of hands were thrust toward 
 him with dimes, quarters and bills. 
 
 An old man, apparently a day laborer, his hands grimy 
 from his toil, shyly laid a penny on the table and then ran 
 away as fast as he could, brushing the tears from his eyes as 
 he went. A woman, her face covered by a veil, sobbing so 
 
i64 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 that she could be heard across the street, pushed her way into 
 the Hne of poHcemen to contribute a half dollar. So it went 
 on all day, until the minister had nearly $i,ooo in the after- 
 noon, most of it composed of very small gifts. A majority of the 
 givers refused to tell their names. 
 
 HUNDREDS STUNNED BY GRIEF 
 
 The overwhelming numbers of dead recovered and identi- 
 fied replaced the desperate uncertainty that pervaded hun- 
 dreds of homes by the stunning realization of grief, and the 
 calm that fell upon the parish was strangely pitiful, striking a 
 keener inward agony than even did the first horror of the 
 disaster. 
 
 Friends and relatives met and passed in the streets, 
 exchanging silent glances of mutual sympathy that estab- 
 lished a kinship of grief which will unite these people for life. 
 In the faces of scores there was a dull wonder that showed 
 their affliction was multiplying upon them as they struggled to 
 thread together the whole terrible picture. 
 
 Only a few hours before they were looking forward to a 
 fete day, a day that was to mark one festive and joyous occa- 
 sion throughout the year. For days their children had prat- 
 tled gleefully about the long-looked-for excursion; mothers 
 and fathers had related to the youngsters the freedom and 
 abandon they would have in their play, the unstinted supply 
 of ice cream, soda water, cakes and other delectables that 
 made their mouths water and their hearts leap as they 
 dreamed. 
 
 Then came the early morning of preparation, when the 
 entire district rang with the cries and laughter of children, the 
 happy greetings of the elders and the delightful bustle and 
 
A HOUSE OF LAMENTATION 165 
 
 hurry preparing for a gala day. Finally the hurrying of the 
 little feet, barely touching the ground in their prancing 
 delight, to the pier, and last that half hour on the big steamer 
 vibrating from stem to stern with the mirth of old and young. 
 
 PICTURES OF GRIEF AND MISERY 
 
 After the minds of those stricken ones revolved this pic- 
 ture before them, it was no wonder their reason began to 
 waver when there descended upon them the unspeakable 
 thought of what followed; when the mothers and fathers 
 looked upon the little bodies, bruised and burned; when par- 
 ents heard their own little ones cry for "mamma," "sister" and 
 "brother." 
 
 Feebler and feebler did these cries become, followed by 
 that paralyzing hush of misery that made itself felt in every 
 corner of the little district. Ere night fell, friends and rela- 
 tives ceased questioning one another. One glance from face 
 to face, and the tongue knew it could not utter any appropriate 
 word of sympathy for the grief it saw and felt. 
 
 No sound of the mourning within the big tenements came 
 to those who passed in the street, but if one went into the 
 little alleys and courts and had the heart or courage to peer 
 through the darkened windows of the scores and scores of 
 stricken homes, he would see such pictures of grief and mis- 
 ery as would live forever in the memory. 
 
 Long before the hour set for the funerals held in the parish, 
 crowds of sympathizing friends and neighbors began to col- 
 lect about the homes where the hearses and carriages stood. 
 
 POLICEMEN GUARD EACH FUNERAL 
 
 There were none of the idly curious in these throngs, and 
 the ten policemen stationed to guard each funeral cortege 
 
i66 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 had not to lift a finger of warning to child or elder. In every 
 window that looked out upon these hearses, to one of which 
 three little white caskets were borne, the shades were drawn, 
 even though no dead were within the homes. 
 
 In fact, in every street where mourning emblems were sus- 
 pended from the doorways no curious faces could be seen in 
 the windows and no groups of young or old were gathered in 
 the doorways. Perhaps the most impressive feature of the 
 great calm of grief that hung about the neighborhood was the 
 entire absence of children on the streets. Usually thorough- 
 fares and even alleys and courtyards in this district swarm 
 with children at play, so that the absolute ceasing of the hum 
 of their cries and laughter is more impressive than would be 
 the intrusion of singular clamor. 
 
 FLAGS NEAR CHURCH AT HALF-MAST 
 
 The policemen stationed in the parish showed the same 
 universal deference, often doffing their helmets as some 
 pathetic figure of bereaved old or young passed them and 
 went silently into their homes to continue their vigil by the 
 dead. 
 
 On all the business houses and schools in the vicinity of 
 St. Mark's Church flags hung at half-mast and many of the 
 little shop windows contained insignia of mourning as melan- 
 choly tokens of sympathy for their patrons. Though the 
 majority of the recovered bodies were taken to the homes that 
 claimed them, there still continued at brief intervals through- 
 out the day the slow rumble of undertakers' wagons bearing 
 more corpses of those who perished in the horrible disaster. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 STORIES OF EYE-WITNESSES 
 
 Tales of Horror — A Brave "Trusty" — An Unknown Hero — Clinging to the 
 Paddle-wheel — The Work of Herbert Farrell — What Captain McGovern 
 Saw — Remarkable Child-Bravery — Survivors Commit Suicide — Robbing 
 the Dead — Crazed Mothers Hurl Babies into the River — Paddle-wheel 
 Choked with the Bodies of Victims — Saw the Hurricane Deck Collapse 
 — Fifty Children Perished in the Whirlpool of Hell Gate. 
 
 Probably the first persons who saw the outbreak of fire 
 from a point close at hand were Thomas Miley, of No. 629 
 East One Hundred and Thirty-seventh street, and John Kain, 
 of No. 617 East One Hundred and Thirty-eighth street. The 
 young men were in a rowboat within one hundred feet of the 
 big excursion steamer. Their impressions are well set forth 
 in young Miley's statement, after he and Kain had assisted in 
 the work of rescue. 
 
 THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION 
 
 "Both Kain and I were rowing, with our backs toward the 
 Slocum," he said, "when we heard a loud report as if an 
 explosion had occurred. When I looked around a cloud of 
 smoke was hovering above the forward part of the steamboat. 
 It seemed only a few moments until flames leaped up, but it 
 may have been longer, because my companion and I were 
 awe-stricken by the scenes that followed the explosion. 
 
 "Cries of horror went up from every deck and, in an 
 
 instant, it seemed, the rails were swept away as though they 
 
 167 
 
i68 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 were made of paper. Men, women and children fought, strug- 
 gled and shrieked, and those who had been nearest the rails 
 were swept from the decks. 
 
 TRAIL OF DYING IN WATER 
 
 "We could see women and children struggling with those 
 in the rear, and in their terror they clung to those closest to 
 them and dragged them into the water. 
 
 "While this was happening, the Slocum was being run in 
 toward North Brother Island. She had been only one hun- 
 dred feet or so distant from the island shore when we heard 
 the report, but in making the short trip a long trail of strug- 
 gling persons was left in the water. Many of them, I think, 
 had been crushed to death in the panic before they touched 
 the water, and they sank at once from view. 
 
 "Before the steamboat reached the island the clothing of 
 those in the forward part was in flames. To escape the fire, 
 which was burning more fiercely every moment, many rushed 
 toward the stern, which was already filled with persons. 
 
 FLAMES SWEEP OVER DECKS 
 
 "In a short time flames burst from other parts of the ves- 
 sel, and the passengers' panic became more terrific. Over the 
 sides they were swept from the decks in masses. By this time 
 the shore had been reached and the Slocum had been run in 
 between two small piers. 
 
 "It seemed to us that the members of the crew remained at 
 their posts, for no sooner had the ship been run in than a 
 gangplank was run out. Passengers fought and struggled 
 with the sailors so that they could scarcely work, and they had 
 to make several desperate efforts before they succeeded. 
 
STORIES OF EYE-WITNESSES 169 
 
 "Almost before the end of the footbridge reached the shore 
 the shrieking passengers rushed out on the plank and we saw 
 several persons drop into the water as though pushed from 
 the sides. In a short time those who were uninjured were 
 ashore, but there were some who had been hurt by the strug- 
 gle for life aboard the burning boat who could not reach the 
 gangplank. 
 
 HEMMED IN BY FIRE 
 
 "Some of the less frightened men rushed back and carried 
 these to safety, but there were many, a tugboat captain told 
 us, who had been hemmed in by the flames on the lower deck. 
 This captain had run his boat alongside and picked up ten 
 bodies and saved two little boys. 
 
 "Some of those who had been crowded from the decks 
 swam to the shore, but the tide was running strong and every- 
 thing was against them. On the shore v/omen rushed up and 
 down, crying and shouting for their children. We saw all 
 along the shore women in faints. They had succeeded in get- 
 ting from the ship safely, but had been overcome by the 
 excitement. 
 
 "The tug Wade was the first to go to the rescue. My com- 
 panion and I followed and succeeded in recovering two bodies. 
 One was that of an aged woman. The other body was tliat of 
 a boy, about ten years old. The boy's head was burned and 
 his face was bruised, as though he had been injured before he 
 was forced into the water. About a hundred feet from the 
 Bronx shore was a private yacht with several persons aboard, 
 but the}^ made no move. 
 
 "Man}^ must have been hurt in those first rushes toward 
 the rail. It seemed that children were trampled under foot. 
 
170 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 We saw one woman, with a small child in her arms, pushed 
 from the deck after the rail had given away." 
 
 THE PORTER'S STORY 
 
 "I was up on deck, by the forward stairway," said Payne, 
 the porter, "when -a deckhand came running up to the mate 
 and said that something was wrong in the hold — smoke was 
 coming out. The mate looked down and came back on the 
 jump to give the alarm and get out the hose. I ran down 
 and opened the door into the hold. A big puff of fire came 
 out at me, and I had to duck under it to get back on deck. I 
 ran back and helped get out the hose. It was new. There 
 were four lengths of it — two hundred feet long — bought some- 
 time about the middle of May, I think. 
 
 "We got a line attached to the big pump, but it was too 
 long, and got kind of kinked up and rolled around on the 
 deck. Then the great big pump got to working, and just 
 forced the v/ater through so fast it tore the hose apart at the 
 joint where it was fastened on the pump. I jumped up there 
 to see if I could fasten it back, but it was torn. Then I tried 
 to shut off the water, but the mate came and did that. 
 
 "I didn't see the chief engineer. The assistant was down 
 at the engine. We stayed fighting the fire till the deck fell 
 in. The life preservers were all right. I pulled down a lot 
 of them. The boats were all right, too, I guess. They 
 launched one. I don't know what happened to it. They're 
 saying lots of things about a coward crew and want to know 
 why it was nobody in the crew got drowned," the porter said 
 indignantly, "but every man there worked as hard as he could. 
 That boat went up in five minutes. Poof! Just like a powder 
 keg. I don't believe there was any explosion at first. There 
 
STORIES OF EYE-WITNESSES 171 
 
 was one when the oil got afire, all right. I can't say how it 
 started; I don't believe any one else can. 
 
 "When the deck fell in I went overboard. I couldn't swim, 
 but I learned right then, paddling like a dog. I got around to 
 the paddlebox, and I hung there until a boat came, and I 
 caught on beliind that and they towed me to shore. After I'd 
 been there a while I went out on a towboat and helped pull in 
 the people." 
 
 A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE 
 
 Among the survivors of the General Slocum disaster was 
 Mrs. Henry Kassebaum. She said that she regarded her 
 escape from death as almost miraculous. Mrs. Kassebaum 
 and lier daughter Annette were the only two out of a family 
 part}^ of eleven that went on the excursion that survived. 
 The other nine were either burned to death or drowned. 
 
 "I hardly know how I lived through the terrors of it all," 
 said Mrs. Kassebaum. "We had a jolly party of eleven on the 
 boat and were anticipating a fine day's outing. We wanted to 
 liear the music on the way up the river and so all of us were 
 gathered on the after deck, not more than twenty feet away 
 from the band and close to the rail of the deck. 
 
 A PIERCING SCREAM 
 
 "The first intimation we had that there was something 
 wrong was when a piercing scream came from the forward 
 part of the boat. W^e concluded that some one must have 
 fallen overboard and began scanning the water in the wake of 
 the boat. But we did not have to wait long to find out what 
 the real trouble was. A few seconds after the first scream 
 there was a general panic on the forward decks. 
 
 "We could hear the women and children screaming, and an 
 
172 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 instant later there was a puff of srnoke and flame near the 
 bow of the boat that told the story. I realized then that we 
 were all in the gravest peril and that if we expected to escape 
 with our lives some of us at least must keep cool heads. In 
 our party were my daughter Annette, my son-in-law^ and 
 daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Schnude, and their two little 
 children, and my daughter Mrs. Frieda Tonlport, and her two 
 little children. In addition to these nine there were the aged 
 father and mother of Mr. Schnude. 
 
 MEMBERS OF PARTY SWEPT AWAY 
 
 "The moment I saw the flames I called all of our party 
 together and told them quietly tliat if we were to escape alive 
 we must stick close together so as to be able to help one 
 another. ' I thought the strong among us might be able to 
 save the weak. But my words of warning were not more than 
 out of my mouth Vv'hen there came such a rush of panic- 
 stricken and frenzied people to the stern of the boat that no 
 human being could have stood up against it. 
 
 "I clung to the rail with all of my strength and managed to 
 hold my place, but when I looked around not one of my fam- 
 ily was to be seen anywhere. They had been whisked away 
 from me in the mad rush and I did not know v/hat had been 
 their fate. By that time there were scores of women and 
 children in the water, who had jumped overboard to escape 
 the worse fate of being roasted on the boat. 
 
 WATCHED THE MADDENED CROWD 
 
 "At last I managed to get a foot up on the rail by clinging 
 with my hands to a post. From that point of vantage I 
 watched the maddened crowd in search of mj^ loved ones, but 
 they were nowhere to be seen. Just then I saw our pastor, 
 
STORIES OF EYE-WITNESSES 173 
 
 the Rev. Mr. Haas, with his wife and daughter at the other 
 side of the boat. He was trying to protect them from the 
 trampHng crowd. Then a minute later I saw them cHmb over 
 the rail and all jump into the river together. 
 
 "That seemed to give me an idea of my own peril, and I 
 knew that if I expected to escape alive I must decide on some 
 course quickly. I took another careful look around to see if 
 any of my family were on the boat, but still they were nowhere 
 to be seen. Then I decided to take my chances in the water. 
 Even then the fire was so near me that my hands and face 
 were scorched and blistered and there were holes in my cloth- 
 ing that had been burned by the flying sparks. 
 
 SEEMED AN ETERNITY 
 
 'T climbed over the rail and jumped feet first into the 
 water. It seemed to me that I sank hundreds of feet, and that 
 I should never come to the surface again. But at last I saw a 
 flash of light, and that told me I was up where I could get a 
 breath of air. I tried to keep myself from sinking again by 
 striking out blindly with my hands and feet, and did manage 
 to keep up for a few seconds. 
 
 "In that brief time I saw scores of women and little chil- 
 dren all about me in the water. They all seemed to be 
 drowning. I remember I wondered in a dreamy sort of way 
 if any of my children were near me, and if they would be 
 rescued. Then my strength failed me, and I sank once more. 
 That time I thought I should never see the light again. It 
 seemed like an eternity to me. I stopped struggling and 
 didn't seem to care any longer whether I ever rose to the top 
 or not. 
 
174 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 CLUNG TO THE PADDLEBOX 
 
 "Just then my head struck against something hard. That 
 aroused my flagging senses and I grabbed intuitively at what- 
 ever had bumped my head. I caught it with my hands and 
 held on. Once I got a breath of air my strength came back a 
 little and then I discovered that I was clinging to the paddle- 
 box. I held on desperately and a minute or two later a man 
 in a small rowboat pulled up close to me. 
 
 "The boatman held out an oar to me and yelled to me to 
 grasp it and hold fast. I did so, and he soon hauled me 
 aboard his boat. I begged him to look for the other members 
 of my family, but he had as many in his boat as it would hold 
 and had to go ashore." 
 
 SAW THE FIRE BREAK OUT 
 
 William Halloway, engineer on a dredge working off Law- 
 rence Point, Astoria, saw the fire on the Slocum just after it 
 broke out. He at once seized his whistle and gave four blasts. 
 He says that up to that time there had been no alarm sounded 
 from the Slocum. Whether the Slocum sounded an alarm 
 after that he does not know, for his four blasts attracted the 
 attention of boats in every direction, and four tugs sounded 
 their whistles as they raced toward the burning Slocum. 
 
 Halloway says it was 10:05 when he first saw the fire. This 
 was according to his clock in the engine-room of the dredge. 
 The Slocum was then off the upper end of Randall's Island. 
 The fire was on the port side forward. The tugs which 
 started toward the burning steamboat were the Wade, the 
 Wheeler, the Tracey and the Sumner. 
 
 MIGHT HAVE BACKED THE BOAT 
 
 Halloway declared that had the pilot of the Slocum backed 
 his boat when he sounded his whistle, he would have beached 
 
STORIES OF EYE-WITNESSES 175 
 
 the big steamboat on Casino Beach. Then all could have 
 been saved, as it was only a few yards' run and the backward 
 motion of the boat would have carried the flames away from 
 the boat, whereas by running forward and toward North Brother 
 Island the flames were driven directly aft to all parts of the 
 boat. This may be explained, perhaps, by a statement made 
 by some of the men who were on the tug Wheeler. They said 
 that they could distinctly see the men in the pilothouse trying 
 to signal the engine-room, but there was no response. 
 
 As the Slocum headed toward North Brother Island the 
 Vv^ind swept the flames along to the upper deck, and Hallovvay 
 said that within five minutes after he sounded his whistle the 
 upper deck caved in on top of the people who were below. 
 Pieces of this were floating about in the river later. It was of 
 flimsy build, as all such decks are. The thin, light planks were 
 laid over light scantlings and all covered with canvas. The 
 boat was midway between North Brother and Riker's islands 
 when the collapse came, and a minute or so later hit the rocks. 
 
 ANOTHER ACCOUNT FROM AN EYE-WITNESS 
 
 Captain McGovern, who was employed on the same work 
 as Halloway, jumped into the steam launch Mosquito when 
 the alarm was given, and followed the burning steamboat until 
 he had picked up five women and six children. That was all 
 he could take, as the little boat was then so loaded that he 
 feared she might be swamped. He took the rescued to North 
 Brother Island, as he knew there were doctors there, and 
 every one of the eleven was suffering. He says that his load 
 was the first of the rescued to reach the island, and that after 
 he had got them ashore he started back, but found no more 
 
176 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 living. As he followed the burning steamer Captain McGov- 
 ern saw the scenes on her decks. 
 
 "The fire was burning the upper decks, forward," he said, 
 "and the women and children had crowded aft. Those in the 
 rear part of the boat were swept into the water by the onrush 
 of those from the fore part. The pressure against them car- 
 ried away the bulwarks, which were of joiner vvork and rope. 
 Their giving way allowed great numbers to fall into the water. 
 The early collapse of the upper decks was in part due to this. 
 The pressure against them carried away the stanchions, and 
 the weight on the after part of the decks, added to the weak- 
 ness resulting from the breaking of the stanchions, caused the 
 decks to give way even before the fire reached them. I saw 
 women fall into the water with children in their arms and 
 more clinging to their skirts. Others went overboard all afire, 
 and some with their hair or hats, it was hard to see which, 
 burning. I did not see the worst at that, for when the affair 
 was at its worst I was dragging the women and children 
 aboard and had not time to look." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 IDENTIFYING THE DEAD 
 
 Clothing of Victims Searched for EflFects — The Bodies Carefully Tagged — 
 Many Charred Beyond Recognition — Identified by Some Article of 
 Clothing or Trinket — Searching for Loved Ones — Remains Sent to the 
 Morgue — System for Preventing Mistaken Identification. 
 
 The bodies found on the Bronx shore south of North 
 Brother Island after the steamer was beached were piled in 
 heaps at the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth street dock 
 until the police were organized to handle the great crowds 
 that assembled and arrangements made to lay them out for 
 identification at the police station in Alexander avenue. 
 
 Then they were carried from the dock to the station in 
 patrol wagons as fast as they were brought in by tugs, launches 
 and rowboats. Meanwhile police reserves lined the shore. 
 
 WILL BEMEMBER TO HIS DYING DAY 
 
 Inside the station house Coroner Thomas I. Berry of the 
 Bronx and his assistants, Dr. Thomas H. Creighton and Dr. 
 John H. Riegelman, had made arrangements for identifying 
 the dead. The coroner sat at a table in a corner of the room. 
 In front of him was piled a heap of identification slips, ready 
 to be filled in. The process of filling those in will be remem- 
 bered by Coroner Berry to the day of his death. When his 
 task was finished he was sick physically and mentally. 
 
 Most of the bodies were carried to the Department of 
 
 Charities pier, and the morgue at the foot of East Twenty- 
 
 177 
 
178 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 sixth street, where the work of identification was carried on. 
 The monotonous shuffling of the feet, as the endless Hne 
 moved on, was broken nov/ and then by a scream of a woman 
 or the cry of a child, which told that another body had been 
 identified. As each identification was made a policeman 
 stepped up to the mourner, took the name of the body claimed 
 and led the one who made the identification to the coroner's 
 office, where the records were kept and permits of removal 
 given. 
 
 BODIES PLACED IN DOUBLE ROWS 
 
 The facilities of the morgue were insufficient to accommo- 
 date the number of bodies brought in from North Brother 
 Island and other places in the vicinity of the disaster. It was 
 for this reason that the bodies were laid along the Depart- 
 ment of Charities pier; only corpses which were badly burned, 
 or charred beyond recognition, were taken to the morgue 
 proper. 
 
 All of the bodies brought to the morgue and to the pier 
 were wrapped in blankets secured from some of the various 
 hospitals which sent aid, or else covered with tarpaulins or 
 other coverings which were to be found on the steamers. 
 
 Before the boats reached the docks hundreds of rude pine 
 coffins had been secured, the sizes ranging from those for 
 babies in arms to adults, and each body was placed in one of 
 these coffins before being removed to the morgue or to the 
 pier. On the pier the bodies were placed in long double rows, 
 so that the line of persons seeking to identify those missing 
 might pass up one side and down the other and thus see each 
 body laid out. At one time more than two hundred bodies 
 were lying side by side on this pier. Each body had been 
 tagged with a number, to aid in the work of identification. 
 
IDENTIFYING THE DEAD 179 
 
 In a steady line, two abreast, the waiting crowd then was 
 admitted to the pier, passing out toward the river on one side 
 of a row of bodies and coming back toward the land on the 
 other side of another row. The boxes in which the bodies 
 were placed were emergency affairs, the bodies themselves 
 being huddled in as best the men could arrange them in the 
 space of time they had to make the arrangements, and it was 
 hard work in many cases for the relatives and friends to pick 
 out the missing ones. 
 
 POLICE PRECAUTIONS 
 
 Police were stationed every few feet, and theirs was the 
 trying task of restraining husbands and fathers from throwing 
 themselves in a frenzy on the bodies of wives and children as 
 they finally found them in the mute and grewsome line before 
 them. Every few minutes a man or a woman would either 
 shriek in agony and try to throw himself or herself on a pros- 
 trate form, or else would collapse entirely and have to be car- 
 ried in a fainting condition to the outer air, to be revived by 
 the hospital physicians before they could appear before the 
 coroner to give the number of the body identified and secure 
 a permit for its removal. 
 
 MANY CHILDREN AMONG THE IDENTIFIERS 
 
 All night there was a line of undertakers' wagons in East 
 Twenty-sixth street extending all the way from the pier to 
 First avenue, and at times turning well into the avenue. 
 Among the persons seeking to identify dead were many chil- 
 dren, some not more than four or five years old, who had been 
 brought by friends, in whose care they had been left, to 
 identify mothers and brothers and sisters. In many cases 
 mistakes in identification were made at first, but every precau- 
 
i8o NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 tion was taken to prevent this and also the false identification 
 of any body for the purpose of dishonestly taking possession of 
 property belonging to any of the dead. Where missing 
 friends and relatives were not found in the line of dead on 
 the pier, most of the bodies there being those of victims who 
 died by drowning, the persons seeking friends went through 
 the morgue proper to look at the burned bodies and the cloth- 
 ing that remained. 
 
 A FATHER'S LOVE 
 
 The body of Lena Ackerman, sixteen months old, was 
 identified by her father. Mr. Ackerman was walking out on 
 the pier when he saw some photographers slant a coffin 
 against the side of the pier and attempt to take a picture of 
 two bodies therein. He recognized the features of his baby, 
 and, rushing forward, tore the body from the coffin. It was 
 some time before the police could persuade him to give it up. 
 
 Jacob Michael identified the body of his daughter on the 
 island. He was slowly walking along the line of coftins when 
 he suddenly halted, and, with a moan, fell to his knees in sev- 
 eral inches of water, raised the head of a child and began to 
 kiss the cold lips fervently. Earlier in the day the man had 
 been to the morgue and had identified the charred body of his 
 married daughter, and that of his year-old grandson. The 
 bodies of his daughter and grandson had been burned almost 
 beyond recognition, but the stricken parent did not seem as 
 much affected by that awful sight as he was when he saw the 
 little body in the coffm. He had to be dragged from the 
 coffin by police and was forced to leave the pier. 
 
 TIDE TOOK HER BODY HOME 
 
 The body picked up in the river farthest from the scene of 
 the disaster was that of six-year-old Marguerita Heins, of 300 
 
IDENTIFYING THE DEAD i8i 
 
 r^ront street, found floating in the river off the foot of Clinton 
 street. The body had drifted eight miles, and was picked up 
 by the crew of a New York and New Haven Railroad tug 
 within a stone's throve of the child's home. 
 
 The child's father, Henry Heins, had been haunting the 
 morgue for twenty-four hours in an effort to get some trace of 
 the girl. On Wednesday night, while he was at the morgue, 
 he had found the body of his wife, Annie, together with that 
 of his twelve-year-old daughter, Henrietta, and while he 
 inquired for news of his missing daughter, Elsie, aged nine, he 
 begged those at the morgue to make a special effort to fmd 
 his favorite child, Marguerita. 
 
 He remained at the morgue until his friends took him 
 away, and a few minutes later the body of Marguerita arrived in 
 a patrol vv'agon. The tug that had found the body had put in 
 to the dock at the foot of Clinton street and left the corpse 
 there on the pier. It was soon surrounded by a crowd of 
 children from the neighborhood of the Heins home, many of 
 whom immediately identified their playmate's body. 
 
 "It's Margie Heins," remarked a woman in the crowd, "and 
 her home is just up one block and around the corner." 
 
 FAMILIES ALMOST WIPED OUT 
 
 Frederick and Gustave Rheinfrank searched for their two 
 families, saying that in the two families fourteen persons were 
 missing. They were particularly concerned about their aged 
 father and mother, but were unable to find them, and finally 
 Frederick obtained permission to go on the Fidelity to North 
 Brother Island. Gustave waited on the dock to examine any 
 other bodies that might be brought in. Just as the Fidelity 
 pulled out, Gustave saw an old man, shabbily dressed, weeping 
 
i82 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 over the body of his wife, which had just been identified. He 
 heard the man say he had no money with which to pay for a 
 funeral, and, going up to the man, handed him six dollars. 
 Then the big German went away to continue his own search. 
 The beautiful woman whose face wore such a peaceful 
 smile as she lay in her coffin with her baby in her arms, and 
 whose body attracted such attention and interest, was identi- 
 fied as Mrs. Mary Bretz of 304 West Twenty-eighth street. 
 The identification was made by her sister-in-law. 
 
 THE SCENES VARIED LITTLE 
 
 For five hours the tragedy of grief-crazed men and women 
 bending over those drowned women and babies went on. 
 The scenes varied little when identifications were made. 
 Women and men, it was all the same — a frightened, fearful 
 glance, a sudden change in the face, a scream that tore its 
 way from the heart, and a storm of grief that shook the tor- 
 tured mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters until they 
 were led out by the police and taken to their homes. 
 
 ONE OF THE SAVED 
 
 Through it all, her big blue eyes looking straight ahead, 
 her little face quite serene and untroubled, sat a baby girl of 
 four in a big chair at the side of the room. She had come out 
 of the burned boat somehow, nobody knew how, and her yel- 
 low hair and bright red dress were as neat as a pin, with not 
 even a drop of water to spoil its prettiness. Her eyes traveled 
 all about the room, taking in the dreadful figures on the floor, 
 some of them stretched at her feet. She watched the scream- 
 ing women and the moaning men curiously, obviously puzzled 
 as to what it was all about. She v.^asn't frightened at the 
 dead, or shaken by the experiences she herself must have 
 
IDENTIFYING THE DEAD 183 
 
 passed through. Hour by hour she sat in her big chair until 
 a white-faced man burst into the room. Then she scrambled 
 down. 
 
 FOUND BY HER FATHER 
 
 "Oh, papa!" cried the baby. "Where have you been, and 
 where is mamma and brother and sister and baby?" 
 
 The father, who was Charles Kregler of 257 Avenue B, 
 caught up the child in an agony of love and held her close for 
 minutes before he spoke. His wife and Lizzie, the yellow- 
 haired little maiden, together with three other children, had 
 been on the boat. Lizzie he had found, the only child alive in 
 that place of dead children; but his wife and the other chil- 
 dren were not there, living or dead. That alone convinced 
 him they had perished. Otherwise they, too, would have been 
 there. He went away sobbing, holding the child close to him, 
 and the last thing seen of them vv^as a wealth of yellow hair, a 
 red dress and a happy baby smile. 
 
 SEEKERS WHO DID NOT FIND 
 
 Hundreds passed through the room who searched for their 
 dead but failed to find the face they feared to recognize. 
 One man, Charles Schoeffiing of 189 Third avenue, was on the 
 verge of insanity. He bent over the body of a large woman 
 and screamed: 
 
 'It is my wife! My God, it is my Mary!" 
 
 The police tried to calm him, and he started along the row 
 of corpses. Another dress that looked familiar caught his 
 eye, and again he cried that it was his wife. Two policemen 
 went with him arm in arm, appealing to him to be calm, to 
 look close and to make no mistake. A third time he thought 
 he recognized his wife and screamed, until, at last, the police 
 
i84 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 took him away, convinced that the man was mad temporarily 
 from the frightful shock of the news. Before he went he told 
 Coroner Berry that Mary Schoeffling, his wife, and Eddie and 
 Elsie, his children ten and three years old, had been on board 
 the burned steamer. 
 
 THREE SISTERS LOST 
 
 The Fidelity reached the morgue Wednesday night shortly 
 before midnight, bringing five bodies. There was the body of 
 a man, that of a boy child, and those of two women and a girl. 
 The coffin containing the body of the girl had hardly touched 
 the floor before a girl barely more than fourteen years of age 
 made for it. 
 
 "That's Annie," she said. "I've been waiting for her, and 
 Clara is still to be found." 
 
 The girl said that her name was Louise Hagenback. She 
 lives at 102 First avenue. The body identified was that of 
 Annie Scheele, fifteen years old, of 14 St. Mark's place. 
 
 Annie Scheele, with her sisters Clara and Vina, went on 
 the excursion with friends. Their father was at home sick, 
 and their mother stayed behind to take care of him. 
 
 IDENTIFIED BY AN ALUMINUM PLATE 
 
 Another body, that of a ten-year-old schoolboy, was 
 identified by an aluminum tag sewed on the lining of his coat. 
 The bit of metal bore the words: "Frank Delucce goes to 
 P. S." The boy lived at No. 54 East Seventh street. 
 
 Eight bodies were recovered from a hollow in the river 
 bed. The first was that of a well-dressed young woman 
 wrapped in the stars and stripes. She wore a black silk dress, 
 and around it, like a winding sheet, were the folds of a large 
 
IDENTIFYING THE DEAD 185 
 
 silk American flag. It is supposed she became entangled in 
 the flag when she fell overboard. 
 
 MUCH JEWELRY FOUND 
 
 Jewelry was found on nearly all the bodies of the women. 
 On one was a wedding ring, bearing the initials "F. H. to 
 A. T., January 28, 1891." On the body of a woman numbered 
 524 a wedding ring was marked "A. J. to L. K. 51402." 
 Another woman's wedding ring bore the letters "C. D. to 
 M. R., 1Q02." On another body, that of a fourteen-year-old 
 girl, was found a ruby ring in a cluster of pearls, an opal ring, 
 two gold pins and a blue turquoise necklace. On the body of 
 a wonian about twenty-four years old were a solitaire diamond 
 ring and two diamond earrings. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE SURVIVORS 
 
 The Story of Clara Stuer — Awful Scenes Witnessed by Little Sallie 
 Klein — His Dead Wife Smiled — Twenty Boys Form a Bucket Brigade — 
 Annie Weber's Dreadful Narrative— The . Pathetic Tale of Henry 
 Cordes— Freda Gardner, Eight Years Old, Relates Her Experiences — 
 Saw Her Mother Fall Into the Burning Hold — The Statement of 
 John Halphausen. 
 
 Stories told by the survivors of the burning of the General 
 Slocum gave a vivid picture of the terrible swiftness with 
 which death swept the vessel, of the panic which raged over 
 her decks, and of the sudden tragedy which took hundreds of 
 the helpless. Many of those who were rescued had no very 
 clear idea of how they escaped. A man dragged them into a 
 boat or a swimmer brought them ashore. Further details 
 veiy few of them could give. Two things they all agree upon: 
 the tragedy fell with awful swiftness, and the panic aboard the 
 steamer instantaneously swept away every semblance of 
 calmness. 
 
 STATEMENT FROM A CLERGYMAN 
 
 The Rev. Julius G. Schulz of Erie was a passenger on the 
 General Slocum, and witnessed the frightful scenes that fol- 
 lowed the burning of that craft. Mr. Schulz was of the opin- 
 ion that Captain Van Schaick used bad judgment in running 
 the Slocum up stream instead of beaching her on the Sunken 
 Meadows. 
 
 i86 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE SURVIVORS 187 
 
 TRIED TO PRAY 
 
 Freda Gardner, eight years old, was rescued after being in 
 the water fifteen minutes. She was picked up by a man in a 
 rowboat. She says that the first thing she knew of any 
 trouble was when everybody started shouting and running to 
 the stern of the boat. She was knocked down, but managed 
 to get to her feet again. 
 
 A big man stopped and put a life preserver about her. He 
 was praying all the time, and hurried on to help another child. 
 She fell again, and, as she was getting up, somebody, she 
 thinks it was a woman, tore off the life preserver. The smoke 
 was stifling and it was terribly hot. She managed at last to 
 get to the outer rail, but was afraid to jump. 
 
 "A man picked me up and threw me into the water," she 
 said. "I saw him a second later swimming toward me, and it 
 gave me courage. Then he disappeared. A plank came 
 floating by, and I grasped it. It easily supported me. Some- 
 body caught hold of my foot, but let go. All the time I was 
 trying to pray, but could not, because I had gone on the excur- 
 sion without the knowledge of my mother. 
 
 "A man grabbed the plank and was pulling himself up on 
 it, when a woman threw her arms about his neck, and the two 
 slipped back into the water. I managed to say a prayer then 
 and felt better, and I then resolved never again to disobey my 
 mother. I started to pray again, when a man in a rowboat 
 reached out and pulled me in." 
 
 There was the greatest surprise on the part of the mother 
 when her little daughter, wrapped in a great blanket, was 
 carried into the house with her clothing, still wet, in her arms. 
 There was no scolding for the truant arirl. 
 
188 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 A THRILLING STORY 
 
 The story of Clara Stuer, one of the survivors, who suc- 
 ceeded in reaching the home of friends on Seventh street, 
 abounds in thrilling interest. 
 
 "I was sitting on the upper deck with some friends," she 
 said. "They were Miss Millie Mannheimer, Miss Lillie Mann- 
 heimer, her niece, and Walter, the latter's brother, aged 
 eleven. We had just passed the entrance to the Marleni 
 River, and were going slowl}^ when Lillie, who was looking 
 forward, called to her aunt, saying, 'I think the boat is on fire, 
 auntie. See all the smoke.' 'Hush,' replied her aunt, 'you 
 must not talk so; you may create a panic' 
 
 "Lillie would not be silenced, however, and it seemed but 
 a few moments later that there was a roar as though a cannon 
 had been shot off, and the entire bow of the boat was one 
 sheet of flames. The people rushed pell-mell over one 
 another, and in the rush I lost track of my friends. Hundreds 
 of people jumped overboard, being so caught by the flames 
 that escape was impossible. 
 
 "I jumped over the rail, and dropped down to the next 
 lower deck, when I began to dispense with my clothing, so 
 that I would have a better chance in the water. Then I 
 started to climb down the side of the boat, Vv^hen I heard a 
 voice calling to me to hold on a minute. 
 
 "I turned and saw a man standing on the bow of a tug 
 which was approaching. I held on, and was soon taken off 
 with a number of other persons who had been rescued from 
 the boat and from the water. 
 
 SAW THE PASTOR REVIVED 
 
 "As I left the dock I saw, it looked to me, two hundred 
 bodies, mostly of women and children, along the shore, lying 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE SURVIVORS 189 
 
 on the ground. Physicians were working over many of them. 
 In the center of one group I saw the pastor, the Rev. Mr. 
 Haas. Several doctors were doing their best to revive him, 
 and as I stood there he opened his eyes and looked about. 
 His first words were, 'Where are they? Where is my family? 
 Are they saved? Are they dead or alive?' " 
 DRAGGED UNDER WATER 
 
 Bernard Miller called at police headquarters and went to 
 the bureau of information, looking for his wife and four chil- 
 dren. He and his family were all passengers on the General 
 Slocum and all jumped overboard. 
 
 "Myself, my wife, and four sons, whose ages are three, six, 
 nine, and twelve respectively, were sitting on the first deck," 
 he said, "when I saw smoke coming up through the deck in 
 great clouds. The people in the boat acted as though they 
 had lost their minds. I grabbed life preservers, and, after put- 
 ting them on my wife and children, assisted them over the 
 side of the boat into the water. 
 
 "Then I put one on and went after them, telling them to 
 make for the shore. The youngest child was in my wife's 
 arms and she and the three elder started for Randall's Island. 
 I started after, them, but had not taken more than half a dozen 
 strokes when I was surrounded by half a dozen women, who 
 clung to me and dragged mie under. I had all I could do to 
 save myself from being drowned by their frantic efforts to 
 hold on to me, when a rowboat came up and took us all on 
 board. When we got there I searched for my family in vain. 
 They were not to be found." 
 
 LIFEBOATS TIED WITH WIRE 
 
 Nicholas Belzer, an employee of the dock department, went 
 down to the pier at the foot of Third street, looking for his 
 
190 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 wife and child, who had become separated from him in the 
 mad rush at the time of the disaster. 
 
 "I lost track of my wife some time before the fire," he said, 
 "and was sitting on the upper deck when I discovered that the 
 ship was on fire. I drew my penknife and tried to cut away 
 one of the lifeboats, and succeeded in severing the ropes, but 
 when I got this far I discovered that they were also held with 
 wire and were immovable. Seeing that I could do nothing, I 
 climbed over the edge and down to the lower deck, and from 
 there down to the lowest. I then jumped into the river and 
 swam ashore." 
 
 A SCENE OF HORROR 
 
 Henry Cordes, who called at the morgue looking for his 
 mother and brothers and sisters, said that all was orderly on 
 the steamer until some one cried fire, and with one accord 
 every one made for the upper decks. Those who were on the 
 main deck also rushed up the steps to the hurricane deck, 
 until it was crowded to suffocation. The people still kept 
 crowding until there was a crash, the railing gave way, and 
 many were pushed over the edge into the water. He added: 
 
 "As the fire increased and ate away the s'ipports of the 
 deck, the weight became too great, and there 'w^as an awful 
 crash as it caved in, carrying many into the flames. The crew 
 did all they could stretching hose and lowering boats, but the 
 boats on the starboard side could not be used owing to the 
 flames, while the rest would not nearly suffice for the hundreds 
 who were to be saved. 
 
 "The scene when the deck fell in was one of indescribable 
 horror. The flames, roared and licked at the people, who, in 
 their desperation, leaped overboard to escape a worse death, 
 while those who were too late went down into the hell belov/," 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE SURVIVORS 191 
 
 CALLS CREW UNDISCIPLINED 
 
 John Halphusen, sexton of the church, said: 
 "The crew appeared to me to be undiscipHned and unfa- 
 miliar with the working of the liferafts and lifeboats. I was 
 standing beside the pastor nearly all the time. He did every- 
 thing in his power to save the people. I placed my two 
 daughters, Mina, aged twelve, and Clara, aged ten, on the top 
 of the paddlebox and kept them there until a tugboat by the 
 name of Sumner picked all of us up." 
 
 LOOKED FOR HER FAMILY 
 
 The great sense of childish grief over the failure to 
 find her brother, John Klein, and other relatives, saddened 
 little Sallie Klein to such an extent that, child as she was, she 
 seemed to be weighted with the gloom of her bereavement. 
 
 "I was eating lunch when the fire started," she said. "On 
 the deck where I was sitting with my basket some children 
 came running and I heard shouts. 
 
 "Then somebody said 'Fire!' 
 
 "I dropped my basket and looked around for the family. 
 There were fifteen of us. I was left by myself. The flames 
 came up, and a big black smoke, too. I don't think I was 
 afraid. I don't know. I just know that I ran away from the 
 fire, and when I got to the edge of the boat I heard everybody 
 screaming and crying, and I jumped into the water. 
 
 "A man and woman were in the water where I jumped. I 
 caught hold of the man's hair. He went under the water, and 
 then I caught the woman by the foot. She went down, too. 
 When I saw nobody near me to help me I started to paddle 
 out myself. 
 
^gf^g*^ 9HSR1 ^dST -^WJt 
 
 Zl/'THl If/C^ 
 
 - . — ^^ 
 
 J- >t 
 
 •2tKi -n ' '^i£Z vt? 
 
 ^';- -"^* tJr .^m yTA^: f^^-^'y f^i >? 
 
TZ-fn^'fO^nf C'F THE SLTRVrX^OiSS IE2 
 
 lite preservers was so tfrTtHc obe tJue ' Qur'T^irp - tfer.r ssiiDe q£ ts 
 
 were neaHv ciwDked Iw tite seizE..'' 
 
 S!3 TmATl WITS *;■ . ..as 
 
 Walter Peters a£ 50 Aveinie A W25 ^esxaniioig: sil «i^ fiar 
 Bdes baby damgkrer T.iFTa:m, sevesncesni MiQ-inntfes- qM. Hb- -wife's 
 bcxiy Isy at iwDnnme^ 
 
 "I knrow T ■,r[T;;!.n ditdi-Lt cSe' ^t iiiTn: miry wife^'^ iiie ^Eai. ""IMEjr w5fe 
 was drowii'ei., bat ske looks f -f .. - ~ ^ i ifeere's a smmlie qbl 
 ber face- Siie'd nierer ksive. .•-■.■ " —^ if ^■''^ ~" 'Tt 
 
 kiiiowTi diat tke baby was safe. 2 . _- ^ l _ _ _ ._jl was . tf- 
 
 waxtl. biCEt wTiiCTi BDiy wife ^ei^ t&e' bsiBjy was safe, ctsit ^ce* 
 t pTTs ncLie tliat-'^ 
 
 XiS^JSEBBe SEA OP BinMMg JBWiHBfc 
 Mrsw Atnmae Web«er^ brannteti s© tfeax baaidag'es kid kslf iter 
 f2.ce aji<d covered maosz of h-^r '; " .■'-"': "a 
 
 moirb-er's yesxntiiig for k»er ~-^ " ,.:-_. ^ ----j ^ 
 
 trite E'erv trap in wkicik ske. -.- - ■ : " were^ (rrs'frg tmr obl tSoe 
 
 Gpeneral SLocirai. Mor kinsbaaiiiGi,, ^FiraiiDfc WdbiHr,, wiine^ feiD^ct 
 a;^aiiis!t tke ^ajnDSs tryincg' t0> ffinuGl Bms; Ifitiidls cmsss,. 'n nnntiii! t&^r 
 biomed bis clottbes froBimi fers body. toM of Bms fantiie e^octs to 
 wrencb. f- ; ' • ^ - - . - - " - " '^r 
 
 the safer - ._■ ._^ ^ _i^. _...- ^ ^^ ig- 
 
 sea. of str\ __ ^ 
 
 **Tb)ere iDever was 2. kippoer party ':^h.^.-^ we wene wknei we 
 boarded tbe beat Wedmesday iniDOoiMng:7 ^ue said. ""We are 
 ni«em.bers of Sc Mark's Ck'ncnrk amd kad locked ferward to 
 tkis oim rr'ng . Xke c." ' i. wkiejiL I was pre~ 
 
 pariiag tke bimck tk'c ._ ^ - - , ■ : - _- - ■■ ; scarte^i eor^v. Mr 
 
194 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 husband and myself, and my children, Emma, ten years old, 
 and Frank, seven, and my sister Martha Liebenow met my 
 brother Paul Liebenow and his wife, with their six-months- 
 old baby in her arms, and Helen, six years old, and a baby girl 
 three years old at the dock. We had invited them to go with 
 us to the excursion, and we went on board laughing and 
 talking, the children romping ahead with my sister. 
 
 "We went to the middle deck, near the forward part of the 
 boat. The sun was shining and the boat glided through the 
 water so smoothly that the children could play around with- 
 out any danger, and were told to remain within call. The 
 four little ones, my two and my sister-in-law's older children, 
 romped back toward the stern of the boat with my sister. 
 
 "We were sitting in a circle talking when a puff of black 
 smoke came up the stairway leading to the deck below. It 
 was a big puff of smoke and startled every one. 
 
 FLAMES' QUICK SPREAD 
 
 " 'Don't mind that, it is the chowder cooking,' some one 
 said, and then we laughed at our fears, but the laughter 
 changed to a cry of horror when a sheet of flame followed the 
 smoke. 
 
 "I cried for my children, and my sister-in-law, with her 
 baby, ran back to search for her two little ones. The flames 
 kept sweeping up in puffs, each one growing higher and 
 spreading. My husband and my brother had gone to look for 
 the children. 
 
 "Then we were all separated. I rushed here and there, 
 looking for my children and saying to myself that my husband 
 had found them. The flames were sweeping back as the boat 
 raced on, and it was like the breath of a red-hot furnace. 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE SURVIVORS 195 
 
 " 'Get life preservers!' said a man, and we stood up on 
 camp stools and on the benches and reached for the life preserv- 
 ers. Some of them v^e could not budge, and the others pulled 
 to pieces and spilled the crumbs of corks over our heads. The 
 heat was blistering and the flames swept along the roof of the 
 deck and scorched our fingers as we tried to snatch down the 
 life preservers. The flames drove those who were standing 
 around me back and over to the side of the boat. 
 
 "Nobody could live in such heat as that. My face was 
 scorching and my hair caught fire. I went to the side of the 
 boat and swung myself over the side by a rope. Every time 
 my hands, face or body would come in contact with the sides 
 of the vessel it would blister my flesh. 
 
 "DROP OR BURN TO DEATH" 
 
 " 'Drop or burn to death!' some one cried to me. I don't 
 know whether I dropped or whether I was pushed off. I 
 found myself struggling against the water, and it was hot. 
 There were others struggling in the water all around me, and 
 they were pulling each other down. I cried for help and 
 heard a man, who was in the water, tell me to come nearer, 
 that the water was too hot where I was for him to swim in to 
 me. I think I must have caught a rope. I was pulled in 
 shore on North Brother Island and then went back into the 
 water to look for my children. 
 
 "Before I let go of the rope the vessel was one mass of 
 flames. I knew that the children couldn't live there and 
 thought I might keep them from drowning. I found my hus- 
 band, with his clothes burned off, looking for the children, and 
 then they took us both to the hospital. 
 
 "At the hospital I found my brother and his wife. Some 
 
196 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 one restored to them their six-months-old baby, which had 
 been pulled from the water. My two little children and her 
 two little girls are missing. I pray God that they have all 
 been saved." 
 
 "When I ran back to look for my children," said Mr. 
 Weber, "the flames seemed to follow me. I could not find 
 them. It was useless in a moment to look, for the flames 
 were all over the boat, and no one could live. 
 
 BOATS FASTENED WITH WIRE 
 
 "With other men I tried to lower away a lifeboat. We 
 could manage the ropes, but found that the boat was fastened 
 on by wire and could not be lowered. The life preservers 
 were as useless as a handful of sawdust, into which they 
 seemed to crumble at the touch. 
 
 "I jumped to the deck below. There was a man there with 
 a hose, which seemed to be split and broken, and I heard him 
 shout: 
 
 " 'Where's the water? Where's the water?' Then he 
 dropped the hose and jumped for his life. 
 
 "The deck-hands and crew of the boat were absolutely of 
 no aid in saving lives. No one was even warned of the fire. 
 
 "I remained on the boat until my clothing was aflame and 
 then jumped into the vv^ater. It was boiling hot near the boat. 
 I swam around looking for m^^ children and then made for the 
 shore." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 EXPRESSIONS OF SYMPATHY 
 
 President Roosevelt's Message — England Horrified — Offers of Aid from 
 American Cities — President Loubet Cables His Sympathy — Mayor Har- 
 rison Sends a Telegram of Condolence to the New York Executive — 
 Generous Contributions from Wealthy Sympathizers — Letters from 
 Clergymen — Cablegrams from European Monarchs. 
 
 From foreign countries and American cities came hundreds 
 of official and private messages of sympathy to Mayor McClel- 
 lan. President Roosevelt was prompt in tendering condolence 
 and aid; but one of the earliest and most appropriate expres- 
 sions of sorrow and sympathy was the following message from 
 Sir Thomas Lipton: 
 
 FROM SIR THOMAS LIPTON 
 
 Am greatly shocked at terrible disaster which has over- 
 taken your city. The suffering and bereaved have my heart- 
 felt sympathy, and if any pecuniary help is needed would like 
 to contribute $i,ooo. 
 
 MAYOR M'CLELLAN'S RESPONSE 
 
 I thank you in the name of New York for your message of 
 sympathy. While the generous contributions of our citizens 
 will amply provide for the afflicted, we are most grateful for 
 your kind tender of aid. 
 
 FROM THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE OF GLASGOW 
 
 The corporation of Glasgow, in council assembled to-day, 
 
 unanimously passed a resolution expressive of their sincere 
 
 197 
 
198 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 sympathy with those bereaved or injured by the lamentable 
 disaster at New York yesterday. 
 
 Bailie Sorley, Acting Chief Magistrate. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA MAYOR'S OFFER 
 
 Philadelphia is horrified by the news of the fearful accident 
 to the Sunday school children on the General Slocum. Our 
 most sincere sympathy is extended to the parents and friends 
 and we are most anxious to do something to help you in this 
 great affliction. Will you let me know if there is anything we 
 can do to help? 
 
 John Weaver, Mayor of Philadelphia. 
 
 FROM MAYOR HARRISON OF CHICAGO 
 
 Chicago sends to New York her heartfelt and keenest sym- 
 pathy on account of the terrible calamity which has just hap- 
 pened. Our own recent catastrophe makes us mournfully 
 appreciative of the sorrow in which your city has just been 
 plunged. Please command us if we may be of any assistance 
 whatever. Carter H. Harrison, Mayor. 
 
 SYMPATHETIC WORDS FROM INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 The people of Indianapolis sympathize most keenly with 
 you and your people who suffered on account of the appalling 
 disaster on East River. 
 
 John W. Holtzman, Mayor of Indianapolis. 
 
 FROM THE POLISH ALLIANCE 
 
 Please express our deepest sympathy to all who lost their 
 dear ones in the awful disaster. 
 
 Polish National Alliance. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF SYMPATHY igg 
 
 AFRICAN METHODIST BISHOPS UNITE 
 
 In behalf of the Bishops' Council of the African Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, in session, we unite in the universal mourning 
 which the nation is calling forth on account of the lamentable 
 disaster which has suddenly befallen the city of New York, of 
 which you are the honored head, in the loss of hundreds of 
 human lives in the General Slocum disaster. 
 
 W. B. Derrick. 
 B. W. Arnett. 
 
 FROM A SISTER REPUBLIC 
 
 The students of the School of Engineers of Mexico send 
 sympathy for the misfortune befallen the school children on 
 board the General Slocum. 
 
 Cablegrams were exchanged between President Loubet of 
 France and President Roosevelt. 
 
 PRESIDENT LOUBET'S DISPATCH 
 
 Profoundly moved by the awful catastrophe of the General 
 Slocum, I have it at heart to address to your Excellency my 
 sincere condolences and to send to the families of the victims 
 the expression of my sorrowful sympathy. 
 
 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S REPLY 
 
 I profoundly appreciate the friendship and sympathy which 
 prompted your Excellency's telegram of condolence, and I 
 beg you to accept in behalf of the afflicted families and the 
 people of the United States my sincere thanks. 
 
 FROM ARCHBISHOP FARLEY 
 
 Archbishop John M. Farley, of the Diocese of New York, 
 sent the following letter to Dr. Haas: 
 
 Rev. and Dear Sir: I beg to tender you and your afiflicted 
 
200 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 people my most sincere sympathy in the presence of the 
 appalHng calamity that has fallen upon them and you through 
 the burning of the General Slocum; and I know my feelings 
 are fully shared by the whole body of the Catholic clergy and 
 laity of New York. 
 
 May the Giver of all strength comfort you and yours in this 
 their dreadful hour of sorrow. Believe me, my dear sir, 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN EMPEROR 
 
 Rev. George C. F. Haas received the following telegram 
 from Baron Speck von Sternburg, the German Ambassador at 
 Washington, enclosing the following cable message from the 
 German Emperor: 
 
 Rev. George Haas, Sixth street, New York: The follow- 
 ing cablegram has just been communicated to me by His 
 Majesty, the Kaiser: 
 
 Being most profoundly affected by the news of the inde- 
 scribably horrible catastrophe which has overtaken the 
 Lutheran congregation, I command you to express to it my 
 innermost feelings of sorrow. 
 
 In carrying out the command of my most gracious sover- 
 eign, allow me at the same time to offer you my own personal 
 sympathy. STERNr.URG. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN EMPRESS 
 
 Supplementing the Emperor's condolences, came a tele- 
 gram from the Empress of Germany, which was transmitted 
 to the Rev. Mr. Haas by the Ambassador, and of which a 
 translation follows: 
 
 Her Majesty the Empress and Queen has authorized me to 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF SYMPATHY 201 
 
 express her heartiest sympathy for the unspeakable disaster 
 that has brought such great grief into hundreds of German 
 famiHes. I beg Your Reverence to bring this to the notice of 
 those afflicted. 
 
 MAYOR M'CLELLAN'S ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 Mayor McClellan issued the following on Thursday, the 
 day after the catastrophe: 
 
 PROCLAMATION 
 
 To the Citizens of New York: The appalling disaster 
 yesterday, by which more than five hundred men, women and 
 children lost their lives by fire and drowning, has shocked and 
 horrified our city. Knowing the keen sympathy of the people 
 of the City of New York with their stricken fellows, I have 
 appointed a committee of citizens to receive contributions to a 
 fund to provide for the fit and proper burial of the dead, and 
 for such other relief as may be necessary. 
 
 The following gentlemen have been asked to serve on the 
 committee: Morris K. Jesup, Jacob H. Schiff, Herman Rid- 
 der, Charles A. Dickey, Robert A. Van Courtlandt, Erskine 
 Hewitt, Joseph C. Hendrix, Thomas Mulry, George Ehret, 
 John Fox, John Weinacht, and H. B. Scharman. 
 
 Until the committee has had an opportunity to organize I 
 shall be glad to receive contributions at the Mayor's office. 
 
 As a sign of mourning I have ordered the flags on the City 
 Hall to be put at half-mast. 
 
 George B. McClellan, Mayor. 
 
 FLAGS AT HALF-MAST 
 
 The flags of the City Hall and all buildings where city 
 departments are situated were placed at half-mast as soon as 
 the Mayor's order became known. 
 
202 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 The Mayor said: 
 
 "I hope all the gentlemen named in the proclamation will 
 accept. When I hear from them I will call a meeting for pur- 
 poses of organization, after which the committee will under- 
 take relief work and the collection of funds. 
 
 'I cannot estimate the amount of money needed to be 
 raised, but it will certainly be a large sum, because there are 
 so many families who are perhaps not well able to meet the 
 cost of the funerals. 
 
 "A large number of orphans also will have to be cared for. 
 In many cases the head of the family has been lost. Provision 
 ought to be made for these families. 
 
 "For the immediate necessities I have given to the heads 
 of all departments carte blanche in expenditures, stating that 
 any bills they contract in carrying out their work will be met 
 by the Board of Estimate. 
 
 "I have directed Health Commissioner Darlington to bury 
 in Lutheran Cemetery in Long Island City all bodies which 
 cannot be identified. 
 
 "I have nothing but praise for the work of the city 
 employes, who have been busy practically twenty-four hours. 
 I have directed departmental heads to employ laborers to take 
 the place of regular city employes who become exhausted." 
 
 MAYOR'S MESSAGE TO PASTOR 
 
 Mayor McClellan sent the following message to the Rev. 
 George C. F. Haas, pastor of the stricken congregation: 
 
 On behalf of the people of our city, and myself, I express 
 to you and your stricken flock the sentiments of sorrow which 
 pervade this community at the awful calamity which has come 
 upon you. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF SYMPATHY 203 
 
 In the hope that we may lessen in some degree the anguish 
 which you and your people suffer, I have appealed to the 
 generosity of our fellow citizens to render financial aid to those 
 who may need it to care for their sick and to decently bury 
 their dead. 
 
 We all hope that courage may be given you to bear up 
 under your great af^iction. 
 
 PRODUCE EXCHANGE RESOLUTIONS 
 
 At a meeting of the board of managers of the Produce 
 Exchange the following resolutions were unanimously 
 adopted: 
 
 Whereas, in the burning of the excursion steamer Genera] 
 Slocum,and the fearful and sad loss of life occasioned thereby, 
 our city has been visited with a calamity unprecedented in its 
 awful character, and. 
 
 Whereas, in the terrific death suffered by so many, espe- 
 cially by helpless children, bereavement with its consequent 
 sorrow has entered so many homes, bowing everywhere hearts 
 with grief, and awakening the deepest sympathy, be it 
 
 Resolved, that the New York Produce Exchange, through 
 its board of managers, tenders to the Rev. G. C. F. Haas, and 
 through him to his church and to all bereaved families, this 
 expression of its deep sorrow, and its tender and heartfelt 
 sympathy with one and all the suffering ones in this hour of 
 grief. 
 
 CATHOLIC CLUB WILL AID 
 
 At the meeting of the Catholic Club of New York, Thomas 
 C. O'Sullivan introduced the following resolutions, which were 
 adopted unanimously: 
 
 The Catholic Club, mindful that the issues of life and death 
 
204 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 rest in the power of an All Wise Providence, but yielding to 
 natural grief caused by the appalling disaster which has 
 wrapped the city in profound gloom, records this minute of its 
 sympathy for the afflicted congregation of St. Mark's German 
 Lutheran Church in the deplorable loss of life happening on 
 their excursion yesterday. The Catholic Club desires that its 
 president, Justice Giegerich, express to the Rev. George C. F. 
 Haas, pastor of the St. Mark's German Lutheran Church, its 
 deep and prayerful sympathy for his people, in this, their hour 
 of trial, and its willingness to cooperate with him in any plan 
 of financial aid. 
 
 FROM THE LONDON SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION 
 
 The following cablegram was received from London: 
 Sunday School Union, representing two and a half million 
 workers, scholars, Great Britain and colonies, assures church 
 and relatives of profound sympathy at the time of this appal- 
 ling disaster. Heartfelt prayers. Father may vouchsafe 
 comfort and sustaining grace. 
 
 Belsey, Chairman. 
 
 FROM THE SALVATION ARMY 
 
 Col. Charles Miles, of the Salvation Army of New York 
 City, sent the following message: 
 
 Salvation Army sends to you and your people profound 
 sympathy. We are praying. If we can serve you command 
 us. We are holding memorial services in all corps Sunday. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 
 
 A Happy Party of Children — A Freight of Youthful Happiness — The Little 
 Tots Flock Together — No Hint of Danger — Eating Ice Cream When 
 the Fire Started — Looking Forward to a Day on Long Island — Tiny 
 Toddlers Lost from Their Mothers — Baby Heroes and Heroines — 
 Mothers Crazed With Panic— Empty Benches in Schools. 
 
 An eye-witness who saw the army of joyful children march- 
 ing to the boat said it was one of the gayest that ever started 
 from New York. The day was as perfect as is ever known in 
 this section, and this of itself had caused the boat to be 
 crowded, not only with members of the church, but with out- 
 siders who took this opportunity of spending a delightful day 
 in the country, and far from the noisy turmoil of New York. 
 
 CKOWDED WITH CHILDREN 
 
 As the Slocum swung into the stream and headed north- 
 ward, it was saluted by all passing craft. Forward the band 
 was playing lively, summery airs, and from every part of the 
 boat floated flags and streamers. 
 
 The great excursion steamer carried a freight of human 
 happiness. Everywhere the little ones crowded, gazing over 
 the side at the rushing water that swept past the swift steamer 
 or at the fleet of river craft that passed the Slocum in only 
 one direction, for the great paddle wheels sent her at a rate 
 that made it impossible for any to pass her. 
 
 Later, this very fact added hundreds to the death list of 
 
 205 
 
2o6 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 the Slocum, for the boats that followed the burning steamer in 
 the hope of rescuing those in danger found it impossible to 
 overtake her. Within half an hour the crowd on the boat 
 had coagulated into little groups. 
 
 Neighbors, friends, relatives formed little parties and 
 gathered together in corners or in sections of the boat, the 
 children flocking about by themselves and straying far from 
 their parents or guardians of the day. There was no hint of 
 danger, and they were permitted to go where they pleased 
 without restraint. 
 
 Around the band were gathered hundreds of the little ones, 
 and even on the upper decks they were huddled together in 
 little flocks. 
 
 HAPPINESS EVERYWHERE 
 
 In a short time long tables were set out on the cool, shady 
 afterdeck, and a rush carried hundreds of the children in 
 laughing groups to where the dainty, tasteful mounds of ice 
 cream and long glasses of ice-cold sodawater and lemonade 
 were being handed out to the little ones. Around these tables 
 the children were gathered in a laughing, scrambling, good- 
 natured swarm, when the first note of warning came from the 
 deck below. 
 
 On the main deck had gathered the few men in the party. 
 They had been smoking and talking as they watched the shore 
 lines glide by on either side, and it was feared that a lighted 
 cigar tossed carelessly aside may have been responsible for 
 the fearful disaster. 
 
 EMPTY BENCHES IN SCHOOLS 
 
 No more startling evidence of the slaughter of the inno- 
 cents which accompanied the General Slocum disaster could 
 
SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 207 
 
 be found than in the rows of empty benches in the schools, 
 which the children who went down on the calamitous excur- 
 sion attended, and which are located in the neighborhood of 
 Pastor Haas's church. 
 
 Of these the most seriously affected was Public School 25, 
 on Fifth street near First avenue, over which a pall of mourn- 
 ing hung for many days. The majority of the two thousand 
 pupils are related to the dead or missing parishioners, and 
 many of the scholars were lost on the vessel. In the class- 
 rooms Thursday morning there were whole rows of empty 
 desks and little of the work of the curriculum was carried out. 
 
 The children who attended came into the class-rooms, their 
 eyes red from weeping, and little knots of scholars stood 
 about discussing the probable fate of their companions. The 
 little girls were most affected when they heard that one of 
 their friends had met death, and the boys, trying to be brave, 
 often burst into uncontrollable fits of weeping. 
 
 No. 25 is, however, not the only school that has felt the 
 hand of swift death. Superintendent Maxwell received the 
 following reports from six of the thirteen schools in the 
 vicinity of the stricken church, showing the list of missing. 
 
 DEAD, INJURED AND MISSING SCHOOL CHILDREN 
 
 No. 25, 326 Fifth street: — Boys' department, 17 dead, 33 
 missing, 10 injured. Girls' department, 34 dead, 35 missing, 6 
 injured. 
 
 No. 79, 38 First street: — i dead, 2 missing, 5 injured. 
 
 No. 131, 273 Second street: — i dead, i missing. 
 
 No. 15, 728 Fifth street: — i dead, i missing. 
 
 No. 105, 269 East Fourth street: — 2 dead, 2 injured. 
 
 No. 126, 536 East Twelfth street: — 2 missing. 
 
2o8 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 No. 36, 710 East Ninth street: — 5 missing. 
 
 No. 71, 188 Seventh street: — 14 missing. 
 
 No. 104, 413 East Sixteenth street: — 5 missing or dead. 
 
 No. 50, 211 East Twentieth street: — 13 missing or dead. 
 
 No. jTyy 209 East Forty-sixth street: — i dead or missing. 
 
 No. 19, 344 East Fourteenth street: — Grammar department, 
 18 missing; primary department, 5 missing. 
 
 No. 122, Ninth street and First avenue: — 21 dead 
 
 No. 129, 433 East Nineteenth street: — 19 missing or dead. 
 
 Superintendent Maxwell and President Rogers of the 
 Board of Education sent out the following circular to the 
 principals of schools on Thursday: 
 
 "By an appalling calamity some hundreds of public school 
 children and their friends and relatives were overtaken by 
 sudden death yesterday in the East River, and many others 
 were grievously wounded. The households stricken by this 
 disaster will have the heartfelt sympathy of all public school 
 children and teachers. As an expression of our sympathy, 
 flags will be displayed at half-mast on all public school build- 
 ings throughout the city from 8 o'clock a. m. to 3:30 o'clock 
 p. m. Friday, June 17. 
 
 "Principals and teachers will take the opportunity to 
 admonish their pupils to remain cool and collected in the 
 presence of sudden danger, which is always imminent in a 
 great city; not to risk their lives unnecessarily; to learn to 
 swim; and always to be ready to lend a helping hand to those 
 weaker than themselves. 
 
 "The records of this disaster furnish abundant illustration 
 of heroism, the effect of which should not be lost upon our 
 children." 
 
FIVE DEAD IN ONE HOME 
 
 This picture represents the crape-hung door of a home, made desolate by the 
 burning of the General Slocum. With the exception of the father, August Dippert, 
 who bade his wife good-bye on the morning of the disaster, the entire family was 
 wiped out— mother, wife and three children losing their lives. 
 
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REV. GEORGE C. F. HAAS 
 
 PASTOR OF ST. M.\KK"S GKRMAN LUTHERAS CHURCH 
 
SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 209 
 
 "NUMBER 144" 
 
 A baby boy was washed ashore by the tide. His clothes 
 were drenched, but they were not torn. And around his neck 
 he still wore the sky-blue ribbon marked in black letters "St. 
 Marcus's Sonntag Schule," which proclaimed him one of the 
 few survivors of the last Slaughter of Innocents. 
 
 In Superintendent Daub's arms he was hurried to Lebanon 
 Hospital, where Nurse McCallum, in charge of the childrens' 
 ward, undressed him and put him in a little white-enameled 
 bed and marked him 144. 
 
 One hundred and forty-four he remained until a bent, gray- 
 haired old lady tottered into the ward in charge of Nurse 
 McCallum, took one look at him as he lay asleep and gathered 
 him in her arms. 
 
 She was Mrs. Augusta Debit of No. 328 Sixth street and 
 the baby was her grandson Charles Debit, ten months old. 
 
 She was the last of more than two hundred distracted men 
 and women who since Wednesday afternoon visited the chil- 
 dren's ward in their hunt for "little blond babies." 
 
 LOOKING FOR A BLOND BABY 
 
 "They all seemed to be looking for blond babies," said the 
 nurse. Miss McCallum. "When they were told in the office 
 that we had one baby here answering to that description their 
 faces would brighten and they could hardly wait for me to 
 bring them upstairs. But when they had looked at No. 144 
 they would shake their heads, and the mothers, and sometimes 
 the fathers, too, would break down and sob. 
 
 "I am not a sensitive woman. I have watched the most 
 cruel surgical operations without flinching — even the sight of 
 the maimed and charred adult victims of the wreck did not 
 
210 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 destroy my nerve. But when I saw that little baby look up 
 
 into the faces of the strange women who bent over his crib, 
 
 and lift up his little arms and coo at them, and then saw the 
 
 mothers shake their heads and turn away sobbing, I cried — I 
 
 couldn't help it. 
 
 SORRY TO PART WITH BABY 
 
 "He was such a sweet little baby that I was really very 
 sorry to part with him. I almost wished he would never be 
 claimed. He did not cry at all when he was picked up, but 
 after he was brought here he clamored for food. He was very 
 hungry. I tried to give him milk out of a cup, but he was too 
 young for that, and wouldn't take it. But when I fixed some 
 in a bottle for him he was happy. I couldn't get the bottle 
 away from him. Why, he drank sixteen ounces of milk before 
 he would give it up. 
 
 "After that he never cried once all the time he was here. 
 He would lie in his cot smiling, or else coo at the nurses to 
 make them take him up and walk with him. 
 
 KEEPS RIBBON AS SOUVENIR 
 
 "We were all sorry to part with him, but I have a souvenir 
 of him that I am going to keep always— the little blue Sunday 
 school ribbon he wore around his neck when he was washed 
 ashore." 
 
 DEATH DUE TO A LIFE PRESERVER 
 
 John Kircher visited the morgue and identified the body of 
 his seven-year-old daughter Elsie. Mr. Kircher directly 
 charged that her death was due to a life preserver, which 
 served as a death-trap instead of a safeguard. He made the 
 following statement: 
 
 "My wife and our three children, Elsie the youngest, and 
 two others, went on the excursion. My wife is a fine swim- 
 
SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 211 
 
 mer, and is perfectly at home in the water. When the fire 
 broke out and the panic started, she gathered the children 
 together and thought out the best thing to do. She decided 
 to put a life preserver on Elsie, as she could not swim, 
 although the other two could a little. 
 
 "Thinking that the little girl would be perfectly safe with 
 the preserver on, she lifted her to the rail and dropped her 
 over the side. She waited for Elsie to come up. But the 
 child never appeared. She had sunk as though a stone were 
 tied to her. Then my wife and the other two children jumped 
 in, and mostly by her efforts all three got safely ashore. The 
 only one lost was the one who wore a life preserver." 
 
 TATE OF LITTLE JENNIE 
 
 Coming down the steps of the Little Missionary Day 
 Nursery, in St. Mark's Place, one German woman met another 
 who was just going in. 
 
 "They've found little Jennie's body," said the first woman. 
 "They've brought her home; Miss Curry's been laying her out. 
 I'm going over to see her. Will you come?" 
 
 The two women passed up Avenue A to a tenement house 
 just below Thirteenth street, and through a dark hallway lead- 
 ing to an inner court, and there, in a small room filled with 
 women sitting silently around the bier, was Jennie — happily 
 not disfigured; her face was as dimpled and round and her 
 brown curls as neatly arranged as when she led in the doll 
 drill at the last festival given by the nursery. Her mother, a 
 working woman, a widow with no other child but Tennie, sat 
 beside her absolutely stonelike in her grief. 
 
 "They say she cannot cry," one of the women whispered to 
 the other as they went out, "but I guess maybe when Jennie's 
 
212 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCLJRSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 taken away and she begins to pick up her little things, then 
 
 she cries." 
 
 A BORN MOTHER 
 
 Everybod}^ who knew anything of the Little Missionary 
 Day Nursery knew Jennie Eisler. "She was a baby when her 
 mother first brought her to us," said Miss Curry, the manager, 
 and when she was little more than a baby she took care of 
 the other babies. She was a born 'little mother.' When she 
 was a tiny thing of four or five, just promoted to the kinder- 
 garten, if she chanced to hear a baby crying in the nursery 
 behind the kindergarten room — left alone in its cradle, per- 
 haps, for a minute — first thing the teacher knew Jennie had 
 slipped out from the circle, and she would find her standing on 
 tiptoe by the baby's side, hushing it in her motherly little way." 
 
 On Wednesday morning Jennie's mother, who had to work 
 and so could not go upon the excursion, put her in charge of a 
 young girl, a neighbor, who promised to take care of her. It 
 is said the girl lost her life trymg to save the child. All 
 Wednesday night and Thursday Miss Curry and Jennie's 
 mother searched for the two who had not come home, and on 
 Thursday, at midnight, they found them in the morgue 
 PARENTS AND CHILDREN DIED TOGETHER 
 
 "Were any of your babies left motherless by the tragedyi^" 
 Miss Curry was asked. 
 
 "None of our babies. Indeed, in most cases the mothers 
 who went took their young babies with them, and they died 
 together. But many older children are orphaned. The sad- 
 dest case I know was that of the Burkharts. They are not 
 our nursery children; I happened on them while looking for 
 some one else. The father of this family has been bedridden 
 with rheumatism, and his wife supported him and the six chil- 
 
SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 213 
 
 dren Some one gave her tickets for the excursion, and the 
 husband told her to go and take the baby and the oldest little 
 boy and the other children could stay with him. The boy was 
 saved; mother and baby were lost. When 1 went into their 
 room on Friday morning-a wretched little room-the man 
 had dragged himself out of bed and sat there, head down; I 
 could hardly get him to speak. The five children were hud- 
 dled around him, looking scared and hungry. While I was 
 
 talking I happened to mention a remedy I thought would help 
 
 the man's rheumatism. 
 
 " 'You'll only need five cents' worth,' I said. 
 
 " T haf not five cents,' he answered, and it was true; he had 
 
 not a penny in the world. Thank God, I could leave some 
 
 food, and I gave their names to the relief committee." 
 
 "But these relief committees," said a woman who stood 
 
 near, shaking her head, "they have so much red tape." 
 
 LEFT ALONE IN THE WORLD 
 
 On Friday morning, as Miss Curry was preparing the 
 bodies of a mother and her baby for burial in a tenement on 
 Sixth street, she heard a boy come running Into the rooms on 
 the floor below. "Mamma," he cried, "mamma, are you 
 home>" This boy had boarded the General Slocum on 
 Wednesday with his mother and sisters-the entire family. 
 When the panic came he was somehow separated from them 
 all He saw a little child that was separated from its mother, 
 and fastening it on his back he swam ashore. He was in the 
 hospital on North Brother Island for a day with some small 
 injury, and then he was sent home. But his mother and sis- 
 ters had not come home; they were with the unidentified dead, 
 and the boy stays on alone there, looked after by neighbors. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MEMORIAL SERVICES 
 
 Comforting Words from Clergymen — A Sad Sabbath — Pathetic Scenes at 
 Church — Quotations from Addresses of Noted Divines — A Whole City 
 Mourns — Churches of Every Denomination Send Messages — Prayers are 
 Read — Bells are Tolled during the Funerals. 
 
 There were more than a hundred ministers, representing 
 nearly every denomination, at the memorial meeting in St. 
 Mark's Church in Sixth. street, held under the auspices of the 
 Lutheran Ministers' Association. The Rev. Dr. William R. 
 Huntington, rector of the Grace Episcopal Church, was there, 
 and Rabbi Joseph Silverman, of the Temple Emanu-El. The 
 purpose was to take such steps as were necessary to relieve 
 those who had lost relatives. 
 
 FIRST MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 The meeting was called to order by the Rev. John J. Hirsch- 
 man, of St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Brooklyn, and President 
 of the New York Ministerium of the New York Synod of the 
 Lutheran Church. Resolutions expressing the sorrow of the 
 community for those in bereavement were adopted, followed 
 by the singing of the hymn, "Wer Weis Wie Nahe Mir Mein 
 Ende?" which, translated, is "Who Knows How Near My End 
 May Be?" It was decided to have the^ unidentified buried in 
 the Lutheran Cemetery, in a plot that the cemetery authorities 
 have offered for the purpose. It was also agreed that 
 
 memorial services be held in all Lutheran churches. The 
 
 214 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICES 215 
 
 Rev. Dr. Berkemeir, of the Wartburg Orphan Home, at 
 Mount Vernon, announced that that institution would accept 
 the charge of Httle ones bereft of parents. 
 
 RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES FORGOTTEN 
 
 The Rev. J. VJ. Loch, of Brooklyn, was made chairman of 
 the relief committee, the other members being the Rev. Dr. 
 John J. Hirschman, and the Rev. E. C. J. Kraeling, also of 
 Brooklyn. This committee was to cooperate with the com- 
 mittee appointed by Mayor McClellan. Arrangements were 
 then made for the attendance of the Lutheran pastors at the 
 various funerals. Clergymen of all denominations offered 
 their services for the ceremonies at the homes of the dead. 
 
 ALL LUTHERAN TO-DAY 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Huntington, of the Grace Episcopal Church, 
 was among the first at the meeting to express sympathy and 
 sorrow for the bereaved parish. Dr. Huntington said: "I am 
 here to convey to you the Episcopal Church's and my personal 
 expression of sorrow and to extend to you whatever aid is in 
 my power and in that of the staff of the Grace Church. 
 Fourteen of my own people were lost in the sad catastrophe 
 and your sorrow is my sorrow. We are all Lutheran to-day." 
 
 "WE SHARE YOUR LOSS" 
 
 Rabbi Silverman, of Temple Emanu-El, said: "I come to 
 you as a minister of God to express the sympathy of my 
 people. We feel and share your loss. It is our misfortune, not 
 yours alone. Where we can help, we must help and will help." 
 
 With considerable emotion the Rev. Dr. Hirschman said: 
 "The brightest thought in this our dark hour is the fraternal 
 sympathy not only of Protestant churches, but of the Church 
 of Rome." 
 
2i6 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 EXPRESSIONS OF SYMPATHY FROM ALL DENOMINATIONS 
 
 Expressions of sympathy were uttered by representatives 
 of the Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and other denomina- 
 tions. The Lutheran clergymen adjourned to the rectory 
 directly in the rear of St. Mark's Church after the meeting, 
 where they began the work of assigning their members to the 
 conduct of funeral services. 
 
 Memorial services were held on the Sunday following the 
 disaster in churches all over the city for those who perished in 
 the Slocum disaster, and special prayers were said by the con- 
 gregations. In the stricken district every church, without 
 respect to creed, was draped in deepest mourning. In many 
 of these and other churches the collections taken were for the 
 swelling of the fund now being collected for the benefit of the 
 sufferers. 
 
 GOD'S WAYS ARE HIGHER THAN OURS 
 
 The Rev. Dr. John B. Remensnyder, President of the 
 Lutheran Synod of New York, took the loss of the Slocum as 
 the theme of his discourse. 
 
 "The whole city," he said, "the entire country, aye, the 
 world, is startled by the blow. The tragedy stands unexam- 
 pled of its kind. A church is almost destroyed. A Sunday 
 school is nearly depopulated. And what brings it very closely 
 home to us is that those people were of our own faith and 
 name." 
 
 Still, he counseled his hearers, they should not lose faith. 
 "Enough," he said, "that God's ways are higher than our ways, 
 and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. Because His 
 ways are in the great deep, let us not question them. Let us, 
 while set to thinking by this fearful visitation, apply to our 
 conscience its pointed lesson." 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICES ^ 217 
 
 SPECIAL SERVICES 
 
 Signally impressive were the services held in the Middle 
 Dutch Church on Second avenue, near Sixth street. In the 
 Slocum disaster the lives of seventy-three members of this 
 church or their relatives were lost. Before beginning his ser- 
 mon the Rev. Dr. John C. Fagg announced the hymn^"Come, 
 Ye Disconsolate." It was softly sung by the congregation, 
 and at its conclusion the pastor read a list containing the 
 names of those of the church who had perished. From the 
 Sunday school there are six dead and five missing. From the 
 Industrial School ten are dead and three are missing. Forty- 
 one children identified with the congregation were on the 
 Slocum, and of these twenty-four were lost. 
 
 There were special services at the Immanuel Lutheran 
 Church, Lexington avenue and Eighty-eighth street, of which 
 the Rev. William Schoenfeldt is pastor. 
 
 At the Evangelical Lutheran Church, in East Houston 
 street, the Rev. Julius Geyer, in speaking of the disaster, said: 
 "The disaster was a visitation of God. Although we do not 
 know His purpose at this time, it will be cleared up to us." 
 He then paid tribute to the memory of John Hendencamp, a 
 deacon of the church, who was among those who perished. 
 
 Mgr. Lavelle, in his sermon at St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
 referred to the Slocum disaster as an evidence of the uncer- 
 tainty of life and the necessity for better living. At all masses 
 said during the day a special prayer for the victims of the 
 disaster was offered. The prayer was repeated at the Cath- 
 olic churches. 
 
 THE ACT OF MAN 
 
 The Rev. John L. Helford, the pastor of Sts. Peter and 
 Paul, in Wythe avenue, Williamsburg, said: 
 
2i8 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 "If a cowardly crew seeks Its own safety instead of fighting 
 fire or saving the helpless, the disgrace is not due to Provi- 
 dence, but to selfish and base humanity. To drive a boat at 
 full speed with a burning furnace in her bow seems madness. 
 To expect God to change the laws of nature would be pre- 
 sumption. The disaster was not the act of God. It is the 
 act of man. It comes from greed, neglect of duty, from 
 defiance of law and conscience." 
 
 PRAYERS ARE READ 
 
 At Bishop Potter's recommendation, the prayer for those in 
 great distress and illness was read in the Episcopal churches 
 of the cit5^ The Rev. Dr. George C. Houghton, pastor of 
 the "Little Church Around the Corner," made reference at 
 the morning services to the calamity. He asked for the 
 prayers of his congregation in behalf of the stricken con- 
 gregation. Other preachers throughout the city made refer- 
 ence to the Slocum disaster. The Rev. Henry Ruggles 
 Remsen of Calvary Episcopal Church, Fourth avenue and 
 Twenty-first street, said: 
 
 "Our first idea is, of course, one of sympathy for the 
 stricken congregation of St. Mark's, which has suffered such 
 appalling losses. After its lesson our committee was unwilling 
 to accept the great responsibility involved in taking children 
 out in steamboats evidently not safe, and I now announce that 
 the excursion arranged by Calvary Church for July 20th has 
 been abandoned." 
 
 SIN AND GREED THE CAUSES 
 
 The Rev. Dr. James Oliver Wilson, at the Nostrand Ave- 
 nue Church, Brooklyn, said: "But for sin in the Knickerbocker 
 Company, the sin of greed and carelessness, the boat would 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICES 219 
 
 not have burned. Four firemen properly stationed, with hose 
 that was not rotten, could have checked any fire that might 
 have broken out. But these four firemen would have cost the 
 company ten dollars a day, and that would affect the profits 
 and dividends, and v/as not to be thought of. What if nine 
 hundred souls do perish? We must not imperil the divi- 
 dends. Thus the sin of greed in the company overreached 
 itself and destroyed nine hundred lives. And hundreds of 
 rotten life preservers are chargeable to the same sin of greed. 
 I charge this appalling disaster, those rotten life preservers, 
 and rotten hose and lack of firemen, not to God's account, but 
 to the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company. And also the 
 cowardly conduct of most of the crev/, who saved themselves 
 by letting the women and children perish. And if this be not 
 enough, then bring in the Steamboat Inspector for his shame- 
 ful share of this slaughter of the innocents. Sin in the cor- 
 poration, sin in the inspector, and in the cowardly crew, 
 occasioned this awful tragedy." 
 
 PRACTICAL AND SPIRITUAL LESSONS 
 
 The Rev. Dr. John Lloyd Lee, at the Westminster Presby- 
 terian Church, said: "With the growth of corporations, there 
 is a tendency to eliminate the individual, so that no one person 
 will be held responsible when something goes wrong. A 
 special effort should be made to meet the circumstances grow- 
 ing out of this situation, and those who should see to it that 
 steamboats are in proper condition should be held to a strict 
 accountability." 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Huntington, at Grace Church, said: "These 
 poor sufferers have not died in vain if, following upon their 
 dreadful pains, there comes better shipbuilding regulations, 
 
220 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 more rigid inspections of steam vessels, and stricter discipline 
 aboard of vessels carrying human life." 
 
 "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God," was 
 the text of the Rev. Dr. Robert S. MacArthur at the Calvary 
 Baptist Church. The entire service — music, sermon and 
 prayers — was a memorial for the dead of the St. Mark's 
 Lutheran Church Sunday school excursion. 
 
 "There has been no calamity so great in the history of this 
 city," said Dr. MacArthur, "and the sorrow is not peculiar to 
 any race, church or section of New York. 
 
 "The disaster abounds in practical and spiritual lessons. 
 In the first place it belongs to the great mystery in human 
 existence. 
 
 "This was not, however, what is known in a legal sense as 
 an 'act of God.' We err if we blame God for the neglect of 
 man. God is not responsible for our violation of nature's 
 laws. The problem in the steamboat is the same as that in 
 the creation of Adam. Men who built the boat were under 
 obligation to obey the law and imder temptation to disobey. 
 They yielded to temptation." 
 
 Speaking of acts of heroism on the General Slocum, Dr. 
 MacArthur said: 
 
 "The discipline of the police force was shown at its best. 
 The men on the tugs fighting in the midst of flames, the nurse 
 learning to swim in saving others, the policeman saving twelve 
 and willing to lose his life to save the thirteenth, ought to have 
 crowns radiant with stars. 
 
 "The sense of brotherhood has bee(n strong in every soul 
 since this disaster. We have learned the lesson of sympathy. 
 We must learn that of precaution. Theaters and ocean 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICES 221 
 
 steamers have been made virtually fireproof. Why not the 
 excursion boats? There should be steel sheathing around 
 boilers and fireproof construction in deck work. There has 
 been deliberate violation of many of the laws of safety. One 
 takes his life in his hand when he goes on an excursion boat. 
 It is a reproach on the science of the times and the civilization 
 of America and a reflection upon the intelligonce and benevo- 
 ence of the people." 
 
 SOCIETY WAS RESPONSIBLE 
 
 At the Lenox Avenue Unitarian Church the pastor, the 
 Rev. Merle St. Croix Wright, preached on the subject, "Inter- 
 pretations of Providence in the Face of Disaster." He said in 
 part: "This has not been misfortune onl}'; the fault lies else- 
 where. It is fault, abominable fault, of a third party. Did the 
 simple, innocent people who went to their destruction have 
 any hand in it? Did God have a hand in it? Yes, as He has 
 in everything. But the culpability lies with those who failed 
 of their antecedent duty, who slacked and skimped what they 
 should have done. This thing was long gathering. It was 
 not the work of an instant. We can find in this horror an 
 indictment in which we all are concerned to some extent, 
 though not equally. 
 
 "Society is responsible, at least through its agents and 
 inspectors, in view of the fact that it was necessary for it to be 
 waked out of its miserable, sleepy negligence by an appalling 
 horror." 
 
 THE RESULT OF OUR SYSTEM OF POLITICS 
 
 The Rev. Joseph Silverman, pastor of Temple Emanu-El, 
 Fifth avenue and Forty-third street, in a sermon fixed the 
 responsibility for the General Slocum disaster upon our polit- 
 
222 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 ical system; the greed and selfishness of corporations; the 
 violation of laws and the dereliction of duty of officers. He 
 said in part: 
 
 "Words fail us to express our sympathy on the one hand 
 and our abhorrence on the other. This seeming accident 
 must be sifted to the bottom to fix the responsibility at the 
 door of those to whom it belongs. It is only by the merest 
 chance that we who are now living are not victims of a similar 
 accident. Yesterday I went to that section of the city where 
 the affliction fell. Groups of men, women and children gath- 
 ered together, and with flowing tears commiserated with one 
 another. We protest at the violation of law responsible for 
 all this bereavement. In the midst of this great gloom there 
 is one ray of cheer, that is, that all hearts arc touched alike by 
 this calamity. 
 
 "While we feel for the victims and for the sufferers, the 
 question before us now is, What must be done for the future 
 protection of our people? The dead of this calamity must be 
 buried with all honor, whether known or unknown, identified 
 or unidentified; for these are the dead not of the individual 
 family, but of the city and nation. 
 
 "This calamity is the result of our system of politics, and 
 that reprehensible trait of human nature, greed and selfish- 
 ness. The crime has been committed by the corporation, by 
 officers who have been derelict in duty — that will be the ver- 
 dict of just judges. Greed and sidfishness in the race after 
 wealth overlooked the safety of human beings. 
 
 'The result of this will be greater care for tlie future, due 
 regard for the safety of the people. The citizens of the city, 
 State and nation will be aroused to see that officers do their 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICES 223 
 
 duty and that the majesty of the law is upheld, which is the 
 only safety of a republic. We must see to it that we create 
 better means of carrying humanity about on railways and in 
 steamboats, and that the enactments of our legislature are 
 preserved. 
 
 "Our city will survive the dire disaster, and as a result we 
 will live better, hope for better things and secure peace not 
 only in heaven but on earth." 
 
 TOLLING THE CHURCH BELLS 
 
 As a mark of respect to the dead of the General Slocum 
 disaster, as well as an expression of sympathy by the people 
 of the whole city for the grief-stricken relatives, the suggestion 
 was made that all the churches of the city toll their bells on 
 Monday afternoon between two and three o'clock. Bishop 
 Potter, to whom the idea was broached, very warmly 
 favored the suggestion, and prominent clergymen who were 
 seen agreed that the idea, if carried out, would be an appro- 
 priate expression of the city's sympathy with the bereaved 
 congregation of St. Mark's Church. 
 
 Speaking for the Rev. Mr. Haas, pastor of St. Mark's 
 Church, who was too ill to be seen, the Rev. A. Steimle, pastor 
 of Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn, said: "It would be a beau- 
 tiful expression of sympathy by the people of New York for 
 the sorrowing members of St. Mark's, and I am sure that it 
 would be received with most heartfelt appreciation by the 
 congregation. Everybody has been so kind; people of all 
 denominations have showered us with offers of help and 
 expressions of sympathy and we are overwhelmed by these 
 manifestations of kindness. To have all the church bells toll 
 
 \ 
 
224 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 on Monday would be a most appropriate tribute of the city's 
 sorrow." 
 
 MANY PASTORS APPROVE 
 
 The Rev. William R. Huntington, rector of Grace Church, 
 said that he cordially approved the idea; that if Mayor 
 McClellan requested it the chimes of Grace Church would be 
 tolled for the victims of the General Slocum in unison with 
 the bells of other chu^-ches. 
 
 The Rev. John G. Fagg, pastor of the Collegiate Reformed 
 Church, in whose congregation there are nearly seventy dead, 
 said: "While we have agreed to have as little publicity as 
 possible in connection with the funerals, it seems to me that 
 the tolling of the church bells would not be out of place and 
 I would not be opposed to it." 
 
 The Rev. W. Ludwig, pastor of St. Luke's Lutheran 
 Church, of Brooklyn; the Rev. Jacob W. Loch, pastor of the 
 Schermerhorn Street Lutheran Church, Brooklyn, and the 
 Rev. E. Kraeling, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Brooklyn, 
 were in accord in favoring the suggestion. 
 
 A FITTING MARK OF RESPECT 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Houghton, rector of the Little Church Around 
 the Corner, said that he thoroughly approved of the plan. 
 "Prayers were offered in our church for the dead," he said. "It 
 is right that a mark of respect be shown the victims of the awful 
 disaster. I cannot express my sorrow and grief too deeply." 
 
 The Rev. J. Ross Stevenson, minister of the Fifth Avenue 
 Presbyterian Church, said: "Though our church has no bells, 
 I am in sympathy with the idea. Some way of showing sym- 
 pathy for the families of the lost by tolling bells or displaying 
 flags would be appropriate. Perhaps some of the churches that 
 do not possess bells could raise flags as a mark of respect." 
 
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MEMORIAL SERVICES 225 
 
 The Rev. Arthur W. Byrt, pastor of the Warren Street 
 Methodist Church of Brooklyn, said that anything tending to 
 show the city's sympathy with the bereaved of St. Mark's 
 Church would be very appropriate and he heartily favored 
 having the church bells of the city toll on Monday afternoon. 
 
 "It is a beautiful idea," said the Rev. W.J. Hutchins, of the 
 Bradford Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn. 
 
 "I favor the idea very heartily," said the Rev. Macy McGee 
 Waters of the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church of 
 Brooklyn. "It would be a fine expression of sympathy for the 
 bereaved people." 
 
 PASTOR HAAS'S FIRST SERMON 
 
 "Believe in Him Always" is a text in German scrolled upon 
 a beautiful stained-glass memorial window in St. Mark's 
 Lutheran Church in Sixth street. It was upon these words that 
 the gaze of Rev. Dr. George C. F. Haas rested nearly all the 
 time as he delivered his first sermon since the blotting out of 
 two-thirds of his congregation by the General Slocum disaster. 
 
 It was a sad morning for the handful of men, women and 
 children left of the congregation. The exterior of the little 
 brick church was draped in long streamers of black cloth. 
 Nearly every woman present wore a long black crape veil. 
 Men of the congregation also were in black, and during the 
 entire morning there were tears and sobs and fainting women, 
 while stalwart men sobbed under the stress of the memory of 
 their dead. Bandaged heads and scarred faces here and 
 there marked the survivors of the disaster. 
 
 FEW CHILDREN LEFT 
 
 Pastor Haas, white-faced, trembling, tried to open the 
 usual Sunday schools session of the church. The Sunday 
 
226 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 school room in the basement has always been too small for 
 the children. It was designed not long ago to enlarge it. 
 There is no need now. Three benches held all the children 
 left of the Sunday school that used to fill to overflowing a row 
 of twenty-five benches. 
 
 THE PASTOR OVERCOME 
 
 The memory of this seemed to sweep over Pastor Haas 
 when he arose to open the service and thought of his pretty 
 daughter and bright-faced wife, who used to sit over at one 
 side of the school-room. 
 
 "My dear children," said the pastor in German, "we are 
 gathered here at this sad time " 
 
 Then the speaker faltered, and then, as he sobbed in bitter 
 grief, the Rev. Dr. J. P. Holstein, who was assisting him, led 
 the stricken pastor away from the awe-stricken children. 
 
 Later, in the church itself, Pastor Haas preached his ser- 
 mon. Before he began, a broken choir, two members of which 
 had perished on the General Slocum, sang a quaint old 
 Lutheran choral. Pastor Haas's son played the organ. 
 
 "Fast goes the time," sang the choir in a low chant, that 
 sounded the keynote of sorrow upon which the services were 
 set. "Then comes the death. Unannounced, death's hand 
 may strike us. Oh, God, I pray have mercy on me when my 
 end comes." 
 
 In his sermon Pastor Haas scored in temperate but vigor- 
 ous words those responsible for the accident. 
 
 IT WAS NOT THE ACT OF GOD 
 
 "It was not God," he said, "who was responsible for this 
 long list of our dead. It was the negligence and carelessness 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICES 227 
 
 of man and the greed of a corporation. Yet in my bitter sor- 
 row I can still thank God for it all, because He has opened the 
 eyes of men and women in our great city and in the whole 
 country to what is required and necessary to save others from 
 a like fate. No one on that fatal boat died in vain." 
 
 The pastor took his text from St. Paul's second epistle to 
 the Corinthians, xiii, 13: "All the saints salute you." 
 
 "I have been through many a sorrow in life before this last 
 one," he said. "I have been through many a hard struggle, 
 but for the last two weeks it has been difficult for me to bear up 
 under my burden. It equally has been difficult for you of my 
 congregation to bear up, and to us all it seems that so much 
 sorrow should not be brought upon us all by a just and loving 
 God. To the officers and teachers of our church who have 
 gone we can lend no helping hand. To those left we can say 
 we must just continue our work. We must not give up. 'All 
 the saints salute you.' 
 
 "This accident shows that God's laws cannot be violated 
 by men. Common, everyday precautions would have been 
 enough to have saved us all. Yet, in this darkest hour, and 
 with all the burden of affliction that has come upon us, I still 
 look up to God. He strikes a silence at our murmurs." 
 
 LOVE LIVES FOREVER 
 
 Pastor Haas called on the congregation to bear up, for, as 
 he expressed it, "Even though the beloved ones have gone, 
 the loved ones still live." 
 
 "Love cannot be killed," the speaker added. "We can 
 hold our love as a memory of our dead. What is a calamity 
 may be in fact a blessing, and though the cross be heavy it 
 will not be made too heavy for us to carry." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 NOBLE WORK AT THE HOSPITALS 
 
 Physicians and Nurses Act as Life-Savers — Burned Children Tenderly Cared 
 for — Setting a Baby's Broken Jaw — Caring for the Injured at North 
 Brother Island — Heroic Nurses Brave Death to Aid the Help- 
 less Ones — No Work Too Hard for Them — Energy Born of Desperation 
 — Clamoring, Frantic Men and Women — An All-Night Task — The City 
 Hospitals. 
 
 There were many heroic acts performed by the women of 
 North Brother Island in rescuing the Hving and caring for the 
 dead in the terrible catastrophe. Officials and maids, women 
 of education and position, humble scrubwomen and servants, 
 they gave themselves royally. Those who could swim risked 
 their lives not more generously than those who could not 
 swim. Delicate girls swam out to the wreck or stood up to 
 their armpits in the water as long as there was a soul they 
 could save, and their devotion was equaled by those who on 
 the shore worked to bring back the spark of life as long as 
 there was a ray of hope. 
 
 PULLED FROM THE PADDLEWHEEL 
 
 One of the most brilliant acts of heroism was that of 
 Pauline Pultz, a slender girl of seventeen years, who swam out 
 to the stern, pulled a child from the revolving paddlewheel, 
 brought it safely to shore, and then, finding that its jaw was 
 fractured, set the jaw. Pauline is a waitress. Sitting on the 
 
 back stoop of the doctor's house, in her plain black gown and 
 
 228 
 
NOBLE WORK AT THE HOSPITALS 229 
 
 waitress's apron, she told briefly the story of what she had 
 done. 
 
 "My father taught me to swim when I was seven or eight. 
 I used to teach swimming at Twenty-fourth street. As soon 
 as I saw there was a vessel on fire, I pulled off my oxford ties 
 and ripped off my apron. 
 
 " 'Don't go,' cried one of the girls, 'you'll die!' 
 
 " 'I must go,' I replied. 'I can't see those people drown 
 without giving a hand.' 
 
 "They tried to hold me back by my skirt, but I let them 
 pull my skirt off me and rushed into the water in my petticoat. 
 
 " 'In God's name, jump!' I called to the people. 'Throw 
 your babies overboard; we'll catch them.' 
 
 SAVED MANY LIVES 
 
 "There was a woman who stood on the upper deck in the 
 bow, with her baby in her arms, crying for help. I swam out 
 to her. She ran back near to the paddlewheel and threw the 
 baby by mistake right into the wheel. The wheel was going. 
 I swam up, and supporting myself with one hand, with the 
 other pulled the baby out from the churning waters, and ran 
 up with it to one of the boatmen's rooms. Then I saw the 
 little thing's jaw was broken. So I laid it on the bed and set 
 the bone in place. I'm not a nurse. I never set a bone before 
 in my life. I couldn't do it again. 
 
 "Then I went back into the water and with a rope brought 
 out a group of three girls. One was a girl of sixteen, another 
 was a young married woman who had lost two children, and 
 the other was a young woman. One of them was named 
 Annie. That's all I know about any of them. The next 
 time, as I was swimming out, a large woman who was lying on 
 
230 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 top of the water and looked to be dead caught me by the neck 
 in a death grip. I had to fight for my Hfe. When they 
 dragged us out I fainted. The woman was badly wounded. 
 Afterward I helped to bandage her arm. I saved five from 
 the boat and had pulled in ever so many by the time I 
 fainted." 
 
 Pauline Pultz's tremendous exertions may cost her dear. 
 By jumping down from the paddlewheel she bruised her foot 
 and is hobbling around in consequence. Yesterday afternoon, 
 after waiting on table as if nothing had happened, she fainted 
 dead away, and when she came to was carried off to bed 
 hysterical. 
 
 FED THE CHILDREN 
 
 And then there was Mary Clarke, tall, dark, with a thin, 
 worn face and eloquent eyes, a chambermaid. 
 
 "I was drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen when I heard 
 the whistle, and, thinking it might be the Edison on fire, I 
 rushed down to the pier," she said. "When I saw the steamer 
 all on fire, and the people crowded in the stern, I ran along 
 the banks calling to them to jump. When they did jump, they 
 fell right one on top of the other. Then I saw the rail give 
 way. As I pulled the children out, Alice Meinhart, a kitchen 
 maid, took them out of my arms, and fed them with hot milk 
 and put them in dry clothes. 
 
 "I was changing the clothes of a little boy of nine or ten I'd 
 pulled out. 'Leave me,' he says, 'and go to some one who is 
 hurt worse.' He lived in Second avenue. 'I'm so glad mother 
 didn't come,' he says, 'or else she and baby would have been 
 lost; 
 
 "He was the manliest little fellow I ever saw. But they 
 
NOBLE WORK AT THE HOSPITALS 231 
 
 were all brave. Everybody wanted some one else to be 
 helped first. I also saved an older boy, who had had the skin 
 burned off both his hands, and two women." 
 
 A HEROIC COOK 
 
 The story of the heroism of the workingwomen of North 
 Brother Island — the scrubwomen, laundresses and wait- 
 resses — just the plain, simple people who day after day go 
 about their humble tasks without acknowledgment of any 
 kind, will never be known. Take Catherine Hanley, the cook. 
 All that terrible Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night 
 she stood over the range in the big kitchen preparing soup 
 and sending it down by the bucketful to the workers at the 
 water's edge. She would take no rest, except to go to the 
 beach and help the others. Kate Duffy, a cook, was another 
 heroine. All day and night she slaved, heating milk and 
 soup. 
 
 THEY DID THEIR DUTY 
 
 Mary Maher, a helper in the measles ward, was making 
 toast for a patient when the alarm came. A few minutes 
 later she was standing in the water nearly up to her waist. 
 She saved three boys and one woman, besides one woman who 
 proved to be dead. "I only did my duty," said Mary. 
 
 Margaret Lawrence, another helper, rushed out without 
 her stockings, and with the water above her waist rescued 
 three boys, three babies, one man and three women. 
 
 'T worked until 8:30 in the evening in and out of the water, 
 and then I began covering the faces of the dead." 
 
 SUCCORED THE VICTIMS 
 
 Magnificent as was the heroism of all the women on the 
 island, none behaved more gallantly than Miss White, the 
 
232 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 superintendent of nurses, and Mrs. Smith, the matron. And 
 none, it is safe to say, carried such a weight of responsibiHty. 
 For not only were they straining every nerve to succor the 
 victims of the wreck — they were responsible at the same time 
 for the lives and comfort of the patients in the wards. Miss 
 Smith had the nurses working under her resuscitating the 
 more dead than alive bodies as they were dragged ashore. 
 Mrs. Smith was responsible for all the supplies of blankets, 
 stimulants, clothing and food. For two whole days they did 
 not have six hours' sleep, but in their white uniforms they were 
 as neat, as calm, as thoughtful for others, as if nothing unusual 
 had happened. 
 
 "We couldn't all go into the water," said Mrs. Smith. "It 
 wouldn't have been any use for us to have got the people out 
 of the water and then left them on the bank. As soon as a 
 body was brought in, a nurse set to work to resuscitate it. 
 Some of the nurses were asleep when the accident happened. 
 They threw their mackintoshes over their nightdresses and 
 rushed down with bandages and medicaments in their hands, 
 and worked till they were wet to the skin up to their waists 
 over the dripping bodies." 
 
 DROPPED FROM EXHAUSTION 
 
 Miss White herself worked till she dropped from exhaus- 
 tion, trying to induce artificial respiration in the half-drowned 
 children and women. She showed how it is done — the arms 
 raised over the head, then brought down to the sides, the 
 chest forcibly depressed, then the body rolled over a barrel, 
 face down, to force the water from the lungs. 
 
 "At first we had no barrels," she went on, "so we rolled 
 them over our knees. 
 
NOBLE WORK AT THE HOSPITALS 233 
 
 "The nurses worked heroically, but I will not say that they 
 deserve more credit than the others. Nurses expect to sacri- 
 fice themselves, and without acknowledgment or recompense — 
 it is our business," she added, smiling wanly. (When a woman 
 has gone fifty-seven hours on five hours' sleep she is apt to 
 look wan.) "But the conduct of the ward helpers and other 
 women employees was superb. 
 
 "No, I won't say anything about myself — I haven't done 
 anything, and I won't let you say I have." Then, "This little 
 building is the chapel. We laid the corpses in a row along 
 that wall," and she pointed to the shabby side of the low build- 
 ing. "Do you see how these trees are scorched right up to the 
 top? That is with the flames from the burning steamer." 
 She showed a splendid maple, by the water's edge, seared to 
 its crown. "On this lawn we laid four hundred bodies in 
 rows — first the living, then the dead." 
 
 REVIVING THE INJURED 
 
 Miss White was equally matter of fact with regard to 
 herself. 
 
 "As soon as the General Slocum came around the point I 
 sent back for cheesecloth and bandaging muslin," she said. 
 "While Mrs. Smith and the nurses were busy bringing the vic- 
 tims to, I went back and got whisky and more bandages and 
 cheesecloth. Then I started out to see what I could do 
 myself. I tried several times to get up to the wreck, but the 
 heat was so intense I could not, until I put the skirt of my 
 dress over my face. In that way I was able to wade out up to 
 my knees. The call came for ladders. There was no one to 
 go for them, so I went. They were thirty-five feet long and 
 dreadfully heavy, but I dragged them down to the water. I 
 
234 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 never could have done it if I had been in my senses. I didn't 
 know anything or feel anything. 
 
 "I saw a boy and his mother drifting in. He was a fine 
 looking lad of about twelve. I lay down on the sea-wall on my 
 stomach and called to him to hold on to his mother, and I 
 would get her out. He had his hand under her chin and was 
 paddling along as well as he could. She was unconscious, and 
 weighed, I should think, 250 pounds. Somehow I got her up 
 over the sea-wall and kneaded the water out of her. She lived, 
 I think. In reading over the list of injured I fancied the boy 
 might be No. 47 in Lincoln Hospital. 
 
 "As soon as the injured revived we wrapped them in blan- 
 kets and brought them up to the hospital. We stripped the 
 place of blankets. We used up four hundred sheets and as 
 many pillow cases. The nurses had their shoes and uniforms 
 destroyed by the mud and water and torn to pieces on the 
 rocks. Some of them lost three uniforms." 
 
 AT THE HOSPITALS 
 
 The hospitals to which the injured of the Slocum were 
 taken — Lebanon, Lincoln and Harlem — were the scenes of 
 what seemed to be an endless search for many of the excur- 
 sionists from whom nothing has been heard and whose names 
 are among those of the missing. Hoping that in the wards of 
 one of these institutions they might find some trace of the 
 missing ones, members of the bereaved families flocked there 
 in scores, only to pass along the rows of white beds without 
 finding those for whom they looked; all of the hospital 
 patients had already been identified. 
 
 At all of the hospitals, although the attendants knew that 
 the search for missing ones would be unavailing there, the 
 
NOBLE WORK AT THE HOSPITALS 235 
 
 greatest consideration was shown to all callers, so that the 
 doubt and anxiety could at once be removed from their minds. 
 
 The story of the noble work done by physicians and nurses 
 at the various city hospitals will never be told. It was a labor 
 of love, cheerfully performed, and every one was loud in 
 praise of their noble efforts to relieve the suffering, minister 
 to the dying and care for the dead victims of the Slocum 
 disaster. The following public recognition, in the shape of a 
 telegram from the president of the Lebanon Hospital, of the 
 splendid work done by Superintendent William Daub, his 
 daughter Hannah, and the doctors and nurses of the hospital, 
 in caring for the injured is only one of many such communica- 
 tions received by the heads of this and other hospitals. 
 
 "William Daub, Superintendent: Directors of hospital 
 appreciate highly the indefatigable efforts of your heroic staff, 
 assisted by doctors, nurses and your daughter, in the unfortu- 
 nate Slocum disaster." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 FUNERALS OF THE VICTIMS 
 
 Funerals from Dawn to Dark — Morbid Crowds — Burial of Mrs. Haas — The 
 Unknown Dead — Children Take Part in the Ceremonies — Curiosity 
 Seekers— The Child with the Rose. 
 
 Nearly a hundred funerals of victims of the Slocum disaster 
 were held daily until all the bodies had been buried, and on 
 account of the demand for hearses and carriages the cere- 
 monies began early in the morning and lasted until late at 
 night. In many instances two coffins were carried in the 
 same hearse, and in some cases two and even three hearses 
 carried away the dead of a single family. In every side street 
 and along the avenues from First to Eighteenth and Avenue 
 A to Third avenue there was at least one funeral. 
 
 CARRIAGES AND HEARSES GOING TO AND FRO 
 
 In the streets immediately surrounding St. Mark's Church 
 carriages and hearses were going to and fro all day long. In 
 Fifth, Sixth and Seventh streets, between First and Second 
 avenues, the curbs were lined continuously with hearses and 
 carriages. Wagons and messengers hurried here and there 
 with flowers, and crowds of friends of the v?c*"ims lined the 
 sidewalks. 
 
 In nearly every instance friends of the victims accompanied 
 the funeral for at least three or four blocks, marching in col- 
 umns of twos, the head of which would be on a line with the 
 
 hearse. 
 
 256 
 
FUNERALS OF THE VICTIMS 237 
 
 In some cases the morbid throngs so crowded the rooms 
 that the bereaved families had difficulty in reaching the 
 coffins, while throngs of the morbidly curious even tried to 
 force their way into the carriages, in some instances being 
 restrained only by the threats of arrest made by the police. 
 
 AT THE LUTHERAN CEMETERY 
 
 One hundred and fifty-nine bodies were buried in the 
 Lutheran Cemetery at Middle Village. Five others were 
 buried at Mount Olivet, close by, and six in Linden Hill 
 Cemetery, which is not far from the Lutheran. 
 
 The funerals began arriving not long after the noon hour. 
 It was dark and lanterns were used to light the graves when 
 the last coffins were lowered. At times there were long waits 
 for the mourners, as the carriages could only enter the ceme- 
 tery a few at a time, and at periods the congestion caused 
 funerals to become blocked a mile from the gates. Not less 
 than twenty-five thousand sight-seers, in addition to the 
 mourners, visited the cemetery, and thousands lined the 
 various avenues of approach to see the long line of funerals 
 pass. 
 
 A little before the middle of the afternoon Borough Presi- 
 dent Cassidyof Queens drove to the cemetery. The clouds of 
 dust caused him to marshal immediately a force of sprinkling 
 carts. 
 
 HANDLING_THE CROWD 
 
 Police Inspector Kane, with a force of one hundred and 
 seventy men, aided by Central Office men from Manhattan 
 and Brooklyn, handled the great crowd in and around the 
 cemetery successfully, and only one case called for ambulance 
 treatment. There was constant danger in the cemetery that 
 
238 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 some of the over-curious would be forced into the many open 
 graves which gaped in all parts of the grounds. This was 
 prevented by hard work by the police. Many women fainted 
 in the course of the afternoon, but all were revived at a hotel 
 near the entrance. 
 
 One woman fainted at the funeral of a friend. She fell, 
 and her left arm, turning under her, was broken. She was 
 removed to the German Hospital in Brooklyn. 
 
 DEMAND FOR BURIAL PLOTS 
 
 The approaches to the cemetery were policed by a squad 
 of mounted patrolmen. So great was the demand for new 
 plots that the cemetery officials had to sell plots in a section 
 which they had not expected to use this year. Men worked 
 all night clearing away the underbrush which had been 
 allowed to grow on this tract, and graves were opened for use. 
 
 CHILDREN'S SERVICES 
 
 There were services Sunday morning in the chapel in the 
 cemetery, and in the afternoon the children of the Lutheran 
 Sunday school in Middle Village took part in a service. 
 Eighty-seven, ranging in years from five to ten, each carried a 
 single potted plant, and, under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. 
 Peterson, marched from the main entrance to the plot where 
 eleven unidentified children were buried. After a prayer by 
 Dr. Peterson, the children grouped about the plot sang 
 "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Then the plants carried by the 
 children were planted on the plot. 
 
 TEE FUNERAL OF MRS. HAAS 
 
 Pathetic incidents marked the funeral of Mrs. Anna Haas, 
 wife of the pastor of St. Mark's Church. No one but family 
 
FUNERALS OF THE VICTIMS 239 
 
 friends and clergymen of the Lutheran Church were admitted 
 to the darkened parlors of the parsonage at No. 74 Seventh 
 street, where the services were held. 
 
 Although the husband, suffering from injuries received in 
 the disaster and crushed under the grief of his loss, was barely 
 able to leave his bed, he insisted upon sitting beside the body 
 of his wife. Miss Emma Haas, his sister and organist of the 
 church, was carried into the parlor on a stretcher with her 
 head swathed in bandages. She was rescued from the wreck 
 of the Slocum in what was at first supposed to be a dying con- 
 dition. It was against the advice of her physicians that she 
 attended her sister-in-law's funeral. 
 
 PHYSICAL AND MENTAL TORTURE 
 
 Throughout the services a doctor sat beside the stretcher 
 administering restoratives from time to time to the woman, 
 tortured alike by her wounds and her grief. Peculiarly simple 
 were the services. The Rev. J. W. Loch, of the Schermerhorn 
 German Lutheran Church of Brooklyn, offered the prayer, 
 then followed the reading of the Ninetieth Psalm by the Rev. 
 Hugo Hofemann of St. Paul's German Lutheran Church, 
 and a brief sermon by the Rev. Alexander Lichter of Hoboken. 
 The sermon was a brief eulogy of the dead. It concluded 
 with the words: 
 
 "We must all be good Christians, recognizing in this 
 tragedy, most appalling, the inscrutable hand of the Divine 
 Providence. In times like these, we must show the world that 
 our faith in God is unshaken." 
 
 The Lord's Prayer and the benediction concluded the 
 services. 
 
 In the street fronting the parsonage an immense crowd had 
 
240 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 congregated, held in check by a strong police guard under the 
 personal command of Inspector Schmittberger. A single 
 hearse stood in front of the door, but an hour passed before 
 the dead body of the pastor's wife was carried out. 
 
 The body of Mrs. Titamore of Brooklyn, a sister of Mrs. 
 Haas, had been identified at the morgue and arrangements 
 were hastily made to have the two bodies buried together. 
 So while the silent crowd waited and wondered at the unac- 
 countable delay, family friends were hurriedly preparing the 
 sister's body for burial. Its arrival in a second hearse was the 
 signal for the funeral cortege to start. 
 
 Pastor Haas followed the bodies to the grave. He was 
 urged by physicians and friends to abandon the attempt and 
 return to his bed, but he waved them off with a trembling 
 hand and said: 
 
 "No, gentlemen, she was a devoted wife, and though it kills 
 me I shall pay her this last tribute." 
 
 Twenty-eight Lutheran ministers attended the funeral 
 services of the pastor's wife and followed the bodies to the 
 Lutheran Cemetery in Queens County. 
 
 FUNERAL OF HENRY SEIFERT 
 
 The funeral of Henry Seifert was held at the Twenty-third 
 street branch of the Young Men's Christian Association. Mr. 
 Seifert had been for two months the social secretary of the 
 branch, his duties being especially to meet strangers and 
 to encourage friendliness and sociability among the members. 
 He was a member of St. Mark's Church, and was practically a 
 member of the family of the pastor, Mr. Haas, being accus- 
 tomed to stay in his house when in the city. He was just 
 about to graduate from the training school of the Young 
 
FUNERALS OF THE VICTIMS 241 
 
 Men's Christian Association at Springfield, Mass. Burial was 
 in the Young Men's Christian Association plot at Woodlawn. 
 
 TRY TO FORCE THEIR WAY INTO CARRIAGES 
 
 Five thousand persons crowded into East Ninth street, the 
 majority to see the hearses and carriages depart from the 
 home of Edward and Charles Schmid, where Catharine 
 Schmid, wife of Edward and mother of Charles Schmid, lay 
 dead. In coffins in the same room were the bodies of Kate 
 Schmid and Arthur Schmid, wife and son of Charles Schmid. 
 The little parlor and other rooms in the Schmid apartments 
 were crowded to suffocation by a curious throng, for the most 
 part attracted by morbid curiosity. It was with great diffi- 
 culty that the relatives and friends of the bereaved family 
 gained access to the apartment. 
 
 THE UNKNOWN DEAD 
 
 The Slocum's nameless dead, buried Saturday, tier on tier, 
 in a grim trench in the Lutheran Cemetery, Middle Village, 
 Long Island, were remembered Sunday by the little children 
 of the Trinity Evangelical Church there, who marched to 
 the cemetery with arms full of flowers and smothered the 
 unmarked graves beneath fragrant blossoms. 
 
 The gracious deed of the little ones, prompted by the sym- 
 pathy they felt for those who had none to mourn them, was 
 witnessed by thousands of men and women, the great majority 
 of whom had come to the cemetery to visit the graves of loved 
 ones, or to bury their dead, victims of the same disaster which 
 had filled the trench. 
 
 FEW DRY EYES IN THE MULTITUDE 
 
 There were few dry eyes in the multitude which looked on, 
 as the children, one by one, filed past the trench, which had 
 
242 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 been filled Saturday night, and tenderly placed their flowers 
 above the dead. When the last child had passed, the clodded 
 earth was no longer to be seen. The children had left behind 
 them a great mound of flowers. 
 
 The placing of flowers was preceded by a service conducted 
 by the Rev. Dr. Peterson, the pastor of Trinity Church. The 
 children sang as requiems hymns especially selected for the 
 occasion, and joined in the recital of the creed and the Lord's 
 Prayer. One of the hymns, the German song "Where Doth 
 the Soul Find Its Home?" seemed especially in keeping with 
 the occasion, having in its strains all the woe of a miserere. 
 
 There were over two hundred children in line when the 
 march past the great unmarked grave began, and there was 
 not one who came empty-handed. 
 
 ENORMOUS CROWD AT THE CEMETERY 
 
 Not less than fifty thousand visited the Lutheran Cemetery 
 Sunday. From the time the gates were opened in the morn- 
 ing until long after night had fallen the chapel bell at its 
 entrance tolled continually. There was no break in the line 
 of funeral processions which filed by. When the last hearse 
 had passed there were 159 newly-made graves in the burial 
 ground. 
 
 In the lanes between the tombs in both the old and the 
 new divisions of the cemetery there was constant confusion 
 resulting from the influx of funerals. At one time there were 
 seventeen hearses waiting in the main avenue of the nevv^ 
 cemetery to reach the public burying ground, while as many 
 more were almost hopelessly tangled on the side avenues. 
 
 In anticipation of the funerals fixed for Sunday, a large 
 detail of police was early on hand. Their work was almost 
 
FUNERALS OF THE VICTIMS 243 
 
 invaluable in the turmoil which came with the advent of thou- 
 sands of mourners. 
 
 MANY CURIOSITY SEEKERS 
 
 When the first funeral party reached the cemetery it found 
 the street before it lined with flower vendors who had dis- 
 counted the demand for their wares. There were vendors, 
 too, of all manner of eatables and drinkables. By noon the 
 stream of funeral processions was well under way, and every 
 car which arrived was filled to its capacity. 
 
 With the afternoon came many curiosity seekers, whose 
 presence complicated matters still further. Every hearse was 
 followed by them, and they elbowed the mourners for advan- 
 tageous places by graves beside which funeral parties had 
 gathered. 
 
 A MILITARY FUNERAL 
 
 A funeral which resulted in a great crush was that of John 
 Schaefer, whose body was identified at the morgue on Thurs- 
 day. Mr. Schaefer, who was but twenty-six years of age, was 
 a veteran of the Spanish war and a member of the William 
 H. Hubbell Camp of Veterans, Brooklyn. He got a military 
 burial. Draped in the United States flag, his body was fol- 
 lowed to the grave by his comrades. The hearse was pre- 
 ceded by a brass band, which as it entered the cemetery gates 
 played the "Dead March" from "Saul." The solemn strains 
 attracted every sight-seer within hearing, and the police had 
 to open a way for the procession to pass. The services at the 
 grave were conducted by the Rev. William H. Green, the 
 chaplain of the command. 
 
 WANTED FOUR GRAVES 
 
 When the line at the office of the cemetery's superin- 
 tendent was longest a wild-eyed man approached an officer 
 
244 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 who was on duty there and said that he wished to secure four 
 graves. 
 
 "I want one for my wife," he told the roundsman, "and two 
 for my children. When I bury them I will use the fourth one 
 for myself. I will have nothing left to live for." 
 
 The officer tried to comfort the disconsolate man, who 
 finally walked away, weeping softly. "I would have arrested 
 him at any other time than this," said he. "But I hadn't the 
 heart to do so under the circumstances." 
 
 "CHILD WITH THE ROSE" 
 
 "The child with the rose," as it was referred to at the 
 morgue, received a separate funeral. The baby girl, a year 
 old, was in the first lot of bodies from the wreck sent to the 
 morgue. Yet no one called for it. No one identified it. No 
 one asked about a baby that could possibly fit the description 
 of this one. 
 
 Every day the great crowds that called to try to identify 
 bodies passed by this one. It excited comments, and one 
 little girl placed a rose upon it, but though its rich dress indi- 
 cated well-to-do parents, no one claimed it. It became the 
 "child with the rose," and it was sent to the grave that way. 
 
 The Stephen Merritt Burial Company took charge of the 
 burial. They held a service for the child in their chapel, and 
 a funeral and interment in keeping with the great sympathy 
 the child's fate had aroused. The pink rose, too, was buried 
 with her. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE CORONER'S INQUEST 
 
 Testimony of Owners and Crew of the Slocum — No Fire Precautions — Refuse 
 to Testify — Bursting of the Hose — Only One Member of the Crew 
 Drowned — Hero Day at the Inquiry — Scum of Powdered Cork on the 
 Water — Rotten Hose and Useless Life Preservers — The Survivors Tes- 
 tify — Held to the Grand Jury. 
 
 The inquest was held in the large drill room of the Second 
 Battery Armory at One Hundred and Seventy-seventh street 
 and Bathgate avenue. Monday morning, June 20th, all the 
 arrangements w^ere as nearly perfect as it was possible to 
 make them. Technically the inquest was upon the death of 
 only one of the victims, which one was not announced. 
 
 SPECTATORS IN MOURNING 
 
 In the body of the room were many women in mourning, 
 survivors of the disaster, who had lost husbands and children. 
 Some of these still had their arms and heads bound in band- 
 ages, and wept quietly as the details of the tragedy were 
 brought out. A great number of exhibits were in court, includ- 
 ing one of the standpipes of the vessel, sections of hose, life 
 preservers and various other odds and ends. 
 
 The examination of witnesses was conducted by Assistant 
 
 District Attorney Garvan. Ex-Judge Dittenhoefer appeared 
 
 as personal counsel for President Barnaby; Terence McManus 
 
 for the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company, and Assistant 
 
 United States District Attorney Wise for the Government. 
 
 245 
 
246 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 S.J. Gilbert appeared for Steamboat Inspector Lundberg, who 
 was one of those who inspected the Slocum, and John D. 
 Lindsay, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Children, was also in attendance. Among the others who 
 attended were Inspector Lundberg, General Uhler, inspector 
 general of the department in Washington; Robert S. Rodie, 
 the chief inspector for the district; Deputy Fire Commissioner 
 Churchill, and Fire Marshal Seery. 
 
 WIDE SCOPE OF INQUEST 
 
 After the consultation between Coroner Berry and Mr. 
 Garvan it was announced that the inquest would be made to 
 include the whole of the Slocum's death roll. During the 
 examination of witnesses all other witnesses except the injured 
 passengers were excluded from the courtroom. 
 
 Frank A. Barnaby, president of the Knickerbocker Steam- 
 boat Company, who lives at 150 West Fifty-seventh street, 
 was the first witness called. Mr. Barnaby, at the request of 
 Mr. Garvan, produced a number of bills which he said were 
 for life preservers, fire apparatus, and engines for the past 
 three years. 
 
 "You know of your own knowledge that these bills are for 
 Slocum apparatus?" asked Mr. Garvan as he offered them in 
 evidence. "I do," replied the witness. 
 
 "I have here five bills," said Mr. Garvan, "they are for life 
 preservers' — about 350 of them — and they are dated May 14, 
 1902; April 30, 1903; May, 1903; April, 1904, and May, 1904. 
 You are sure all these were for the General Slocum?" "Yes." 
 
 "If that is the case," said Mr. Garvan suddenly, "how is it 
 that I find in some of these bills the name 'Grand Republic' 
 scratched out or taken out with acid and the name 'Slocum' 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 247 
 
 inserted? One of the bills still stands in the name of the 
 Grand Republic." "I did not know about that," answered Mr. 
 Barnaby. "I suppose some bookkeeper must have done that." 
 "What is the name of that bookkeeper?" "I don't know. 
 Separate accounts are kept for each boat. The books will 
 show to which one the life preservers went." 
 
 ABOUT LIFE PRESERVERS 
 
 "Any erasures in them?" asked Mr. Garvan. Judge Ditten- 
 hoefer muttered an objection, and the question went unan- 
 swered. 
 
 In answer to further questions, Mr. Barnaby submitted the 
 certificate of inspection, which stated that on May 7, 1904, the 
 General Slocum was in proper condition to carry 2,500 passen- 
 gers, and that she had 2,550 life preservers. St. Mark's Church 
 had chartered the boat for the day, paying $350 therefor, and 
 the Company served no refreshments on board, merely turned 
 the ship over to the church officials. Mr. Barnaby also said 
 that "other businesses took up most of his time, and that he 
 knew nothing of ships or shipbuilding, relying for the details 
 upon his subordinates." 
 
 Mr. Barnaby also testified that he had told Captain Pease, 
 who planned the Slocum, to put the boat in first-class condi- 
 tion, and $12,000 had been spent on repairs suggested. The 
 estimated value of the Slocum was $165,000 and the steamer 
 carried $70,000 insurance. 
 
 NO FIRE DRILLS 
 
 John J . Coakley, a deckhand, was called to the stand and 
 testified that he was never present at a fire drill on board the 
 Slocum, and that he had never been instructed what to do in 
 case of fire. He said after he had finished counting the pas- 
 
248 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 sengers, a duty which had been assigned him, a child ran up 
 to him and said "smoke was coming up one of the stairways." 
 He then noticed there was smoke issuing from the forward 
 cabin, which was below the main deck. In answer to questions 
 as to what the cabin contained, he said there were two barrels 
 of oil used for masthead lamps, ropes, brooms and a barrel of 
 salt hay in which glasses had been packed. 
 
 TRIED TO SMOTHER THE FLAMES 
 
 Coakley then detailed what he did after his attention had 
 been called to the fire. He said not much smoke was coming 
 up the stairway, but when he ran down he could not distin- 
 guish anything clearly. The smoke, however, he said, smelt 
 like that from burning hay. He tried to pick up some old 
 canvas that was there and throw it on the fire, but it was fast- 
 ened down. 
 
 He saw two bags of charcoal, and thought to smother the 
 fire by emptying one of them over it. It had no effect. He 
 said he stayed down there two minutes, and then he ran 
 upstairs and told Mate Flanagan, who was standing at the 
 'midship gangway, that there was a fire in the forward cabin. 
 He then ran down again, but was not sure if the other men 
 followed him. When he got below again the place was in a 
 blaze. He then ran up to the main deck again, and draw- 
 ing his clasp knife, cut the fastenings holding the fire hose in 
 place. 
 
 Coakley said he pulled down the hose, and a lot of other 
 men near-by took hold so as to run it out. He then turned on 
 the valve and the water came through at a pressure of thirty- 
 five pounds. As soon as it did so the hose, which had kinked 
 in several places, burst. Finally, Coakley said, when he saw it 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 249 
 
 was futile to try to fight the flames he ran up to the hurricane 
 deck, begging the women to keep quiet as he went. He 
 pulled the wires holding the life preservers in place, and a lot 
 of them fell on the deck. 
 
 When questioned as to the condition of the life preservers, 
 he said that he had never noticed any of them before and had 
 not seen them tear apart when the people grabbed them. He 
 also stated that efforts were made to lower a lifeboat, but that 
 so many of the passengers crowded into it that the craft was 
 swamped. 
 
 WHAT TWO DECKHANDS HAD TO SAY 
 
 Thomas Collins, a deckhand, said he never saw anything 
 of a fire drill, nor had he been instructed what to do in case 
 of fire and saw no lifeboat lowered. When he first saw the 
 fire he helped to get the hose out. He flatly contradicted Coak- 
 ley by the statement that it was he, and not Coakley, who 
 broke down the hose. He said he also pulled down some of 
 the life preservers. He didn't know how many. 
 
 James Corcoran, who said he was a sort of head deckhand, 
 said he had never seen any fire drills on the boat, although he 
 had been with her for three seasons. He said he tried to go 
 down to where the fire was, but the place was all ablaze. 
 Then he pulled down the nozzle of the hose, which he 
 explained was coiled up and hung from the ceiling. The hose 
 kinked, and after a little water had dribbled through the noz- 
 zle the hose burst in several places. He ran down and closed 
 the door of the forward cabin where the fire was raging, but 
 the flames soon ate their way through and the whole forward 
 part of the boat was ablaze. He stated, also, that no life- 
 boats were lowered. 
 
250 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 HIS MEMORY FAILED HIM 
 
 First Mate Flanagan said there was one barrel of mineral 
 sperm oil in the forward cabin and a lot of empty oil barrels. 
 He couldn't remember if there was any kerosene there. To a 
 lot of other questions Flanagan said he couldn't remember, 
 and then Mr. Garvan asked him what was the matter with his 
 memory. 
 
 "Well, if you went through what I did," said Flanagan, 
 "your memory might be bad, too. I can't sleep nights. I 
 imagine I see the whole thing before me. The doctor says I 
 was out of my head on Wednesday night." 
 
 Flanagan said he told the chief engineer to turn on the 
 water, but the hose burst, and the coupling blew off besides. 
 Then he told the men to help the passengers and man the 
 lifeboats if they could. 
 
 Assistant United States District Attorney Wise here got an 
 admission from Flanagan that he had no license, although he 
 had been first mate for two years. 
 
 "Did you see any women with life preservers on?" asked 
 Mr. McManus. "Yes, I pulled one out of the water." 
 
 "Hadn't she sunk with that life preserver on?" put in Mr. 
 Garvan. "Yes," said Flanagan. 
 
 "What happened to her afterward?" 
 
 "She died after she got ashore." 
 
 "Died from drowning, did she not?" 
 
 "That's what they said." 
 
 REFUSED TO TESTIFY 
 
 A sensation came when Henry Lundberg, an assistant 
 United States steamboat inspector, the one who inspected the 
 hull of the Slocum and the life-saving appliances and fire 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 251 
 
 apparatus on board the boat on May 6th, was put on the stand. 
 Lundberg absolutely refused to answer any questions put to him 
 by the coroner or by Assistant District Attorney Garvan, giving 
 as his reasons that his answers might tend to incriminate him. 
 At the opening of the inquest Mr. Garvan announced that 
 he intended to prove that no new life preservers had been put 
 on board the Slocum since 1895. But for the fact that fire had 
 destroyed the books of the concern that made the appliances, 
 Mr. Garvan said, he could prove that no new preservers had 
 been on the boat for even a longer period. 
 
 THE HOSE BURST 
 
 Daniel O'Neill had been a deckhand on the Slocum only 
 since April, before she was put in commission. It was his first 
 work of that kind. He said he was on board when an 
 inspector went over the boat, but he did not know what the 
 inspector did. He did not see any life preservers taken down 
 for inspection. When he heard of the fire he ran to the hose. 
 It kinked and burst as soon as the water was turned on. He 
 then tried to fasten the rubber hose used for washing the deck 
 to the standpipe, but it wouldn't fit. 
 
 Asked how he got away from the boat, O'Neill said that he 
 saw a small rowboat alongside. A number of people were in 
 it, and he jumped in also. This capsized the boat, and 
 O'Neill then said he swam ashore. He admitted that the 
 man in the rowboat had told him not to jump, as the boat was 
 then already filled to its capacity, but he paid no attention to 
 the warning. He said he thought he could help the man 
 manage the boat if he jumped in with him. He said he did 
 not take any one with him, and helped to rescue none of the 
 people in the water. 
 
252 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 THE ASSISTANT ENGINEER TESTIFIES 
 
 Everett Brandow, the assistant engineer on board the 
 Slocum, was called. He said he had been on the boat six 
 seasons. He described the donkey engine's place, and said 
 there was a valve to fill the fire-room with steam in case of a 
 fire there, but that was the only place on the boat so supplied. 
 No steam could be turned into the forward cabin or any other 
 part of the hold, although the United States regulations pro- 
 vided that there should be such appliances. 
 
 PRESERVER KEPT GIRL DOWN 
 
 Brandow was asked if he saw anything of any life preserv- 
 ers. He said he saw one on a little girl who was near the 
 shore in shallow water. The child was under the life pre- 
 server, Brandow said, and it seemed to be keeping her down. 
 He pulled her ashore and took the life preserver off her. She 
 was unconscious, and he believed that she afterward died. 
 
 THE BOOKKEEPER EXPLAINS ERASURES 
 
 Miss S. C. Hall, the bookkeeper for the Knickerbocker 
 Steamboat Company, who had erased the name of the Grand 
 Republic from bills for life preservers and substituted the 
 name Slocum, was brought to the stand. She had some of 
 the books of the company with her, dating back three years. 
 The books prior to that time, she said, had been destroyed. 
 Miss Hall, who has been with the company since 1890, 
 admitted that she had made the erasure with acid, but denied 
 that this had been done since the disaster. She said that she 
 had done it simply as a matter of convenience, to aid her in 
 her bookkeeping, and that she was in the habit of doing so on 
 the books as well as on the bills. She was asked if she had 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 253 
 
 ever changed any other bills, and said she had, but could 
 not remember when. 
 
 PILOT WEAVER UPHOLDS VAN SCHAICK 
 
 On the testimony of Second Pilot Weaver it was developed 
 that the fire hose used on the boat cost sixteen cents a foot, 
 but when asked what he thought of hose at that price, Fire 
 Chief Croker said, "I would hate to have to put out fire with 
 it. I don't believe that water could be run through it without 
 having it all leak out." 
 
 Pilot Weaver upheld Captain Van Schaick in his action of 
 running the boat aground on North Brother Island, and said 
 he would have done exactly the same thing. 
 
 Weaver said he never saw a fire drill on board the boat, 
 and that no lifeboats were lowered. When asked how long 
 it was between the^ time of the alarm of fire until the boat 
 went on the beach, he said that it was between two and one- 
 half and three minutes. 
 
 COULD NOT HAVE TURNED THE BOAT 
 
 "If that boat had been put in at Locust avenue and One 
 Hundred and Twenty-ninth street," said the coroner, 
 "wouldn't the wind have held her there the same as if she was 
 anchored?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Weaver, "but you couldn't put her there. 
 It would have taken three minutes to swing her around in that 
 tide and with that wind, and there wouldn't have been a soul 
 alive to tell the tale by the time we got there. The wind, 
 which was blowing across her quarter, would have been swept 
 all over the boat, and every one would have been roasted to 
 death before a landing was made." 
 
 "Did you not tell me in the pilot-house on Sunday that you 
 
254 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 would have beached her at Locust avenue?" asked the coroner 
 sharply. 
 
 "I did not," said Weaver decisively. 
 
 "Why was she put ashore at the furthest point of the 
 island?" 
 
 "So that the wind would blow the flames away from the 
 passengers and give them a clear space to starboard to get 
 off." 
 
 "Did you see any of the crew at any time trying to save 
 passengers?" 
 
 "Not until after the boat was beached." 
 
 ONE MEMBER OF THE CREW DROWNED 
 
 It also developed during the inquest that the only member 
 of the crew drowned was the steward, McGrath, and he had 
 jumped overboard after a life preserver had been fastened on 
 him by his assistant. Cross-examination brought out the fact 
 that the steward !had jumped overboard with a bag of money 
 in his hand, and that this was quite heavy. 
 
 It was positively stated by the porter, who had charge of 
 the forward cabin, in which the fire started, that two or three 
 barrels of glasses, packed in salt hay, were in the cabin when 
 the fire broke out. Mr. Garvan stated that this was an infrac- 
 tion of the law, which states that loose hay cannot be brought 
 aboard of a passenger steamer. 
 
 A CLERGYMAN'S TESTIMONY 
 
 The Rev. George Schulz, pastor of St. Luke's Lutheran 
 Church, was the first one of the survivors to tell the story of 
 the disaster. 
 
 "The first I saw of any fire," said Mr. Schulz, "was when 
 smoke came out of the cabin below the main deck. The chil- 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 255 
 
 dren were playing with bean bags and one thing or another, 
 and were so taken up with their games that they did not 
 know of any danger until the flames came up the stairway. 
 Pastor Haas's wife, who was near me, was very much excited. 
 Twent to the side of the ship, and saw smoke rolling up in 
 great volume. Then every one became excited and the panic 
 started. 
 
 "My first real apprehension of danger came when I saw 
 one of the crew and some passengers jumping into the water. 
 I tried to stop the children 'near me from climbing over the 
 guardrail, as I saw some tugs near us and thought they would 
 get close enough to take us off. As soon as a tug ran along- 
 side I threw some of the children into it and then jumped 
 myself." 
 
 "Did you try to use a life preserver?" asked Mr. Garvan. 
 
 "Yes, I pulled one down and held it by the strap. The 
 weight of the preserver broke the strap, and I knew the thing 
 was no good and threw it away." 
 
 "Did you see any of the other passengers getting life 
 preservers?" 
 
 "There were only women on the lower deck, and they 
 could not reach the racks." 
 
 "How long was it from the time you saw the flames until 
 the boat ran on the beach?" 
 
 "A very short time." 
 
 ENGINEER KNEW OP NO FIRE DRILLS 
 
 Benjamin F. Conkling of Catskill, the chief engineer of the 
 boat, said he had been with the Slocum since she was 
 launched, in i8qi. He had never heard of any regulations 
 that steam pipes should lead from the boiler to the various 
 
256 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 hold compartments. He told of the location of the various 
 pumps and standpipes. 
 
 Conkling said he went about the boat with the inspector 
 when the latter came on board on May 5th. He said that no 
 test was made of the fire hose on any of the standpipes whife 
 the inspector was there. 
 
 Conkling denied the testimony already given, that he had 
 gotten off the boat without getting his feet wet. He said that 
 he did not leave his post as soon as he set the donkey engine 
 working, but remained until a rush of passengers carried him 
 on to a tug that had come alongside. He said it was about 
 ten minutes from the time fire was discovered until the boat 
 was beached. Conkling said he had examined the equipment 
 on other vessels. 
 
 "How did the equipment on the Slocum compare with 
 them?" asked Mr. McManus. "They were as good, if not bet- 
 ter, than any I ever saw," said the witness. 
 
 "That isn't very reassuring to the passengers on other river 
 boats," put in Mr. Garvan. 
 
 LIFE PRESERVERS FULL OF HOLES 
 
 William W. Trembley, a deckhand, testified that he had 
 tried to help others of the crew with the fire hose, but that it 
 had been blown from the standpipe as soon as the water was 
 turned on. He said it was less than ten minutes from the 
 time he saw the fire until the boat went aground. 
 
 From questions put to him by jurors it was "learned from 
 Trembley that he had seen life preservers with holes in them 
 on the day of the disaster. He noticed this, he said, when he 
 went to pull them down. Several days before, he said, he had 
 told the mate that some of the life preservers were torn and 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 257 
 
 that the cork was leaking out of them. These were taken 
 down and were not replaced with others. He said it was his 
 opinion that the rust from the wires holding the preservers in 
 place had rotted the coverings. 
 
 FINE START FOR THE FIRE 
 
 Through Walter Payne, the negro porter on the Slocum, it 
 was established that two barrels of salt hay were in the for- 
 ward cabin where the fire started, and that there also were 
 one barrel of machine oil, one barrel of cylinder oil, one barrel 
 of mineral sperm oil, several bags of charcoal, lumber, mops, 
 brooms, and a lot of old canvas. Payne said he tried to help 
 the crew unwind the hose after the fire was discovered, but 
 that it broke away from the standpipe. 
 
 Thomas Ryan, who was a waiter on board the Slocum, said 
 he pulled down a lot of life preservers and threw them to the 
 crowd. Then he grabbed one and ran down with it to the 
 steward. He strapped it on him, he said, and the steward 
 jumped overboard. 
 
 "And was drowned, wasn't he?" asked Mr. Garvan. 
 
 "Yes, he was," replied Ryan. "But he carried a heavy bag 
 of money in his hand when he jumped off." 
 
 ONE GOOD LIFE PRESERVER 
 
 Mary Behrends, whose hands were swathed in bandages as 
 the result of burns she had received, testified that the boat 
 had just passed Blackwell's Island when she heard the cry of 
 fire. Two of her daughters were lost, Mrs. Behrends said, as 
 she burst into tears. When she had been quieted she said 
 that her third daughter had been brought ashore on North 
 Brother Island with a life preserver on that had kept her 
 
258 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 afloat. This was the first instance of the kind that had come 
 out at the inquest. 
 
 WATER COVERED WITH POWDERED CORK 
 
 Several witnesses were called and testified that the water 
 about North Brother Island, where the General Slocum went 
 ashore, was covered with powdered cork from the vessel's life 
 preservers, while the hair of survivors and victims was full of 
 the same substance. Some exciting stories of rescue and self- 
 sicrifice were related by other witnesses. The heroic work of 
 Miss McGibbon, the hospital clerk and telephone operator at 
 North Brother Island; of sixteen-year-old Mary McCann, and 
 of John L. Wade, the owner of the tug J. W. Wade, will stand 
 out as bright spots in the history of the horror. 
 
 These persons gave their testimony modestly. Wade's 
 statements were as vigorous as was his work on the fateful 
 day of the disaster. The two girls could only be persuaded 
 to tell what they did by the insistent questioning of the dis- 
 trict attorney. 
 
 COULD NOT GET LIFE BELTS 
 
 By the testirnony of these and other witnesses it was 
 learned that shortly after the Slocum was beached on North 
 Brother Island the waters thereabout were covered with a 
 coating of finely granulated cork that had leaked from the 
 torn life preservers of the ship, and a number of 'persons were 
 dragged ashore dead with life preservers strapped to their 
 bodies. 
 
 • One survivor showed his badly lacerated hands to prove 
 that it had been impossible to tear down the wires which held 
 the life preservers in the racks, and he said that when he 
 finally managed to get several of the belts out of the racks 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 259 
 
 they tore to pieces in his hands. A woman who survived the 
 disaster said she was nearly blinded by the shower of cork 
 that fell in her face when she tried to pull some of the life 
 preservers out of the racks above her head. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN IS BROUGHT INTO COURT 
 
 A dramatic incident of one of the early sessions occurred 
 when aged Captain Van Schaick was brought into the coroner's 
 court on a stretcher. The hearing was suspended while the 
 coroner and Mr. Garvan went to the rear room and talked 
 with the captain and the doctors, who came with him. A 
 moment later the procession formed again and the captain 
 was borne to the ambulance, which took him to the Lebanon 
 Hospital, where he has lain since the disaster. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S JUDGMENT QUESTIONED 
 
 An effort was made to question the judgment of the cap- 
 tain in beaching the vessel on North Brother Island, but met 
 with only partial success. Of the three witnesses questioned 
 on this subject, two were policemen, who saw the vessel afire 
 from the shore, and thought the captain could have put in at 
 One Hundred and Twenty-ninth street. They admitted, on 
 cross-examination, that neither knew anything of navigation 
 nor of the conditions of wind or tide, nor of the difficulty that 
 might be experienced in turning around a boat like the Slocum. 
 The other witness was Captain Van Gelder of the New York, 
 New Haven and Hartford tug service, and while he held a 
 similar opinion, he said he did not believe that Captain Van 
 Schaick had done wrong, but that in the excitement of the 
 moment he had lost his head. 
 
26o NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 HELP FROM THE ISLAND 
 
 The testimony also established, incidentally, the excellent 
 fire service on North Brother Island. When the Slocum was 
 still a mile away the alarm had been rung on the island, every 
 man was at his post, and the fire-fighting force followed the 
 course of the boat around the point of the island, dragging its 
 hose reels, ready to get into action as soon as the boat came 
 close enough to shore. While it was too late to turn water on 
 the blazing ship, it was doubtless due to the work done by the 
 employees that many lives were saved. 
 
 ONE OF THE HEROINES TELLS HER STORY 
 
 Lulu McGibbon, one of the heroines of the disaster, saw 
 the blazing vessel coming up the river between Sunken 
 Meadow and Ward's Island. After informing the chief engi- 
 neer, she rang up every hospital in Manhattan and notified 
 police and fire headquarters that the Slocum, afire and loaded 
 with excursionists, was making for the beach on North 
 Brother Island. 
 
 Then she ran out to the point and saw the boat go aground 
 on the bar. In a minute, she said, the water was full of strug- 
 gling women and children, and Miss McGibbon, without a 
 moment's hesitation, ran down the beach until the water 
 reached her waist and began pulling some of the children 
 ashore. 
 
 Miss McGibbon said she saw one dead man come ashore 
 with a life preserver on, and not long after the vessel grounded 
 the water was full of particles of cork. All the persons 
 brought ashore for some time afterward had their hair and 
 clothes filled with this powdered stuff. 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 261 
 
 BRAVE MARY M'CANN 
 
 Mary McCann said she was in the convalescent ward when 
 the disaster occurred. She heard the fire alarm sounded, and 
 looking out of the window, saw the boat coming up the river 
 with flames bursting from the decks. She said: 
 
 "I saw that she was crowded with people and that some of 
 them, women and little children, were jumping into the water 
 as she came on toward the island. A minute later she had 
 gone on the beach and people were jumping into the water 
 from all sides. The water was filled with them. 
 
 "Then the top deck fell in and a lot more were thrown into 
 the water. I ran down to the beach and waded out into the 
 water. I didn't go far at first, because I got hold of a little 
 baby and when I saw it was alive I put it up on the beach, 
 where some one took care of it and bundled it up in blankets. 
 Then I went out a little further, and got hold of a little boy. 
 I pulled him up to where he could wade ashore and he begged 
 me to go out and get his brother. I went out again, that time 
 nearly up to my neck, and grabbed hold of another boy — I 
 don't know if it was the little fellow's brother or not — and I 
 got him into shallow water. 
 
 SAW CORK ON THE WATER 
 
 'Then I went out several times more, and the last time 
 some one grabbed me by the legs and I had to call for help to 
 get back. One of the men on the island got me in then, and 
 I was nearly exhausted. 
 
 'T wasn't afraid," she said with a flash of pride as she fin- 
 ished her narrative, "because I can swim." 
 
 "Did you see any cork in the water?" asked Mr. Garvan. 
 
 "Yes, lots of it. It seemed to leak out of the torn life pre- 
 
262 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 servers. First I thought it was sawdust, and when I got 
 ashore and got it out of my hair I found out it was cork." 
 
 John L. Wade told his story in forcible Anglo-Saxon, so 
 clear and concise that the picture was before the eyes of his 
 hearers. He said: 
 
 THE WADE'S RESCUE WORK 
 
 "I was lying at the dock at North Brother Island getting 
 water when I saw the Slocum coming up the river. She was 
 just above the Meadows, and fire was coming from her port 
 side forward. I cut loose and cast the hose off, and made for 
 the Slocum as quick as the Lord would let me. 
 
 "When I got near her I told my men to put over our life- 
 boat and throw out life belts to the people struggling in the 
 water. Just as the Slocum went on the beach I went on with 
 her. You see my boat only draws four feet of water, and I 
 could get in close. I went right up under her stern and tried 
 to run under her starboard wheelhouse. 
 
 "I had seven men aboard and they didn't lose any time 
 pulling the people in. I told them never to mind the dead — 
 we'd attend to them afterward. I wanted to get the ones that 
 were alive first. 
 
 THE LAST TO LEAVE THE BOAT 
 
 "I want to say this, that two men who were in the wheel- 
 house (I suppose it was the captain or the pilot and the man 
 at the engines) must have been the last to leave. They stuck 
 till it was no use to stick any longer. I saw one of the pilots 
 cross himself and jump overboard. The other one jumped, 
 too. I said to my men, 'Boys, the engineer's a goner!' I saw 
 him fill and back that boat clear up on the beach, so I knew 
 some one must be in the engine-room, and I never thought he 
 could get out then. 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 263 
 
 "Yes, some of the Slocum's men helped me after they got 
 aboard, but I put that fellow Flanagan ashore. He nearly got 
 me into serious trouble. He cast a line off — afraid, I guess, 
 that my boat would catch fire and that he was risking his skin 
 again. When he cast off a line I went for him, and — well, I 
 just put him off the boat, that's all." 
 
 DID THE BEST THING 
 
 'What do you think of the captain's action in beaching the 
 boat where he did?" asked Mr. Garvan. 
 
 "He couldn't have done any better," was the immediate 
 response. "He beached her in the shallowest part. He was 
 all right, that fellow was." 
 
 Edward Van Wart, the first pilot of the Slocum, whose 
 spine was so badly hurt that he had difficulty in sitting up in 
 the witness chair, testified that every year, except this one, 
 since 1891, he had charge of getting out the life preservers on 
 the vessel. He said that several years after she was launched 
 250 new preservers were put aboard. There were no new 
 ones put on board since, he said. 
 
 PILOT STUCK TO HIS POST 
 
 Van Wart, who has been a pilot for thirty years, said the 
 captain left the pilot-house and came back an instant later 
 telling the pilots to beach the boat on North Brother Island. 
 He said he held the course of the boat all the way and jumped 
 from the hurricane deck into shallow water after the boat had 
 been beached. 
 
 He rang a jingle bell for full speed when he made for the 
 island, and when near the beach rang a bell to slow up and 
 another to stop. The boat grounded easily, without any jar. 
 All the signals were answered from the engine-room. 
 
264 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 THE HULK INSPECTED 
 
 The last day of the inquest was devoted to an inspection of 
 the hulk of the burned steamer in Erie Basin, where the wreck 
 had been towed. Coroner Berry assembled the jury about an 
 opening on the deck, down which there had formerly been 
 stairs. On one side were piled musty life preservers with 
 long rents, through which granulated cork had escaped, bar- 
 rels, boxes of bottles, casks and rubbish of all kinds, including 
 some soft meadow hay, such as is used for packing glasses. 
 
 WHERE THE FIRE ORIGINATED 
 
 Thomas F. Freel, former fire marshal, said he had made 
 an examination of the hull after it had been raised and had 
 found forward the debris that now littered that portion of the 
 deck. 
 
 "Where did the fire originate?" inquired the coroner. 
 
 "Inside of this barrel," replied Mr. Freel, indicating one by 
 his side. 
 
 It had contained hay, he said, and the evidence was clear 
 that the flames had started inside and burned upward. The 
 boards were charred from within. Some of the staves had been 
 burned right through and had evidently fallen blazing upon 
 hay scattered on the floor. From that point the fire had leaped 
 to the stairs and had done more damage to the upper portion 
 of the cabin than it had to the material piled around the barrel. 
 
 Under cross-examination Mr. Freel said the boat had been 
 under water for eight days before he made his examination, 
 and he could not tell what had drifted into the cabin. 
 
 PILOT UPHOLDS CAPTAIN 
 
 On the return of the jury up the river Captain Edward 
 Van Wart, first pilot on the Slocum, took the wheel of the 
 
THE CORONER'S INQUEST 265 
 
 Patrol, going over as nearly as possible the same course that 
 he had taken on the day of the disaster. He thought the 
 Slocum was then going at approximately the same speed that 
 the Patrol had reached at that point. He insisted that, to his 
 mind, Captain Van Schaick had adopted the best possible 
 course in running the Slocum as close as possible to the North 
 Brother Island dock and then beaching her just beyond, on 
 the northwest side of the island. 
 
 Many of the jurors present did not hesitate to express the 
 opinion that a grave mistake in judgment had been made by 
 Captain Van Schaick in not beaching the boat on the New 
 York shore at some point between the entrance to the Great 
 Kill and the south shore of North Brother Island. 
 
 THE GUILTY ONES 
 
 After nearly four hours' deliberation, the jury declared that 
 the following men were guilty of negligence or cowardice, and 
 demanded that they be held on the charge of manslaughter in 
 the second degree: Frank A. Barnaby, president Knicker- 
 bocker Steamship Co.; James K. Atkinson, secretary; Charles 
 E. Hill, director; C. De Lacy Evans, director; Robert K. 
 Story, director; Floyd S. Corbin, director; Frank O. Dexter, 
 director; William H. Van Schaick, captain of the Slocum; 
 John A. Pease, commodore of the Knickerbocker fleet; Edward 
 Flanagan, mate of the Slocum; Henry Lundberg. U. S. 
 inspector of hulls. 
 
 HELD TO THE GRAND JURY 
 
 These men were accordingly held to the federal grand jury 
 and a special session was called to consider the case under 
 Section 5344 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, 
 which reads: 
 
266 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 "Every captain, engineer, pilot or other person employed 
 on any steamboat or vessel by whose misconduct, negligence 
 or inattention to his duties on such vessel the life of any per- 
 son is destroyed, and every owner, inspector or other public 
 officer through whose fault, connivance, misconduct or viola- 
 tion of law the life of any person is destroyed, shall be deemed 
 guilty of manslaughter and, upon conviction thereof before 
 any Circuit Court of the United States, shall be sentenced to 
 confinement at hard labor for a period of not more than ten 
 years." 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 
 
 DEAD 
 A 
 
 ABENDSCHEIN, MARY, 26 years old, No. 325 Eiast Eighteenth 
 street, identified by brother, George, at the Morgue. 
 
 ALBRECHT, SELMA, No. 212 East Tenth street, identified by hus- 
 band at the Morgue. 
 
 ANSELL, MRS. LOUISA, 28, No. 103 East Fourth street; identi- 
 fied by her husband, Eugene. 
 
 ANSELL, MRS. CATHERINE, No. 105 East Fourth street; died 
 in Harlem Hospital. 
 Their two children are still missing. 
 
 ANSELL, ALFRED (3), No. 103 East Fourth street. 
 
 ALFELD, ANNA, 45 years, No. 339 Sixth street, identified by hus- 
 band, Carl Alfeld. 
 
 ALLMAN, LENA, 39 years old. No. 409 Fifth street; identified by 
 Patrolman Hines, a brother-in-law. 
 
 ARNBRUST, MRS. BARBARA, 46 years old. No. 166 East Fourth 
 street; identified by husband. 
 
 AUGUR, ROSE (19), No. 1365 Third avenue, identified by her 
 father, George. 
 
 ANGER, CHARLES A. (52), No. 357 East Sixty-second street. 
 
 ANGER, MINNIE (24), No. 357 East Sixty-second street. 
 
 ACKERMAN, , 16 months. No. 406 East Fifth street. 
 
 ALFOLD, TILLIE, 16 years old, 339 Sixth street. 
 
 B 
 
 BELUNKEN, ANNE (13), No. 344 East Forty-eighth street, iden- 
 tified by Herman, the father. 
 
 267 
 
268 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 BALLMER, MARY, 35 years old, No. 123 First avenue; identified by 
 her husband, Joseph. 
 
 BALLMER, , girl, six years old, identified by her father, 
 
 Joseph. 
 
 BRUNNING, J. L. ; address, Produce Exchange. 
 
 BAURILE, MARGUERETTA (35), No. 433 Sixth street; identified 
 by her husband, Frederick. 
 
 BRENNING, ANNIE(43), No. 215 East Twelfth street; identified 
 by brother John. 
 
 BURNS, FRED (10), No. 22 St. Mark's place. 
 
 BURNS, HENRY (6), No. 22 St. Mark's place. 
 
 BOLLAN, REBECCA, 53 years old, No. 334 Sixth street. 
 
 BRUNING, GRACE, 14 years old. No-. 215 East Twelfth street. 
 
 BRUNING, MAGDALEN, 11 years old. No. 215 East Twelfth street. 
 
 BOEMLER, MRS. MARTHA, No. 423 East Eighty-sixth street. 
 
 -BUFFO, MRS. LOUISA, No. 82 West Ninetieth street. 
 
 BLOHM, MRS. ANNA, 50 years old, No. 18 Jackson street. 
 
 BLOHM, MARGARET, 19 years old, No. 18 Jackson street. 
 
 BLOHM, DORA (15), No. 18 Jackson street, identified by brother. 
 
 BALSER, CATHERINE A. (^2), No 137 Avenue B; identified 
 at the Morgue by Gus Balser, same address. 
 
 BECK, CHRISTINA (50), No. 319 Avenue A; identified at Morgue 
 by son. 
 
 BERRENS, AUGUSTA (5), No. 127 Goerck street; identified by 
 sister Annie.- 
 
 BERG, MRS. LENA (46), No. 158 Goerck street; identified by hus- 
 band at Morgue. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, KATHERINE (72), No. 79 Mangin street; iden- 
 tified by brother, Michael Dillon, at Morgue. 
 
 BOZEUBARR, EMILY (38), No. no First avenue, identified by 
 brother, Bernard, at Morgue. 
 
 BROWN, ALFONSO, No. 203 Fifth street, identified by James Roth, 
 of same address, at Morgue. 
 
 BUCHEIDT, MRS. ANN ELIZA (69), No. 141 East Third street; 
 identified by son-in-law, Jacob Schwartz, at the Morgue. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 269 
 
 BURFIEND, JOHN J., ten months old, No. lOi West One Hundred 
 and Sixth street, identified by father, J. H. K. Biirfiend, at the Alex- 
 ander Avenue Station. 
 
 BANDELOW, LOUISA, 29 years old, 84 East Ninth street. 
 
 BENEKE, MARY, 30 years eld, 420 East Seventeenth street. 
 
 BERTRAND, LIZZIE, 45 years old, 730 Sixth street. 
 
 BREUM, EMMA, 29 jxars old, 41 1 East Twenty-seventh street. 
 
 BETZER, AMELIA, 46 years old, 422 Sixth street. 
 
 BLUMENKRANZ, ANNIE, 20 years old, 9 East One Hundred and 
 Sixth street. 
 
 BLUSCH, KATHERINE, 25 years old, 41 Avenue A. 
 
 BOEGER, FLORENCE, 3 years old, No. 910 Putnam avenue, Brook- 
 lyn ; identified by father, William, at Alexander Avenue Station. 
 
 BOEGER, SUSAN L., ^^'^^ years old, 910 Putnam avenue, Brooklyn. 
 
 BOEGER, WTLBUR, 5 years old, 910 Putnam avenue, Brooklyn. 
 
 BOEGER, PHILLIP, 9 years old, 910 Putnam avenue, Brooklyn. 
 
 BOLLMER, ADELINE, 7 years old, 123 First avenue. 
 
 BOSE, AMELIA, 19 years old, 138 Avenue A. 
 
 BROWNING, MAGDALENE, 11 years old, 215 East Twelfth street. 
 
 BURKHARDT, MARY, 4 years old, 43 Tompkins street. 
 
 BURKHARDT, ALBERTINA, 39 years old, 43 Tompkins street. 
 
 BURFEIND, DORA, 6 months old, 245 West Twenty-seventh street. 
 
 BURFEIND, MARGARET, 2 years old, 245 West Twenty-seventh 
 street. 
 
 BUSH, HILDA, 1 1 years old, 82 West Ninetieth street. 
 
 BECKER, THEODORE FRANK, 34 years old, No. loio East One 
 Hundred and Seventy-eighth street; identified by father, Frank 
 Becker. His wife. May, missing. 
 
 BECKMANN, ANNA MARGARETHA, 7 months old, No. 1894 
 Third avenue ; identified by Arthur Beckmann, her father. 
 
 BERNHORDI, ANNIE, 5 years old, No. 614 East Ninth street; 
 identified by her aunt, Mrs. Frances Bernardi, of No. 403 East Nine- 
 tieth street. 
 
 BREHER, KATE (11), No. 310 East Twenty-eighth street; identified 
 by her father, John Breher. 
 
270 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 BRIEDE, MAMIE, No. 90 Avenue A. 
 
 BAUMAN, MAGADINE (30), No. 526 Sixth street. 
 
 BRAUN, MOLLIE, 32 years old, No. 233 Fifth street. 
 
 BRETZ, MARjY (28), and child, No. 304 East Twenty-eighth street. 
 
 BRETZ, ELZIE, seven months old, 304 East Twenty-eig-hth street. 
 
 BANDELOW, LOUISA (5), No. 84 East Seventh street. 
 
 CLOW, MARY, 35 years old, No. 54 East Seventh street, identified 
 
 by husband, Alfred, at Alexander Avenue Station. 
 CORDES, MRS. METTA (51), No. 417 East Sixteenth street; 
 
 identified by son John at Alexander Avenue Station. 
 CORDES, FRED (14), No. 417 East Sixteenth street; identified by 
 
 brother John. 
 CROFINE, MRS. LILLIE, No. 995 Avenue A. 
 CHARLOTTE, MAY, 51 years old, No. 599 East Sixteenth street. 
 COHRS, MRS. KATIE {2-]), No. 70 First avenue. 
 COHRS, FRIEDA (26), No. 106 Avenue A; identified by brother 
 
 Henry. 
 COHRS, FREDA (6), No. 70 First avenue. 
 
 D 
 
 DENGLED, ADOLPH, JR., 3 years old, No. 123 Seventh street; 
 
 identified by father, Adolph, at Alexander Avenue Station. 
 DEPPERT, AGNES (62), No. 328 Sixth street; identified by 
 
 neighbor at Alexander Avenue Station. 
 DEPPERT, MARY, 28 years old, 328 East Sixth street. 
 DERKER, THEODORE, 3 years oW, No. loio East One Hundred 
 
 and Seventy-eighth street; identified by father, Frank, at the 
 
 Morgue. 
 DONHEIM, MRS., No. 41 Third street; identified at the Morgue. 
 DIEHL, CATHERINE, 58 years old. No. 886 Cortlandt avenue; 
 
 body at Alexander Avenue Station. 
 DIEHL, ELSIE, 7 years old, No. 209 Fifth street. 
 DIEHL, LIZZIE, 30 years old, No. 905 Fifth street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 271 
 
 DREWS, MRS. CATHERINE (68), No 154 East Fourth street; 
 
 identified by son Herbert at Morgue. 
 DREWS, HARRY, 7 years old. No. 154 East Fourth street. 
 DREWS, LILLIE, 2 years old. No. 154 East Fourth street. 
 DE LUCCIA, NICHOLAS, 2 years old. No. 54 East Seventh street. 
 DONHEIM, MRS., No. 41 Third street; body at Bellevue. 
 DORRHOFFER, two children, No. 121 Avenue A. 
 DORRHOFFER, FREDERICK (11), No. 121 Avenue A. 
 DERSCH, HELEN (41), No. 76 First avenue. 
 DEISSMAN, LENA (16), No. 114 East Fourth street. 
 DUICK, MARY (16), No. 121 Fourth avenue, Brooklyn. 
 DIECKHOFF, JOHN, 20 years old. No. 124 Fourth avenue, 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 DIECKHOFF, WILLIAM, 4 years old. No. 124 Fourth avenue, 
 
 identified by father, Fred Dieckhoff. 
 DIECKHOFF, ANNIE, 17 years old. No. 124 Fourth avenue, 
 
 Brooklyn; identified by Frederick Dieckhoff, her father. 
 DREHEK, KATIE, 11 years old. No. 310 East Twenty-fifth street; 
 
 identified by her father, John Dreher. 
 DREHER, CONRAD, 4 years old, No. 310 East Twenty-fifth street. 
 DRECIVES, CATHARINE (68), No. 54 Fourth street; identified 
 
 by son Herman. 
 DERSCH, ELSIE, 15 years old, No. 71 First avenue. 
 DOERING, IDA, 11 years old. No. 12 State street. 
 DL\MOND, FRANCIS, 4 years old, No. 79 Mangin street. 
 
 E 
 
 EHRHARD, MINNIE, 13 years old, No. 69 First avenue; identified 
 by her mother, Mrs. Minnie Ehrhard. 
 
 EHRHARDT, ELIZABETH, 2 years old, No. 151 North Fourth 
 street, Brooklyn. 
 
 EICHOFF, WILLIAM, 30 years old. No. 196 Second avenue; iden- 
 tified by George Bates, of the same address, at the Morgue. 
 
 EIDMAN, GRACE, 6 years. No. 100 East Fourth street; identified 
 by brother, Henry Eidman. 
 
272 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 EIMER, CHARLES, 13 years old, 84 Stockholm street, Brooklyn. 
 
 ELK, ADALINE (23), No. 306 East Sixth street. 
 
 ELK, FRANCIS, 2 years old, 215 Sixth street. 
 
 ELK, FRANCES (3), No. 306 Sixth street. 
 
 ELLER, MRS. JOSEPH, No. 219 East Thirteenth street. 
 
 ELLER, ELSIE, No. 219 East Thirteenth street. 
 
 ENGELMAN, MRS. LOUISE, 28 years old, of No. 425 East 
 
 Twelfth street; identified by husband at Morgue. 
 ENGELMAN, WILLIAM, 6 years old. No. 425 East Twelfth street. 
 ERTMANN, ALMA, 11 years old, No. 346 East Ninth street. 
 EYSEL, JENNIE, 9 years old, No. 203 Avenue A; identified by 
 
 Nicholas Stocker, No. 203 Avenue A. 
 
 FRESE, ANNA (20), No. 426 East Fifteenth street. 
 FALMETER, LIZZIE, 40 years old. No. 80 East First street. 
 FRITZ, MRS. ALMA, 47 years old. No. 1235 Park avenue; wife of 
 
 George Fritz, collector for Lippmann's brewery; identified at the 
 
 Morgue. 
 FRECH, CHARLES E., 4 years old. No. 409 East Fifty-fourth 
 
 street; identified by his father, Henry Freeh. 
 FROLICH, MRS. CHARLES, address unknown. 
 FOLLMER, MRS. MARY, No. 123 First avenue. 
 FLEISCHER, HENRY, 14 years old. No. 332 East Thirteenth 
 
 street. 
 FICKBOHM, MRS. MARIE, 40 years old, No. 91 Avenue D; iden- 
 tified by her husband, Peter J. Fickbohm. 
 FICKBOHM, MAMIE, 40 years old. No. 41 Avenue D; identified 
 
 by husband, John. 
 FELDHAUSER. MRS. MARGARET, 52 years old. No. 50 West 
 
 Eighth street; identified by Courtland T. Myburg, No. 35 West 
 
 Eighth street. 
 FICKBOHM, MARIE, 14 months old, No. 41 Avenue D; identified 
 
 by her uncle. Henry Paulsen, No. 66 Cumberland street, Brooklyn. 
 
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INSPECTOR LUNDBERG ON THE WITNESS-STAND 
 
 Henry Lundberg, inspector of hulls in the Steamboat Inspection Service instead 
 of giving the assistance expected of him at the inquest, refused to answer kll ques- 
 tions of importance on the ground that they might incrim.inate him. 
 
 i 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 273 
 
 FELDHUSEN, MARGARET, 52 years old, No. 50 West Eighth 
 street; identified by husband. 
 
 FOLKE, ANNA (50), No. 257 Avenue B. 
 
 FOLKE, DORA (79), No. 257 Avenue B. 
 
 FOELSING, FERDINAND (8), No. 1914 Third avenue; identi- 
 fied by father. Brother and sister missing, 
 j FROELICH, CHARLES, No. 301 West Ninety-sixth street. 
 'fETTIG, PETER, 45 years old, 120 Second avenue, Brooklyn. 
 
 FISHER EMMA, 35 years old. No. 108 First avenue. 
 
 FISHLER, ANNA, 6 years old, No. 314 East Ninth street. 
 
 G 
 
 GAMBERG, HENRY (6), No. 427 East Ninth street; identified 
 by father, Henry. 
 
 GUSTENBERGER, JAMES (25), No. 147 West Thirty-seventh 
 street; identified by C. H. Knapp. 
 
 GADE, GRACE, 61 years old, No. 405 Fifth street; identified by 
 husband. 
 
 GADE, GRACE, 16 years old. No. 405 Fifth street; identified by 
 brother Henry, at the Morgue. 
 
 GRAFF, MRS. ELSIA, 40 years old. No. 134 East Seventh street; 
 identified by her brother, Frank Frederich. 
 
 GALLAGHER, AGNES, 10 months old, No. 45 East Fifteenth 
 street; identified by uncle, Jacob Ottinger, No. 280 Avenue B, at 
 the Alexander Avenue Station. 
 
 GIESER, KATE, 25 years old, no address given; identified by hus- 
 band, Flenry, collector for Lippmann's Brewery, at Alexander 
 Avenue Station. 
 
 GATES, MARGARET, 2^ years old No. 80 First avenue; identi- 
 fied by father, Edward. 
 
 GATES, CATHERINE, 28 years old, No. 80 First avenue; identi- 
 fied by husband, Edward. 
 
 GIRRCLER, EDITH, 18 years old, No. 20 Avenue A. 
 
 GRIMM, MRS. SELMA,'34 years old. No 314 East Ninth street; 
 identified by her husband, Frederick. 
 
274 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 GREUBEN, EMMA, 39 years old, No. 420 East Seventeenth street, 
 identified by John L. Distler, nephew. 
 
 GOETZ, ALBERT, 25 years old, No 80 First avenue; identified by 
 Edward Goetz, at Morgue. 
 
 GOETZ, CATHERINE, 28 years old, No. 81 First avenue; identi- 
 fied by husband, Edward, at the Morgue. 
 
 GRAFING, LILLIE. 28 years old. No. 998 Avenue A; identified 
 by father at the ]\'Iorgue. 
 
 GRUBER, CARRIE, 14 years old, No. 420 East Seventeenth street. 
 
 GRENER, KATIE, 11 years old, No. 310 East Twenty-fifth street. 
 
 GRANNER, MISS LOUISE, 22 years, No. 100 University place. 
 
 GRANEFIRE, LILLIAN, No. 998 Avenue A. 
 
 GEISELER, EDITH, 18 years old, No. 201 Avenue A; identified by 
 her brother, William Geiseler. 
 
 GEISELER, PETER, 18 years old, No. 201 Avenue D. 
 
 GERMULLER, WILLIAM (5). No. 895 Jefferson place. 
 
 GERMULLER, GRACE (3), No. 895 Jefferson place. 
 
 GROSS, EMMA, 44, No. 90 First avenue. 
 
 GASSMAN, MICHAEL J., 5 years old, No. 128 Fourth street. 
 
 GASSMAN, FRED (11), 128 East Fourth street. 
 
 GASSMAN, MINNIE, 5 years old, No. 128 East Fourth street. 
 
 GREWES, LILLIAN, 2 years old, 54 East Fourth street. 
 
 GALEWSKI, HELEN, 5 years old. No. 54 Seventh street. 
 
 GREFF, OTTO, 43 years old, No. 143 Seventh street. 
 
 GOSS, GERTRUDE, 27 years old, No 97 East Seventh street. 
 
 GEISEL, EMMA. 15 years old, 107 East Second street. 
 
 GERSTEN, RICHARD, 38 years old, 147 West Thirty-fourth 
 street. 
 
 GRESS, CLARA, 12 years old. No. 144 Seventh street. 
 
 GREBER, FRED (14), No. 54 Seventh street. 
 
 GRUNING, MRS. LENA (29), No. 45 Seventh street. 
 
 GRUNING, HENRY (5), No. 45 Seventh street. 
 
 GRUNING, CHARLES (3), No. 45 Seventh street. 
 
 GRUNING, LENA, 10 months old, No. 45 Seventh street. 
 
 GELUECIN, (7), No. 54 East Seventh street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 275 
 
 GALLAGHER, VERONICA (32), No. 324 East Fifteenth street. 
 GALLAGHER, WALTER (9), No. 324 East Fifteenth street. 
 GIVENS, MARGARET, No. 225 East Fifth street. 
 GETTLER, CAROLINE (65)_, No. 231 Fifth street. 
 GROSS, EMMA, 44 years old, No. 90 First avenue. 
 GROSS, OTTO, 43 years old. No. 134 Seventh street. 
 GILLIS, GEORGE (12), No. 512 East Fifth street. 
 
 H 
 
 HANZLER, AUGUSTA (11), No. 154 First avenue. 
 
 HARDTMAN, MARGARET, No. 309 East Tenth street. 
 
 HEWKEN, CHARLES (18), No. 169 South Second street, 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 HOAG, SUSIE (48), No. 158 First avenue. 
 
 HEIN, FRANK (12), No. 397 East Fourth street. 
 
 HAWKINS, Charles (18), No. 169 South Second street, Brooklyn. 
 
 HERNBERG, GEORGE (7), No. 79 Colyer street, Brooklyn. 
 
 HERNBERG, ARTHUR (9), No. 79 Colyer street, Brooklyn. 
 
 HAUSLER, AUGUSTA (11), No. 154 First avenue. 
 
 HECKER, JULIA, 8 months old. No. 88 Avenue A. 
 
 HARDEKOPF, (40), No. 343 Rivington street. 
 
 HEERZ, MRS. M. (32), No. 412 Sixth street; identified by hus- 
 band, George. 
 
 HEDENKAMP, JOHN D„ 55 years old, No 805 Sixth street; iden- 
 tified by his son, Henry Hendenkamp. 
 
 HEDENKAMP, MARGARET S., 1 1 years old, No. 805 East Sixth 
 street ; identified by her brother, Henry Hedenkamp. 
 
 HEIDENKAMP, JAMES ; identified by letter on body. 
 
 HESSEL, WILHELMINA (53), No 801 East One Hundred and 
 Forty-seventh street. 
 
 HECKERT, ANNIE K. (11), No. 88 Avenue A. 
 
 HERMAN, GEORGE, 13 months old. No. 410 Fifth street; identi- 
 fied by his father, Henry Herman. 
 
 HENDERSEN, BARBARA (30), No. 386 West One Hundred 
 
276 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 and Twenty-fifth street; identified by Miss Pauline Steiger (ques- 
 tionable). 
 
 HOELDER, MARY (79), No. 169 Avenue A; identified by daugh- 
 ter-in-law, 
 
 HEHL, GUS (14), No. 55 First avenue; identified by father at the 
 Morgue. 
 
 HOLLER, MRS. BARBARA, No. 334 Sixth street. 
 
 HBRGENBERGER, MRS. (45), No. 22 St. Mark's place. 
 
 HERTZ, MRS. MARY {(i^), No. 611 Columbus avenue; identified 
 by daughter, Mrs. Louise Buffe, No. 82 West Ninetieth street, at 
 the Alexander Avenue Station. 
 
 HOFFMAN, MRS. ELIZABETH; identified by letter on body at 
 Morgue. Address not given. 
 
 HOFFMAN, MRS. SYLVA (53), No. 'J2 Second street; identified 
 by son Frank at the Morgue. 
 
 HELLER, CHRISTINA, 68 years old, No. 404 Sixth street; identi- 
 fied by her son, William Heller. No 29 Louis place, Brooklyn. 
 Was sexton of St. Mark's. 
 
 HEIM, FRANK, 13 years old. No. 397 East Fourth street; identi- 
 fied by Frederick Heim, his brother. 
 
 HERRMAN, MRS. KATE (50), No. 168 First avenue; identified by 
 her son, Henry Herrman, No. 410 East Fifth street. 
 
 HEIMS, HENRIETTA, 10 years old, No 300 Front street; iden- 
 tified by her father, Henry Heims. 
 
 HARTUNG, ESSIE, 6 years old. No. 342 East Twenty-first street; 
 identified by brother Frank. 
 
 HARDINCAMP, MARGARET, 11 years old. No. 12 East Eleventh 
 street ; identified by her brother Henr>' at the Morgue. 
 
 HORW^\Y, CARL (17), No. 313 East Ninth street. 
 
 HORWAY, CORTLANDT {2^), No. 313 East Ninth street; iden- 
 tified by mother. 
 
 HORWAY, JOHANNA (38),No. 313 East Ninth street; identified 
 by brother, William Beck, at the Morgue. 
 
 HORWAY, BELLA, 5 years old. No. 313 East Ninth street; iden- 
 tified by father, Charles Horway. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 277 
 
 HEHL, GUS (41), No. 55 First avenue; identified by father, 
 
 Thomas. 
 HAAS, ANNIE (45), No. 64 Seventh street, wife of the pastor; 
 
 identified by the Rev. J. G. Schultz. 
 HAAS, MARGARET (5), ° No. 64 Seventh street, daughter of 
 
 the pastor; identified by her uncle. 
 ITARTMANN, MARY (46), No. 309 East Tenth street. 
 HEINS, MRS. ANNIE, No. 49 Ninth avenue. 
 HEINS, FRANK (13), No. 397 East Fourth street. 
 HEINS, MARGUERITA, 14 years old. No. 300 Front street. 
 HAAG, WILLIAM (14), No. 310 East F'ourteenth street. 
 HARNES, HERMAN, 17 years old. No. 312 East Fourteenth 
 
 street. 
 HARTUNG, LOUISA (47), No. 342 East Twenty-first street. 
 HEDENKAMP, FRANK, 9 years old. No 805 Sixth street. 
 HEILSHORN, GEORGE, 3 years old No. 181 Waverly place. 
 HENRICH, AMELIA, 18 years old, 316 Brook avenue, The Bronx: 
 HENRICK, TESSIE, 16 years old, No. 416 Brook avenue. The 
 
 Bronx. 
 HEUER, MARY, 17 years old, No. 127 Division street. 
 HOFFMAN, ELLA, 14 years old, 40 Lafayette place. 
 HETTERRICK, MRS. FREDERICK, 30 years old. No. 420 East 
 
 Fifteenth street. 
 HILLER, GOTTFRIED, 66 years old, sexton of St. Mark's church. 
 HOTZ, MRS. ANNA, 37 years old, No. 319 East Fifth street. 
 HOFFMAN, EDNA, 2 years old, No. 116 Lake street, Jersey City. 
 
 IDEN, GRACE (6), No. 100 Fourth street; identified by brother, 
 
 Henry. 
 IDEN, HENRIETTA H., q years old, No. 100 East Fourth street. 
 IDEN, MINNIE (8), No. 100 East Fourth street. 
 IRWIN, FANNIE (25), No. 21 12 Third avenue; Salvation Army 
 
 lassie. 
 
278 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 K 
 
 KRAFFT, LOUISE, No. 140 East Fourth street. 
 
 KELCH, KATIE (6), No. 800 East Fourteenth street. 
 
 KING, KATHERINE, No. 314 East Forty-sixth street. 
 
 KING, CATHERINE (26), No. 314 East Forty-sixth street. 
 
 KLATHAAR, GEORGE (14), No. 506 East Fifth street. 
 
 KOPF, MRS. LIZZIE (32), No. 337 East Ninth street. 
 
 KOPF, ELLIS, year and a half. No. 337 East Ninth street; identi- 
 fied by father, Marin. 
 
 KLEIN, DENNA, 40 years old, No. 31 Avenue A; died at Lincoln 
 Hospital. 
 
 KRAMER, MRS. , janitress, No. 70 First avenue. 
 
 KEPPLER, IRENE, 12 years old. First avenue, between Twelfth 
 and Thirteenth streets. 
 
 KESSLER, BABBETTE, 45 years old. No. 205 East Seventh 
 street. 
 
 KLATBAUER, KATHARINE, 56 years old. No 506 Fifth street. 
 
 KLATTER, KATHERINE, 56 years old. No. 506 Fifth street. 
 
 KOEHLER, HENRY, 40 years old, No. 315 East Thirteenth 
 street. 
 
 KOLB, GUSSIE, 22 years old, No. 517 East Fifth street; identified 
 by Mrs. Ida Kister, her sister. 
 
 KLATBAUER, GEORGE, 14 years old. No. 506 Fifth street; iden- 
 tified by John H. Klatbauer, the father. 
 
 KOLINGER, MRS. EVA; identified by papers and bank books in 
 her bustle. 
 
 KOLB, MAGDALINE, 72 years old, No. 743 Summit street; iden- 
 tified by soil Albert at the Morgue. 
 
 KLENCK, MINNIE, 19 years old, No. 43S East Sixth street; iden- 
 tified by her father, Charles Klenck. 
 
 KLEIN, EMMA, 25 years old, No. 314 Sixth street; identified by 
 her husband, Gottlieb Klein. 
 
 KOLIDER, HENRY, 12 years old, No. 315 East Thirteenth street; 
 identified by uncle. 
 
 KRAUT WURST, ANNA (13), No. 114 East Fourth street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 279 
 
 KORMAN, MINNIE (23), No. 402 Third aveiiue. 
 KARL, BARBARA, 60 years old, No. 314 Sixteenth street. 
 KLIEN, JOHN, 17 years old. No. 191 East Third street. 
 KEELER, Katherine, 12 years old, 122 East Fourth street. 
 KOHLER, MARY, 38 years old, No. 315 E. Twentieth street. 
 KOPF, THEODORE. 5 years old, 337 East Ninth street. 
 KEISTER, MARGARET, 45 years old, No. 343 Division street. 
 KLENCK, WILLIAM F., 21 years old, No. 112 St. Mark's place. 
 KREGLER, MARGARET, ^y years old. No. 257 Avenue B. 
 KEETENSCH, LIZZIE, 30 years old. No. 420 East Fifteenth 
 
 street. 
 KLENCH, WILLIAM F., 2 years old, No. 113 St. Mark's place. 
 KOSTER, MARGARET, 46 years old, No. 343 Rivington street. 
 
 L 
 
 LAHN, DORA, 25 years old. No. 1000 Union avenue, Bronx; iden- 
 tified by her father, Philip Lahn. 
 
 LURIN, LENA, 17 years old. No. 11 1 East Fourth street. 
 
 LAUSCHE, MORRIS, 60 years old, No. 15 18 Webster avenue. 
 
 LOEFFLER, LOUISE, 9 years old, No. 9 East Third street. 
 
 LOEFFLER, LOUIS, 10 years old. No. 96 East Thirteenth street. 
 
 LINK, LOTTIE (15), No. ^(-y Avenue A. 
 
 LINK, EDDIE (11), No. 76 Avenue A ; identified by father. 
 
 LANN, AMELIA (40), widow; identified by Kate Muller, No. 203 
 Avenue C, at the Alexander Avenue Station. 
 
 LUDWIG, GEORGE, 15 years, No, 413 East Seventeenth street. 
 
 LUTJENS, MRS. KATE, No. loi Clymer street, Brooklyn; identi- 
 fied by husband, John, at the Morgue. 
 
 LULLMAN, CARRIE, 24 years old. No. 100 University place. 
 
 LOUDEMAN, MRS. JOHN, 45 years old. White Plains, N .Y.; 
 identified by James J. Sullivan, of No. 7 Elm street, \A'hite Plains. 
 
 LOEBINGER, HENRY, identified by papers. 
 
 LUBBERT, AUGUST, 12 years old. No. 412 Sixth street; identi- 
 fied by August Lubbert, his father. 
 
 LEBUHRL, LIZZIE, 9 years old, No. 23 Avenue B. 
 
28o NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 LANE, GUSTAV, 17 years old, No. 227 East Eleventh street, Man- 
 hattan. 
 
 LAMjM, LILLIAN, 7 years old, No. 645 East Seventeenth street. 
 
 LANG, AMELIA, 15 years old, 154 East Broadway. 
 
 LUTTGENS, MARGARET, 18 years old. No. loi Clymer street, 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 LAHN, CLARA, 20 years old. No. 1000 Union avenue, Bronx. 
 
 M 
 
 MESCKE, MRS. CARL, No. 508 Robbins avenue. 
 
 MELBOURNE, WILLIAM, No. 441 West Forty-sixth street. 
 
 MEYER, KATE or ELIZABETH (40), No. 88 Avenue A. 
 
 MAY, CHARLOTTE (51), No. 599 East Sixteenth street; identi- 
 fied by son Charles at the Morgue. 
 
 MEHLEIN, MRS. MINNIE (38), No. 416 Fifth street; identified 
 by husband, Otto, at the Morgue. 
 
 MOELLER, MARTHA, 35 years old, No. 20 St. Mark's place; 
 identified by her husband, Emil Moeller. 
 
 MANHEIMER, MAMIE, 36 years old. No. 86 Seventh street; 
 identified by Louis Lander, her brother, of No. 148 East Seventh 
 street. 
 
 M'GRANE, MICHAEL, 48 years old, steward on the Slocum ; No. 
 2 1 61 Eighth avenue; identified by C. G. Peker, a friend, of No. 
 301 West One Hundred and Sixteenth street. 
 
 MOTZER, MRS. ANNA, 38 years old, No. 405 Sixth street; iden- 
 tified by her sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Schneider, of No. 167 Ave- 
 nue A. 
 
 MULLER, EDWARD (10), 368 Bowery. 
 
 MUELLER, HELEN, 37 years old, No. 368 Bowery; identified by 
 her husband, Herman Mueller. 
 
 MAYER, MRS. LOUISE, No. 130 East Seventeenth street. 
 
 MAYER, LOUISx\, 39 years old, No. 430 East One Hundred and 
 Seventh street; identified by her husband, Nicholas Mayer. 
 
 MICHEL, WILLIAM, 12 years old. No. 34 East Twelfth street; 
 identified by father. 
 
LIST OF THE DP:AD AND MISSING 281 
 
 MULLER, HENRY, 13 years old, No. 20 St. Mark's place; identi- 
 fied by father. 
 
 MULLER, ROSE 14 years old, No. 368 Bowery; identified by her 
 father. 
 
 MULLER, FLORA, 27 years old, married, No. 28 West Ninety- 
 seventh street; identified by brother. 
 
 MULLER, MRS. ANNA (31), No. 123 Seventh street, identified by 
 husband, Jacob. 
 
 MORRIS, KATE, 15 years old. 
 
 MUELLER, MRS. B., 25 3^ears old, No. 95 Second avenue; identi- 
 fied by Otto Rosenberger, same address. 
 
 MICHAEL, CARRIE, 12 years old, No. 171 Avenue A. 
 
 MESSEKE, MRS. BETTIE, No. 508 Robbins avenue. 
 
 MESSEKE, ANNIE (16), No. 508 Robbins avenue. 
 
 MEYER, ALBERT, JR. (10), No. 454 East Fifteenth street. 
 
 MUSEKE, ANNA, 16 years old, No. 508 Robbins avenue, Bronx; 
 identified by brother. 
 
 MEROELLER, MATILDA, fifteen years old, No. 394 Sixth avenue, 
 Brooklyn; identified by John E. Lutz, of Demarest, N. J. 
 
 MEIKE, DAISY, 11 years old. No. 504 East Sixteenth street; iden- 
 tified by father Otto. 
 
 MOLLITOR, MRS. MARY, Mount Vernon. 
 
 MERSELES, MATILDA (16), No. 394 Sixth avenue, Brooklyn. 
 
 M'LOUGHLIN, MICHAEL (12), No. 69 First avenue. 
 
 MEYER, ALBERT (19), No. 434 East Fifteenth street. 
 
 MENINGER, LENA (30), No. 631 Bergen avenue, Brooklyn. 
 
 MILLER, ELIZABETH, six months old, No. 406 Sixth street; 
 identified by father. 
 
 MILLER, FLORA (27), No. 28 West Ninety-seventh street. 
 
 MILLER, MRS. VALESSA, 29 years old. No. 95 Second avenue; 
 identified by Otto Rosenberg, No. 95 Second avenue. 
 
 MILLER, HENRY, 3 years old. No. 41 First avenue. 
 
 MAURER, KATE, 13 years and 11 months old. No 1551 Avenue A. 
 
 METTLER, ALBERT, 12 years old, No. 338 East Fiftli street. 
 
 MEXINGER, HARRY, i year old, No. 31 Bergen avenue. 
 
282 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 MUELLER, HELENA, 7 years old, No. 368 Bowery ; identified by 
 father, Edward Mueller. 
 
 MOLITOR, CARL, 5 years old, Midland avenue. 
 
 MOLITOR, AVE, 8 years old, No. 21 Midland avenue, East New 
 York. 
 
 MOLKE, ELIZABETH, 30 years old, No. 125 First avenue. 
 
 MANNHEIMER, WALTER, 11 years old. No. 86 Seventh street. 
 
 MEYER, META, 59 years old. No. 381 Madison street. 
 
 MUTH, ELIZA (62), No. 1264 Lexington avenue. 
 
 MUTH, LIZZIE, II years old, No. 785 East One Hundred and 
 Forty-sixth street. 
 
 MUTH, TINA, 8 years old. No. 785 East One Hundred and Forty- 
 sixth street. 
 
 M'CARTHY, JEREMIAH, 9 years old. No. 134 Hobart avenue, 
 Bayonne, N. J. 
 
 N 
 
 NEHLEIN, MINNIE, 41 yeas old, No. 416 Fifth street; identified 
 
 by her husband, Otto Nehlein. 
 NORWAY, CARL, No. 313 East Ninth street; identified by father. 
 NOVOTRY, LOUIS (18), No. 190 East Third street; identified 
 
 by mother. 
 NUNCLE, ARTHUR, no age given, No. 1 1 Seventh street. 
 NEIBHUR, LIZZIE (13), No.' 1223 Avenue B. 
 NOLL, KATE (20), No. 400 East Fifth street. 
 NOLL. KATIE, 40 years old, No. 400 Fifth street. 
 
 O 
 
 OCHS, , died at Lebanon Hospital. 
 
 OEHLER, FRED (14), No. 510 Sixth street. 
 
 OELLRICH, ANNIE, 33 years old. No. 519 Willoughby avenue, 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 OSMERS, MILDRED D.. 5 years old, No 49 East Eighty-eighth 
 
 street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 283 
 
 OEHLER, MARY, 55 years old, No. 510 Sixth street; identified by 
 
 Daniel Oehler, her son. 
 OLFETH, ANNIE, 45 years old. No. 339 Sixth street; identified 
 
 by husband, Carl, at the Morgue. 
 OTTENGER (boy). No. 91 Seventh street. 
 OTTENGER (girl), 14, No. 91 Seventh street. 
 OTTINGER, KATIE (40), No. 97 East Seventh street. 
 OTTINGER, CHARLES (16), No. 97 East Seventh street. 
 OTTINGER, EMMA (16), No. 97 East Seventh street. 
 OTTINGER, ANDREW (7). No. 97 East Seventh street. 
 OTTINGER, ARTHUR (7), No. 97 East Seventh street. 
 OHL, CARL (9), No. 340 East Ninth street. 
 
 PAULI, ELSIE (13), No. 26 Avenue A. 
 
 PAULI, KATIE (16), N0..26 Avenue A. 
 
 PATTEBAUM, HERMAN, 5 years old. No. 61 St. Mark's place. 
 
 PRIAWDYSKI, HENRIETTA, 14 years old, No. 85 Third street; 
 identified by an uncle, of same address. 
 
 PINING, MRS. DORA, No. 45 Seventh street. 
 
 PRAUDZICKIE, ANNA (15), No. 85 East Third street. 
 
 PRAUDZICKIE, HENRIETTA (14), No. 85 East Third street. 
 
 PRAUDZICKIE, GERTRUDE (13), No. 85 East Third street. 
 
 PULLMAN, WILLIAM H., No. t,t,7 East Eighteenth street, treas- 
 urer of Sunday school. 
 
 PART, PAUL C, 10 years old, 10 East Fourth street, Manhattan. 
 
 PLUNKETT, GERALD, 12 years old, 74 Seventh street. 
 
 R 
 
 RICHTER, ANNIE (8), No. 404 Sixth street. 
 
 ROTH, LENA (17), No. 203 Fifth street; identified by her father, 
 
 James, at the Morgue. 
 RYAN, MAMIE, 5 years old, No. 345 East Fifteenth street. 
 
284 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 ROTH, MRS. JOSEPHINE, of No. 203 Fifth street; identified by 
 her husband, James, at the Morgxie. 
 
 RUTTINGER, META, 39 years old, No. 47 St. Mark's place ; iden- 
 tified by her husband, Ernest Ruttinger. His son, Ernest Ruttin- 
 ger, 16 years old, reported missing. 
 
 ROTH, HELEN, 20 years. No. 310 East Broadway; identified by 
 Michael Cohen, a friend. 
 
 ROTHMAN, EMILY, 34 years old. No. 48^ Seventh street; iden- 
 tified by her husband, William C. Rothman. 
 
 REKANSKI, WANDA, 10 years old, No. 337 Fifth street; identi- 
 fied by mother. 
 
 RUTHMAYER, MRS. VETTA, 38 years old. No. 47 St. Mark's 
 place; identified by husband, Edward. 
 
 REULING, EMMA, 24 years old. No 424 East Sixth street ; identi- 
 fied by father, August. 
 
 ROSENAGLE, ANNIE (38), No. 129 Fourth street; identified by 
 husband, Charles. 
 
 ROTHENBURG, ANNIE (18), No. 368 Bowery. 
 
 RICHTER, LENA (35), No. 104 First avenue. 
 
 RICHTER, TESSIE (13), No. 90 First avenue. 
 
 RUTHINGER, ERNEST (16), No. 47 St. Mark's place. 
 
 REICHENBACK, HERMAN, 2^ years old. No. 79 East Houston 
 street. 
 
 RUELING, EMMA (24), No. 424 East Sixth street. 
 
 RICHTER, MRS. AMELIA (47), No. 404 Sixth street. 
 
 RICHTER, AUGUST (15). 
 
 RICHTER, AMELIA (20). 
 
 RICHTER, LIZZIE (18). ^ . 
 
 RITZ, TESSIE (13), No 90 First avenue. 
 
 ROTTENBERGER, ANNIE (19), No. 368 Bowery. 
 
 RICHTER, CHRISTINA, 9 years old. No. 104 First street. 
 
 RICHTER, LYDIA, 12 years old, No. 104 First street. 
 
 RINGER, CLARA, 37 years old. No. 170 Avenue A. 
 
 ROTHMAN, WILLIAM C, Jr., No. 48^^ Seventh street. 
 
 ROSENSTEIN, SOPHIA, 20 years old. No. 127 First avenue. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 285 
 
 S 
 
 STOSS, EDNA (10), No. 316 Second avenue. 
 
 SCHWARTZ, LAVINIA (43), No 141 East Third street. 
 
 SCHWARTZ, LOUISA A., No. 290 East Thirty-eighth street. 
 
 SCHNEIDER, A. T., address unknown. 
 
 STROPEL CATHARINE, No 338 East- Sixth street. 
 
 SCHMID, KATHERINE (67), ^No. 418 East Ninth street; identi- 
 fied by son Charles at the morgue. 
 
 SCHNITZLER, TINA, MRS. identified by her husband, Patrohnan 
 Edward Schnitzler, of the East One Hundred and Fourth Street 
 Station, at the morgue. 
 
 SCHWARTZ, LOUISA, MRS. (43), No. 141 Fifth street; identi- 
 fied by her husband, Jacob, at the Morgue. 
 
 SIERICHS, LOTTA (38), No. 425 East Twelfth street; identified 
 by her husband, William, at the morgue. 
 
 SMITH, MARY, MRS. (35), No 138 Seventh street; identified by 
 her cousin, Charles Stock, of No. 142 Seventh street, at the morgue. 
 
 STOEHR, SUSIE, No 340 Sixth street; identified by husband, 
 William, at the morgue. 
 
 STRINZ, AUGUST, MRS. (52), No. 90 First avenue; identified by 
 son, Paul, at the morgue. 
 
 SMITH, MARTHA, MISS (18), No. 334 East Fifteenth street. 
 
 SCHMIDT, EVA, 17 years old, No. 149 East Fourth street; identi- 
 fier by George Schmidt, her brother. 
 
 SCHNEIDLING, ANNIE (15), No. 119 East Seventh street; iden- 
 tified by Charles Schneidling, a brother. 
 
 SCHNEIDLING, ANNIE (15), No. 119 East Seventh street; iden- 
 tified by Charles Schneidling, a brother. 
 
 SCHAEFER, KATE, 6 years old, No 332 East Thirteenth street. 
 
 SCHUMPF, LIZZIE, MRS., 40 years old. No. 208 Avenue B ; iden- 
 tified by her husband, Jacob Schumpf. 
 
 SPIUZ, MRS. AUGUSTA, 52 years old. No 90 First avenue; identi- 
 fied by her son, Paul. 
 
 SCHULTZ, EMMA, 10 years old, No. 136 East Fourth street, iden- 
 tified by her brother, Eugene Schultz. 
 
286 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 SIEWART, PHOEBE (7), No 225 East Fifth street. 
 
 SERBER, CATHARINE {'j2), No. 107 East Eighty-fourth street. 
 
 SCHRUPF, JOHN (16), No. 268 Avenue B. 
 
 SCHMIDT, SOPHIA, No. 108 Avenue B. 
 
 SCHMIDT, ANNA, No. 108 Avenue B. 
 
 SEIDENWARD, HENRY (18), No. 184 Third street; identified by 
 brother, Charles. 
 
 STENGERi, ROSA (10), No. 88 East Third street; identified by 
 uncle, William Gendert. 
 
 SCHOEFFLING, MRS., No. 189 Third avenue, and three-year-old 
 daughter, ELSIE ; identified by husband. 
 
 SCHULTZ, MARTHA, 45 years old; identified by brother, Henry 
 Miller, of No. 202 St. Mark's place. 
 
 SCHULER, ; identified at morgue by cards; no address given. 
 
 SMITH, HILDRETH, 3 years old, No. 18 Jacobson street; identi- 
 fied by father, George. 
 
 SEEMAN, NETA (26), single, No 227 East Twenty-first street; 
 identified by Henry C. Ahrens, No. 37 West One Hundred and 
 Thirty-second street. 
 
 SCHMIDTLING, ANNA (15), No. 119 Seventh street; identified 
 by brother. 
 
 SCHMIDTLING, GEORGE (18), No. 119 Seventh street; iden- 
 tified by brother. 
 
 SPOEHE, MRS. SUSAN (29), No. 304 East Sixth street; identi- 
 fied by husband, George. 
 
 SCHINDE, HENRY C. (35), No. 1958 Washington avenue, Bronx, 
 identified by W. F. McShane, of same address, a friend. 
 
 SCHNEIDER, TESSIE (14), No. 90 First avenue. 
 
 SEILER, KATE {'J2), No. 107 East Eighty-fourth street. 
 
 SCHNEIDER, EVA (14), No. 326 East Sixth street. 
 
 SILVER, KATE (60), No. 207 East Eighty-fourth street. 
 
 SCHMITZLER, KATIE (6), No. 10 Gouverneur place. 
 
 SCHNEIDER, (14), No. 90 First avenue. 
 
 SCHOEFFLING, MARIA (35), No. 189 Third avenue. 
 
 SCHOENINGER, MRS. GOTTLIEDEN (60), No. 118 East Tlnrd 
 street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 287 
 
 SCHIMMER, WILLIAM (9), No. 140 First avenue. 
 STEIN, CARRIE (9), No. 45 First avenue. 
 SCHULER, FREDERICK (14), No. 15 Stuyvesant street. 
 SCHRUMPF, WILLIAM (13), No. 208 Avenue B. 
 SCHMIDT, SOPHIA, 36 years old, 290 East Second street, Man- 
 hattan. 
 SCHEELE, ANNA, 15 years old, 14 St. Mark's place. 
 SCHEELE, CLARA, 7 years old, 14 St. Mark's place. 
 SACKMAN, HERMAN, 7 years old, 341 Rivington street. 
 SCHMITT, MRS. EMMA, 25 years old, 264 First avenue. 
 SCHOEMANN, ELSIE, 15 years old, 546 Home street. 
 SIEGEL, SOPHIA, 30 years old, 54 Seventh street. 
 SVOBODA, MAMIE, 8 years old, 170 East Fourth street. 
 SCHEIR, JULIA, 6 months old, 124 Seventh street. 
 SUGMAN, HENRIETTA, 23 years old, loi First avenue. 
 SCHNUDE, MILDRED, 18 years old, 196 Guernsey street, Brooklyn. 
 STOCKERMAN, AUGUSTA, 15 years old, 225 Fifth street. 
 STENGER, MRS, FRANCIS. 35 years old, 88 East Third street. 
 SCHMIDT, AUGUST, 1163 Greene avenue, Brooklyn. 
 STOCKERMAN, HULDA, 17 years old, 225 First street. 
 STOCKERMAN, LOUISA. 10 years old, 225 First street. 
 SCHAIER, FREDERICK, 6 months old, 174 East Third street. 
 
 T 
 
 TOTTEBAUM, HERMAN, No. 16 St. Mark's place: identified by 
 
 brother, Charles, at the Morgue. 
 TRAPPING. LILLIAN (26), No. 998 Avenue A; identified by 
 
 father. 
 TREBER, MRS. ANNA (35), No. 310 East Twenty-fifth street; 
 
 identified by brother, Henry. 
 TROELL, ALBERT (13), No. 405 East Fifth street; identified by 
 
 mother and father. 
 TODT, MARY, No. 103 East Seventy-fifth street; body identified at 
 
 Morgue by Detective-Sergeant McCafferty. 
 TODT, MRS., janitress at No. 173 East Seventy-fifth street, and her 
 
288 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 grandchild, son of Mrs. Henry Hermans, of No. 410 East Fifth 
 
 street. 
 TETAMORE, MRS. SOPHIA, 30 years old, 1714 Bushwick avenue, 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 THORNMAHLER, AUGUSTA, 42 years old, 100 Second street. 
 TISCHLER, ERMA, 8 years old, 314 East Ninth street. 
 TREPING, MINNIE, 7 years old, 223 Fifth street. 
 
 U 
 
 UNGER, KATE, 48 years old. No. 99 Avenue A. 
 UIHLEIN, MRS. MINNIE, 41 years old. No 416 Fifth street. 
 ULLMAN, EDWARD, JR., 14 years old, No. 409 Sixth street. 
 ULLMAN, LENA, 37 years old, No. 409 East Fifth street; identified 
 
 by her brother, Policeman John Hindes, of the Eleventh Precinct. 
 UHLENDORFF, MRS. SELMA, 45 years old, No. 93 Third avenue; 
 
 identified by husband, Louis. 
 UHLENDORFF, SELMA (45), No. 93 Third avenue. 
 ULLRICH, ELIZABETH, 32 years old, 433 West Forty-first street. 
 
 V 
 
 VOLMER, MARY (35), No 123 First avenue; identified by hus- 
 band, Joseph. 
 
 VOLKENBERG, MISS LUCY (25), East Seventeenth street, be- 
 tween First and Second avenues; identified by Albert Hentze, No. 
 201 First avenue. 
 
 VAETH, WILLIAM, 9 years old, 159 East Ninth street. College 
 Point. 
 
 VASSMER, HANNAH, 11 years old, 333 Fifth street. 
 
 VIET, LENA, 26 years old, 159 East Ninth street. College Point. 
 
 VOLMER, MAGD ALINE, 7 years old, 123 First avenue. 
 
 W 
 
 WEIDLER, LAURA (55), No. 411 East Ninth street. 
 WIESSO, EMILY (12), No. 216 East Eleventh street. 
 WIESER, MRS. CAROLINE, No. 216 East Ninth street. 
 
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LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 289 
 
 WALTER, ELIZABETH (67), No. 336 Sixth street; identified by 
 her son, Philip, at the Morgue. 
 
 WIEDEMAKF, CAROLINE (50), No. 79 East Houston street; iden- 
 tified by her husband, Henry, at the Morgue. 
 
 WEAVER, ESTHER, No 304 East Ninth street. 
 
 WETS, EMILY, 10 years old. No. 532 Fifth street; identified by her 
 brother, Tobn Weis, of No. 167 Avenue A. 
 
 WETS, TILLY, 47 years old, widow, No. 532 Fifth street; identified 
 by her son, John Weis. 
 
 WEIS, LOUIS, 21 years old, single. No. 532 Fifth street; identified 
 
 by his cousin, John Weis. 
 
 WURNER, LILLIAN (18), No 524 East Sixth street; identified by 
 Frank Lander, an uncle, of No. 130 East Third street. 
 
 WEISL, MRS. CAROLINE (50), No. 337 East Sixth street; iden- 
 tified by sister. • , -r , 
 
 WEHLEIN, MRS. MINNIE (41), No. 416 Fifth street: identified 
 
 by husband, Otto. 
 
 WOLF, MRS. MAGDALEN (65), No. 1181 Fortieth street. Brook- 
 lyn, N. Y. 
 
 WUNNER, MRS. CARRILANDIS, No 524 Sixth street. 
 
 WALLACE, ROSE, 11 years old, 1214 East Eleventh street. 
 
 WEBER, MRS. FREDERICK, 36 years old, 30 E^st Ninth street. 
 
 WEIS, FREDERICK, 19 years old, 532 Fifth street. 
 
 WOLF FREDA. 2 years old, 283 Himrod street, Brooklyn. 
 
 WOLMER, KATHERINE E., 58 years old, 246 Woodbine street, 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 WOODS, MRS. WALTER E., 26 years old, 127 First avenue. 
 WOULREIN, HULDA, 28 years old, 1702 Dean street, Brooklyn. 
 WURTENBERGER, LILLIAN, 19 months old, 55 First avenue. 
 WERNZ, ANNIE, 22 years old, 426 Sixth street. 
 WEIDMAN, CATHERINE, 29 years old, 79 East Houston street. 
 WEIDMAN,' HARRIET, 79 East Houston street. 
 WEISS, John, Jr., 5 months old, 532 Fifth street. 
 WEISS, SALOME, 14 years old, 532 Fifth street. 
 WURMSTITCH, BARBARA, 37 years old, 413 Fifth street. 
 
290 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 ZIEGLER, EMILY, 19 years old, No. 370 East Tenth street; iden- 
 tified by John Schrenck, a friend. 
 ZIMMERMAN, HUGO (12), No. 196 Second avenue. 
 ZIPSE, LOUISE (10), No. 335 East Twenty-first street. 
 ZIMMERMAN, AUGUSTA (16), No. 106 Second avenue. 
 ZITSI, MARY (14), No 335 East Twenty-first street. 
 ZAHN, MRS. BERTHA, 22 years old, 693 First avenue. 
 ZIMMERMAN, WILLIAM (30), 229 Bleeker street, Brooklyn. 
 
 MISSING 
 
 ADDICKS, AMELIA, 75 years old, No. 49 Avenue A. 
 ADDICKS, JOHN, 16 years old. 
 ADDICKS, MARY, 9 years old. 
 ADDICKS, ANNIE, 7 years old. 
 ADDICKS, ERNEST, 5 years old. 
 ADDICKS, MARTHA, 10 years old. 
 
 ANGER, CARL, Assistant Superintendent of the St. Mark's Luth- 
 eran Church Sunday School. 
 ANGER, MRS. CARL, No. 357 East Sixty-second street. 
 ANGER, EDWIN, No. 243 East Fourteenth street. 
 ANGER, MRS. CHARLES, No. 523 East Eighty-third street. 
 ARMBURST, BARBARA, No. 1C6 East Fourth street. 
 ARMBURST, EDA, No 166 East Fourth street. 
 ABESSER, MRS., 128 East Fourth street. 
 ABESSER, HENRY, 128 East Fourth street. 
 
 ARMOND, , grandmother, 334 East Sixth street. 
 
 ARMOND, , grandchild, 334 East Sixth street. 
 
 ABESSER, KATE (8), No. 129 East Fourth street. 
 ABESSER, EMILY (11), No. 128 East Fourth street. 
 ABRAHAMS, ISAAC (24), No. 166 Avenue C. 
 ACKERMAN, MRS. BARBARA, No 406 East Fifth street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 291 
 
 ACKERAIAN, LENA, 16 months old, No. 406 East Fifth street. 
 ALFELD, MRS. CARL (44), No. 339 Sixth street. 
 ARMBRUST, MAMIE (13), No. 166 East Fourth street. 
 ANGER, ROSE, No. 1365 Third avenue. 
 ANGER, GERTRUDE, No. 1365 Third avenue. 
 ABRAM, ISAAC (24), No. 156 Avenue C. 
 
 B 
 
 BAGLEY, MRS. MARY, 41 years old. No. 489 West One Hundred 
 
 and Thirtieth street. 
 BAGLEY, LIZZIE, 11 years old, daughter of Mary. 
 BALLNER, JOSEPH (16), No. 123 First avenue. 
 BALLNER, MINNIE (8), No. 123 First avenue. 
 BENECKE, MRS. WILLIAM C, No. 420 East Seventeenth street. 
 BECK, MRS. CHRISTIAN (56), wife of John Beck, No. 315 East 
 
 Ninth street. 
 
 BUCK, , child of George Buck. 
 
 BUCK, , child of George Buck. 
 
 BEHRENS, ALICE, 15 years old. No. 127 Garden street, Hoboken. 
 BEHRENDT, MRS. MARY, No. 88 Third street; seriously burned; 
 
 wandered from police custody after reporting loss of her children. 
 BEHRENDT, LIZZIE, 10 years old, No. 88 Third street. 
 BEHRENDT, FANNIE, 8 years old. No. 88 Third street. 
 
 BERTRAND, , 730 Sixth street. 
 
 BERTRAND, MRS. , wife of above. 
 
 BROOKS, MARY (12), No. 5 Avenue A. 
 
 BRUCHARD, MRS. — , wife of a physician of Hoboken. 
 
 BRUNING, JOHN (46), No. 215 East Twelfth street. 
 BECKER, CLARA, 1157 Lexington avenue. 
 BENDELOW, LULU, 84 East Seventh street. 
 BENDELOW, GEORGE, 84 East Seventh street. 
 BRUNICK, WILLIAM, 71 East Fifth street. 
 BROOK, MARGARET (13), No. 51 First avenue. 
 BEHRENS, FRED. 134 East Twenty-eighth street. 
 
292 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 BAUMLER, MRS. LENA, and three children, No. 526 East Sixth 
 street. 
 
 BONEHARDT, OTTO, No. 304 East Fourteenth street. 
 
 BONEHARDT, ELLA, No. 304 East Fourteenth street. 
 
 BETTER, HENRY, 46 years old. No. 730 East Sixth street. 
 
 BETTER, JACOB, 31 years old. No. 730 East Sixth street. 
 
 BETTER, RICHARD, 16 years old, No. 730 East Sixth street. 
 
 BETTER, MAMIE, 14 years old. No. 730 East Sixth street. 
 
 BETTER, CHARLES, 12 years old, No. 730 East Sixth street. 
 
 BETTER, MRS. HENRY, 40 years old, No. 730 East Sixth street 
 
 BAHR, LILLY, 7 years old, No. 424 East Ninth street. 
 
 BAHR, IDA, 13 years old. No. 424 East Ninth street. 
 
 BAHR, MRS., 33 years old, No. 424 East Ninth street. 
 
 BRANDT, IDA, 25 years old. No. 410 East Ninth street. 
 
 BROWN, MINNIE, 13 years old, No. 69 First avenue. 
 
 BOENHARDT, OTTO, 13 years old. No. 322 East Thirteenth street. 
 
 BOENHARDT, ELLA, 12 years old. No. 322 East Thirteenth street. 
 
 BOESSE, MRS., 34 years old. No. 125 Avenue A. 
 
 BARKER, K., No. 137 Avenue B. 
 
 BEISS, ROSA, 5 years old, No. 70 First avenue. 
 
 BRECKERSTUCHS, ANNIE, No. 276 First avenue. 
 
 BAUMLER, MRS., No. 433 East Sixth street. 
 
 BAUMLER, ANNIE, No. 433 East Sixth street. 
 
 BAUMLER, EMLIA, No. 433 East Sixth street. 
 
 BAUMLER, CHARLIE, No. 433 East Sixth street. 
 
 BARCEI, MRS. LIZZIE, No. 284 East Seventh street. 
 
 BEDESKY, ETTIE, No. 85 East Third street. 
 
 BAIST, LILLIAN (12), No. 23 Avenue B. 
 
 BUCHMILLER, MRS. ANNIE {27), No. 79 Colyer street, Green- 
 point. 
 
 BUCHMILLER;, GEORGE (8), No. 79 Colyer street, Greenpoint. 
 
 BUCHMILLER, ARTHUR (lo). No. 79 Colyer street. Green- 
 point. 
 
 BEHRENS, HENRY, (5), No. 134 East Twenty-eighth street. 
 
 BOZENHARDT, LUCILLE (11), No. no First avenue. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 293 
 
 BRUNING, GRACE (14), No. 215 East Twelfth street. 
 
 BECKMANN, ANNIE, Third avenue, near One Hundred and 
 Fourth street. 
 
 BECKMANN, , 4 months old. Third avenue, near One Hun- 
 dred and Fourth street. 
 
 BERDOLDT, MRS. F. (30), No. 41 Third avenue. 
 
 BENTZ, OTTO (14), No. 333 Fifth street. 
 
 BEHNKEN, ANNIE (13), East Forty-eighth street. 
 
 CATLIN, ROSE, 19 years old, No. 27 Sheriff street. 
 
 CORDES, ETTA, 2^ years old, No. 411 East Sixteenth street. 
 
 CORDES, FRANK, 14 years old. No. 411 East Sixteenth street. 
 
 CORDES, CHARLES, 18 years old. No. 411 East Sixteenth street. 
 
 COHRS, HENRY, i year old. No 70 First avenue. 
 
 COHRS, MRS., No. 70 First avenue. 
 
 COHRS, HENRY, No. 70 First avenue. 
 
 COHRS, FREjDA, 6 years old. No. 70 First avenue. 
 
 COHRS, FREDA, 25 years old. No. 70 First avenue. 
 
 CRAGER, WINIFRED, No. 222 East Twelfth street. 
 
 COHN, MICHAEL, No. 106 Avenue A. 
 
 COHN, MRS. MICHAEL, No. 106 Avenue A. 
 
 COLLINS, CHARLES (36), No 401 West Twenty-third street. 
 
 CAHILL, MRS. ANNA (22), No. 316 Sixth street. 
 
 D 
 
 DEMEINER, MRS. , No. 895 Jefferson place. 
 
 DORAN, MRS. THOMAS, 28 years old. No. 447 East Twenty-fifth 
 street. 
 
 DORAN, , 14 months old, child of Mrs. Doran. 
 
 DIPPERT, CHARLES, io>^ months old, son of Charles and Mary 
 Dippert. 
 
 DOEHRING, IDA, 33 years old, wife of the Rev. E. Doerhing, Luth- 
 eran Missionary on Ellis Island. 
 
294 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 DOEHRING, GUSTAV, 9 years old, her son. 
 
 DOEHRING, MARTHA, 5 years old, her daughter. 
 
 DORFFHAGER, MRS. , 40 years old, No. 12S Avenue A. 
 
 DORFFHAGER, FRED, 10 years old, No. 128 Avenue A. 
 
 DORFFHAGER, FREDA, 13 years old. No. 128 Avenue A. 
 
 DORFFHAGER, MAMIE, 8 years old. No. 128 Avenue A. 
 
 DIETZ, ROSIE, 438 East Sixth street. 
 
 DrrTRICH, MRS. HENRY, 30 years old. No. 96 Greenwich street. 
 
 DITTRICH, EMMA, 2 years old. No. 96 Greenwich street. 
 
 DITTRICH, HERMAN, 4 years old. No. 96 Greenwich street. 
 
 DITTRICH, ALBERT, 9 years old. No. 96 Greenwich street. 
 
 DITTRICH, GEORGE, 10 years old. No. 96 Greenwich street. 
 
 DISTLER, HENRY, No. 116 East Fourteenth street, and three chil- 
 dren. 
 
 DELUCCE MRS., No. 54 East Seventh street. 
 
 DELUCCE, ROSIE, 54 East Seventh street. 
 
 DELUCCE, HENRY, No. 54 East Seventh street. 
 
 DELUCCE, FRANKIE, No. 54 East Seventh street. 
 
 DUES, JULIA, No. 103 Avenue A. 
 
 DUES, PAULINA, No. 103 Avenue A. 
 
 DUES, MINNIE, No. 103 Avenue A. 
 
 DRUSE, FRIEDA (28), No. 54 East Fourth street. 
 
 DRUSE, HENRY (6;, No. 54 East Fourth street. 
 
 DRUSE, TILLIE (2), Na 54 East Fourth street. 
 
 DAUERHEIM, MRS. MINNIE, No. 1065 Jackson avenue, the 
 Bronx. 
 
 DERSCH, MRS. HELEN (40), No. 76 First avenue. 
 
 DEBRICHT, MARTHA (8), No. 414 East Ninth, Salvation Army 
 Home. 
 
 DIEHL, LULU (34), No. 209 East Fifth street. 
 
 DIEHL, JOSEPHINE (7), No. 209 East Fifth street. 
 
 DIEHL, KATIE (3), No. 209 East Fifth street. 
 
 DIEHL, MRS. KATE (59), No. 209 East Fifth street. 
 
 DORKMAN, JENNIE, Jersey City. 
 
 DEINER, MRS., No. 895 Jefferson place. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 295 
 
 DUNN, MRS. JULIA, Sherwood Park, N. Y. 
 DUNN, ARTHUR, her son. 
 
 ERDMAN, MARGARET (36), wife of Anthony, No. 346 East Ninth 
 
 street. 
 ERKLIN, MRS. OTTO E., No. 1028 Hudson street, Hoboken. 
 ERKLIN, , three children of above, aged 5 years, 2 years and 
 
 2 months. 
 ENGER, ROSIE, daughter of George Enger, No. 1365 Third 
 
 avenue. 
 ENGER, GERTRUDE, daughter of George. 
 EICKHOFF, AUGUSTA, 15 years old, 196 Second avenue. 
 EICKHOFF, HUGO, 12 years old, 196 Second avenue. 
 ENGLEMAN, ANNA, No. 41 East Twelfth street. 
 ESHER, ROSIE (16), No. 87 Avenue A. 
 EHLIG, CONEY (7), No. 425 Fifth street, and two sisters. 
 ENS, MRS. CHRISTIANA, No. 184 West Broadway. 
 ELK, MRS. ADDIE, No. 306 Sixth street. 
 EBLING, MRS. A. (^2), No. 77 First avenue. 
 EBLING, GEORGE (5), No. 77 First avenue. 
 ELICK, ELSIE (4), No. 433 East Fifth street. 
 ELICK, LIZZIE, No. 433 East Fifth street. 
 
 FASSNER, MRS. JOHANNA, No. 332 East Fifth street. 
 FASSNER, MUSIE, 12 years old, No. 333 East Fifth street. 
 FASSNER, WILLIE, 9 years old, No. 333 East Fifth street. 
 FRICKBOHM, ERNEST, 11 years old. No. 91 Avenue B. 
 FRICKBOHM, FRED, 9 years old. No. 91 Avenue B. 
 FULLER, MRS. ANNIE, No. 95 Second avenue. 
 
 FULLER, , her three sons, 8, 10 and 12 years old. 
 
 FELTZKE, MRS., No. 211 East Fifth street. 
 
296 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 FELTZKE, LIZZIE, 15 years old, No. 211 East Fifth street. 
 
 FELTZKE, HERMAN, 8 months old, No. 211 East Fifth street. 
 
 FUNK, MICHAEL, 12 years old. No. 31 Avenue A. 
 
 FREY, EDNA, No. 84 Seventh street. 
 
 FREY, LOUIS, No. 84 Seventh street. 
 
 FREY, GUSSIE, No. 84 Seventh street. 
 
 FISCHER, MRS., 52 years old, No. 108 First avenue. 
 
 FRICKBOLM, MRS., No. 284 East Seventh street. 
 
 FRICKBOHN, EARNEST, No. 91 Avenue D. 
 
 FRICKBOHN (servant, name unknown). No. 91 Avenue D. 
 
 FITTIG, MRS. PETER, No 120 Second avenue. 
 
 FITTIG, ELSIE, No. 120 Second avenue. 
 
 FICKLBAUM, MARIE, 27 years old No. 284 East Seventh street. 
 
 FICKLBAUM, MARY, 12 years old, 284 East Seventh street. 
 
 FICKLBAUM, ERNEST, 10 years old, 284 East Seventh street. 
 
 FICKLBAUM, FRED., 8 years, 284 East Seventh street. 
 
 FULMER, JOSEPH, No. 123 First avenue. 
 
 FELTHUSEN, boy, No 50 West Eighth street. 
 
 FISCHLER, HATTIE, 8 years old. No. 314 East Ninetieth street. 
 
 FINKELHAZEL, MRS. CATHERINE (35), No. 439 East Sixth 
 
 street. 
 FELLIG, PETER, No. 58 Willett street. 
 
 GREVEL, EMMA (15), No. 117 Second avenue. 
 
 GASSMAN, MRS., No. 128 East Fourth street. 
 
 GRETZ, MRS. BARBARA (37), No. 526 East Sixth street. 
 
 GRETZ, GEORGE (8), No. 526 East Sixth street. 
 
 GRETZ, LILLIAN, 10 months old, No. 526 East Sixth street. 
 
 GREVE, FRED (14), No. 54 Seventh street. 
 
 GREVE, MRS., No. 54 Seventh street. 
 
 GOSS, MARY (59), No. 97 Seventh street. 
 
 GREWALD, ELSIE (9), No. 56 Seventh street. 
 
 GREWALD, FRITZ (12), No. 56 Seventh street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 297 
 
 GILLIS, CHARLES (16), no address. 
 GRANNING, MRS. LENA {2^), No. 45 Se\'enth street. 
 GRANNING, HENRY (6), No. 45 Seventh street. 
 GALEWSKY, FLORA (36), No. 54 Seventh street. 
 GALEWSKY, MORRIS (3), No. 54 Seventh street. 
 GALLAGHER, VERONICA, 35 years old, No. 45 East Fifteenth 
 
 street. 
 GALLAGHER, WALTER (7), No. 45 East Fifteenth street. 
 GALLAGHER, KATIE (5), No. 45 East Fifteenth street. 
 GEISLER, ^IRS. CATHERINE (20), No. 201 Avenue A. 
 GEISLER EDWARD (19), No. 201 Avenue A. 
 GEISLER, WILLIA^I (17), No. 201 Avenue A. 
 GIBBONS, MARGARET (13), No. 225 East Fifth street. 
 GIBBONS, ELLA (11), No. 225 East Fifth street. 
 GRUENNING, MRS. HELEN (29), No. 45 Seventh street. 
 GRUENNING, HARRY (5). 
 GRUENNING, CHARLES (3). 
 GRUENNING, HELEN, 9 months old. 
 
 H 
 
 HENKEL, LILLIE (8), No. 227 Seventh street. 
 HAAG, MRS. Susana (49), No. 158 First avenue. 
 HAAG, ELLA (13), No. 158 First avenue. 
 HEYL, DORA (18), No. 9 West Nineteenth street. 
 HENTZENBERGER, two boys, No. 22 St. Mark's place. 
 HETTINGER, MRS. A. J., No. 127 First avenue. 
 HARRIS, SYLVIA (10), No. 242 East Fifth street. 
 HARRIS, AGNES (19), No. 242 East Fifth street. 
 HECKERT, ANIOME (12), Avenue A and Fifth street. 
 HAAD, WILLIAM (14), No. 210 East Fourteenth street. 
 HA AD, WILMA (13), No. 210 East Fourteenth street. 
 HAAD, EMMA (11), No. 210 East Fourteenth street. 
 HARTMANN, MARJORIE (lO. No. 309 East Tenth street. 
 HARTMANN, CLARA ( 1 1 ) , No. 309 East- Tenth street. 
 
298 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 HARTMANN, MRS. MARY (45), No 309 East Tenth street. 
 
 HARTING, HARRY (15). 
 
 H ARTING, WILLIE (15). 
 
 HARTING, CLARA (11). 
 
 HEINIZ, ANNIE (40), No. 300 Hunt street. 
 
 HEINZ, ETTA (10), No. 300 Hunt street. 
 
 HEINZ, ANNA, No. 240 Ninth avenue. 
 
 HORWAY, CARL (i), No. 313 East Ninth street. 
 
 HOTZ, LILLIE (9), No. 319 Fifth street. 
 
 HOTZ, BERTHA (13), No. 319 Fifth street. 
 
 HETTERICH, ROBERT (6), No. 420 East Fifteenth street. 
 
 HETTERICH, EMIL (3), No. 420 East Fifteenth street. 
 
 HETTERICH, ADOLPHE (i), 420 East Fifteenth street. 
 
 HENRY^ SADIE (12), No. 225 Fifth street. 
 
 HENZLER, JACOB (9), No. 154 First avenue. 
 
 HENZLER, GUSSIE (11), No. 154 First avenue. 
 
 HENZLER, MILLIE (18), No. 154 First avenue. 
 
 HEUER, MRS. LENA, No. 129 Division street. 
 
 HEUER, DORA (5), No. 129 Division street. 
 
 HEUER, HERMAN (7), No. 129 Division street. 
 
 HEUER, MAY (15), No. 129 Division street. 
 
 HOEFMAN, RAYMOND, son of Fred Hofifman, No. y^ Second 
 
 street. 
 HOFFMAN, EDNA, daughter of Fred Hofifman, No. y^i Second 
 
 street. 
 HAVEMEYER, EMMA {2^), No. 1499 First avenue. 
 HAVEMEY^ER, WILLIAM (7), No. 1499 First avenue. 
 HARTUNG, MRS. LOUISA, no address. 
 HARTUNG, MINNIE, no address. 
 HARTUNG, FRANCES (17), no address. 
 HAGENBUSHER, MAMIE, Sherwood Park, N. Y. 
 HOFFMAN, MARIE, No. 1394 Washington avenue, Bronx. 
 HAVEMEY'ER, ANNA (35), No. 1499 First avenue. 
 HAGENBARCHER, MRS. KATE, and eight children, No. 211 
 
 Third avenue. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 299 
 
 J 
 
 IDEN, EMMA (13), No. 67 East Fourth street. 
 IDEN, MINNIE (7), No. 100 East Fourth street. 
 
 K 
 
 KIEFERG, LOUIS J. (21), No. 1592 Second avenue. 
 
 KEPPLER, LILLIE (16), No. 192 First avenue. 
 
 KLEUCK, MINNIE (19), No. 438 Sixth street. 
 
 KLEIN, EMILY (7), No. 314 East Sixth street. 
 
 KRUNING, MRS., and three children. Seventh street and Second 
 
 avenue. 
 KORNMAN, MINNIE, No. 402 Third street. 
 KOCH, GUSSIE (21), No. 84 Seventh street. 
 KUENSTER, WILLIAM (13), No. 65 St. Mark's place. 
 KRAFFT, MRS. LOUISE (30), No. 140 East Fourth street. 
 KOPF, EMILE (10), No. 337 East Ninth street. 
 KOPF, FRANCES (8), No. 337 East Ninth street. 
 KOPF, ELLA (i), No. 337 East Ninth street. 
 KUNZE, GUSSIE, No. 89 Broadway, Brooklyn. 
 KRUSTSCH, MARTHA (14), No. 513 Sixth street. 
 KLATTHAAR, GEORGE (56), No. 506 Fifth street. 
 KLEMM, MRS. (60), No. — East Ninth street. 
 KALB, GUSSIE (22), No. 84 East Seventh street. 
 KLEINHENZ, BARBARA (44), No. 196 Avenue A. 
 KLEINHENZ, LENA (11), No. 196 Avenue A. 
 KIEGLER, LIZZIE (4), No. 257 Avenue A 
 KIEGLER, FRED (9), No. 257 Avenue A. 
 KIEGLER, DORA (11). No. 257 Avenue A. 
 KREUDER, MRS ANNIE, No. 52 West Ninety-seventh street. 
 KREUDER, MRS. LENA, No. 52 West Ninety-seventh street. 
 KLEINBERT, TESSIE (17), No. 431 East Fifteenth street. 
 KLEINBERT, ANNA, No. 431 East Fifteenth street. 
 KNUESSEL, MRS. (35), No. 439 Sixth street. 
 
300 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 KNUESSEL, WILLL^M (ii). 
 
 KNUESSEL, ANNIE (9). 
 
 KNUSSEL, NETTIE (8). 
 
 KLEIN, MRS. KATE (22), No. 436 East Fifteenth street. 
 
 LYMAN, SAMUEL (8), No. ^2 Avenue B. 
 LAMBECK, ALBERTINA (33), No,. 427 Ninth street. 
 LAMBECK, DORA (11), No. 427 Ninth street. 
 LAMBECK, MINNIE (9), No. 427 Ninth street. 
 LAMBECK HERMAN (14), No. 427 Ninth street. 
 LAMBECK ALBERT (4), No. 427 Ninth street. 
 LOEFFLER, MRS. KATRINA (40), No. 9 East Third street. 
 LAURIE, LONA (15), No'. 11 1 East Fourth street. 
 LUTZ, GUSTAV (16), No. 148 Second avenue. 
 LINK, ARjTHUR (14), No. 76 Avenue A. 
 LINK, EDWARD (14), No. y^ Avenue A. 
 LINK, LOTTIE (8), No. ^6 Avenue A. 
 
 LUPENZ, MRS. GERTRUDE (46), No. 102 Clymer street, Brook- 
 lyn. 
 LUPENZ MILDRED (18), No. 102 Clymer street, Brooklyn. 
 
 M 
 
 MACK, FRIEDA (8), Training School, No. 414 East Ninth street. 
 
 MACK, ANNIE (22), No. 401 East Fifth street. 
 
 MULLER, MRS. FLORENTINA (60), No. 321 East Ninth street. 
 
 MULLER, GROVER (12), No. 95 Second avenue. 
 
 MULLER ARTHUR (5), No. 95 Second avenue. 
 
 MULLER WALTER (9), No. 95 Second avenue. 
 
 MULLER, IRENE (4), Bowery and Cooper square. 
 
 MEDOLEN, KATIE (35), No. 338 Fifth street. 
 
 MEDOLEN, FRED, No. 338 Fifth street. 
 
 MEDOLEN, ALBERT, No. 338 Fifth street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 301 
 
 MEDOLEN, ROBERT, No. 338^ Fifth street. 
 
 MATTES, LIZZIE (21), No. (i^ Avenue A. 
 
 MUTH, MRS. KATE, No. 785 One Hundred and Forty-Sixth 
 
 street. 
 MUTH, KATE (8), No. 785 East One Hundred and Forty-sixth 
 
 street. 
 MUTH JOHN (3), No. 785 East One Hundred and Forty-sixth 
 
 street. 
 MUTH MRS. ANNA, No. 1254 Lexington avenue. 
 MUTH, CONRAD (12), No. 1254 Lexington avenue. 
 MELPEN, MRS. FREDERICK, No. 80 First avenue. 
 MEYER, MRS. LIZZIE, No. 387 Madison street. 
 MAMME, MRS. FREDERICK, No. 730 Sixth avenue. 
 MAMME, CHARLES, No. 730 Sixth avenue. 
 MENNINGER, MRS. LIZZIE (30), No. 631 Bergen avenue. 
 McCARTIN, PATROLMAN GEORGE, West One Hundred and 
 
 Fifty-second street station, with his wife and family. 
 MOELLER, MRS., No. 20 St. Mark's place. 
 MOELLER, EDWIN (5), No. 20 St. Mark's place. 
 MOLITER, MRS. MARGARET (45), Sherwood Park, N. Y. 
 MOLITER, CARL (her son), (4). 
 MOLITER, FANNIE (daughter). 
 MOLITER, JOSEPH (son), (6 mos.). 
 MARSHALL, DANIEL (12), No. 127 First avenue. 
 MARSHALL, HENRY (9), same address. 
 MOELLER, HENRY (13), No. 20 St. Mark's place. 
 MARIO, MAMIE (14), No. 121 Pitt street. 
 
 N 
 
 NOLL, KATIE in). No. 400 Fifth street. 
 NOLL, THEODORE (6), No. 400 Fifth street. 
 NIEBAHR, MRS. M. (38), No. 23 Avenue B. 
 NIEBAHR, MARIE (9), No. 23 Avenue B. 
 
302 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 NIEBAHR, MAMIE (7), No. 23 Avenue B. 
 
 NECKER, TESSIE (7), Sixteenth street and Ninth avenue. 
 
 O 
 
 OTTENGER, MRS. KATE (33), No. 91 Seventh street. 
 OTTENGER, CHARLES (15), No. 91 Seventh street. 
 OTTENGER, ANDREW (7), No. 91 Seventh street. 
 OTTENGER, ARTHUR (5), No. 91 Seventh street. 
 OCHSE, CARRIE (15), No. 50 St. Mark's place. 
 OCHSE, EDWARD (11), No. 50 St. Mark's place. 
 OSMUS, MRS. MARY (52), No. 49 East Eighty-ninth street. 
 OSMUS, ADOLPH (17), No. 49 East Eighty-ninth street. 
 OELBRICK, FRED (6), No. 519 Willoughby street, Brooklyn. 
 OELBRICK, HENRY (12), No. 519 Willoughby street, Brooklyn. 
 OELBRICK, MINNIE (4), No. 519 Willoughby street, Brooklyn. 
 OELBRICK, LIZZIE (3), No. 519 Willoughby street, Brooklyn. 
 OELBRICK, HELEN (2), No. 519 Willoughby street, Brooklyn. 
 OHL, EMILY (11), No. 340 East street. 
 OHL, CHARLES (9), No. 340 East Ninth street. 
 
 PORT, HENRY (15), No. 58 East Fourth street. 
 PORT, PAULINE (12), No. 58 East Fourth street. 
 PEINING, MRS. (54), No. 45 Seventh street. 
 PULLMAN, WILLIAM (16), No. 337 East Eighteenth street. 
 PULLMAN, MRS. ELIZABETH, No. 337 East Eighteenth street. 
 PULLMAN, ELSIE (18), No. 33*7 East Eighteenth street. 
 PETERS, MARGARET (22), No. 50 Avenue A. 
 PROBST, KATE (24), No. 516 East Twelfth street. 
 PAULY, KATE (20), No. 26 Avenue A. 
 PAULY, ELSIE (13), No. 26 Avenue A. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND MISSING 303 
 
 Q 
 
 QUINN, GEORGE, No. 211 Fifth street. 
 QUINN, HATTIE, No. 211 Fifth street. 
 QUINN, HENRIETTA, No. 211 Fifth street. 
 
 R 
 
 RICHTER, AMELIA (47), No. 404 Sixth street. 
 RICHTER, AMELIA (20), No. 404 Sixth street. 
 RICHTER, ERNST (12), No. 404 Sixth stee^ 
 RICHTER, ANNA (8), No. 404 Sixth street. 
 RICHTER, LIZZIE (19), No. 404 Sixth street. 
 ROSENSTEIN, KATIE {^-j), No. 127 First avenue. 
 ROTHMAN, MRS. ELIZA (40), No. 100 First avenue. 
 
 ROTHMAN, (8), No. 100 First avenue. 
 
 ROTHMAN, (11), No. 100 First avenue. 
 
 REICHBACH (2), son of Mrs. Helen Reichbach, No. 240 
 
 Stockton street, Brooklyn. 
 RHEINFRANK, J., Goerck and East Third streets. 
 ROSENBERGER, MRS. MARY, No. 417 East Eighteenth street. 
 
 ROSENBERGER (8), No. 417 East Eighteenth street. 
 
 REULING, GERTRUDE, No. 424 Sixth street. 
 RICE, KATE, No. 70 First avenue. 
 RICE, ROSE (16), No. 70 First avenue. 
 RICE, LIZZIE (6), No. 70 First avenue. 
 RICE, LORENZO (4), No. 70 First avenue. 
 RICE, ANNIE (3), No. 70 First avenue. 
 RUTHINGER, ERNEST (16), No. 47 St. Mark's place. 
 RUTHINGER, MRS. NITA (39), No. 47 St. Mark's place. 
 RUTHINGER, ELSIE (14), No. 47 St. Mark's place. 
 RUTHINGER, FRED (10), No. 47 St. Mark's place. 
 RICHTER, FRED (11), No. 104 First avenue. 
 ROSENAGEL, LUCY (14), No. 129 East Fourth street. 
 ROSEN AGEL, CHARLES R., No. 129 East Fourth street. 
 RIETZ, TESSIE (12), No. 90 First avenue. 
 
304 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 RAMUS, IRVING (ii), No. 420 East Seventeenth street. 
 RAMUS, FREDERICK (60), same address. 
 
 SCHNEIDER, MRS. DORA (32), No. 322 Stanhope street, Brook- 
 lyn. 
 
 SCHNEIDER, KATE (8), No. 322 Stanhope street, Brooklyn. 
 
 SCHNEIDER, AMELIA (6), No. 322 Stanhope street, Brooklyn. 
 
 SCHMILING, MRS. ELIZA (36), No. 123 Avenue A. 
 
 SCHMILING, FRED, No. 123 Avenue A. 
 
 STOCKDALE, MRS. KATE (52), No. 266 West One Hundred 
 and Thirty-first street. 
 
 STOCKDALE, EDWARD J. (32), No. 266 West One Hundred 
 and Thirty-first street. 
 
 SCHUMACHER, KATE (14), No. 436 Sixth street. 
 
 SCHUMACHER, EDWARD (10), No. 436 Sixth street. 
 
 SCHUEBBE, CARRIE (15), No. 54 Avenue A. 
 
 SCHUMANN, MRS. MARY (30), No. 54 Avenue A. 
 
 SCHUMANN, ANNIE (5), No. 54 Avenue A. 
 
 SCHUMANN, ALFRED (7), No. 54 Avenue A. ^ 
 
 SCHUMANN, EMMA (22 mos.). No. 54 Avenue A. 
 
 STEIN, CARRIE (9), No. 45 First avenue. 
 
 STEGEL, ANNIE (13), First avenue and Fourth street. 
 
 SANDERS, NELLIE (13), No. 416 East Sixteenth street. 
 
 STERN, LOUISA (15), No. 508 Fifth street. 
 
 SCHOENONGET, MRS., No. 118 East Third street. 
 
 SILVERBERG, LILLIE (18), No. 215 West Thirteenth street. 
 
 SIEGWERT, HARRY (10), No. 225 Fifth street. 
 
 SIEGWERT, PHILIP (8), No. 225 Fifth street. 
 
 SCHOTTSBERG, MRS., and two children. No. 22 St. Mark's place. 
 
 SCHEIER, FRED (20), East Eijrhth street. 
 
 SHARE, MARY (62), No. 419 East Ninth street. 
 
 SMITH, WILLIAM (5), No. 142 Seventh avenue. 
 
 SCHNITZLER, KATE (6), No. 801 East One Hundred and Forty- 
 seventh street. 
 
LIST OF THE DEAD AND -MISSING 305 
 
 SCHNEIDER, MRS. T. (40), No. 326 Sixth street. 
 SCHNEIDER, EVA (14), No. 326 Sixth street. 
 SCHOEFLING, EDWARD (10), No. 189 Third avenue. 
 SCHUMPF, LIZZIE, No. 208 Avenue B. 
 STEGMAN, MRS., East Fourth street. 
 SCHMIDT, HENRY (38) 
 
 SCHAIER, MRS. (20), No. 237 East Tenth street. 
 SCHAIER, MARGARET (7 mos.). No. 237 East Tenth street. 
 SACKMAN, MRS. MARGARET, No. 343 Rivington street. 
 SACKMAN, MARGARET (10), No. 343 Rivington street. 
 STECKERMAN, MRS., No. 225 Fifth street. 
 STECKERMAN, HERMAN (8), No. 225 Fifth street. 
 STENGER, ROSIE (7), No. 88 East Third street. 
 SIEGEL, MRS. T. (24), No. 54 Seventh street. 
 SCHMIDT, MRS. WILLIAM, No. 138 East Seventh street. 
 STUBENRAUCH, ANNA (21), No. 303 Sixth street. 
 SCHMIDT, ERNA (5 mos.), No. 264 First avenue. 
 SCHNEIDER, TESSIE (14), No. 90 First avenue. 
 SCHLUVER, W., Mr. and Mrs., No. 462 East Seventy-sixth street. 
 SCHLUVER, HARRY, Mr. and Mrs. and two children. No. 196 
 
 Irwin street, Brooklyn. 
 SCHRENEMANN, ELSIE (17), No. 986 Holmes street, Bronx. 
 SCHRENEMANN, JOHN (15), same address. 
 STRICKORD, MRS., and four children. No. 144 Essex street. 
 
 TROLL, ALBERT (12), No. 405 Fifth street. 
 TOTTEBAUM, MRS. LIZZIE (48), No. 61 St. Mark's place. 
 TOTTEBAUM, HENRY (5), No. 61 St. Mark's place. 
 TOTTEBAUM, WILLIAM (9), No. 61 St. Mark's place. 
 TODE, MRS. (65), No. 103 East Seventy-fifth street. 
 
 U 
 
 ULRICH, JULIA (15), No. 58 Willet street. 
 UHLANDCREFF, LOUISE (8), No. 93 Third avenue. 
 
3o6 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 V 
 
 VETTER, MRS. HENRY, and two children, No. 720 Sixth street. 
 
 VETTER, MAMIE (17), No. 17 Sixth street. 
 
 VOETH, WILLIAM, SR. (54), No. 107 East Fourth street. 
 
 W 
 WOOLMAN, MRS. CATHERINE, No. 2225 Jerome avenue. 
 WOODMAN, LOUISA, No. 2225 Jerome avenue. 
 WOLFF, MRS. M. No. 420 East Sixteenth street. 
 WEBER, FRANK (7), No. 404 Fifth street. 
 WEBER, EMMA (iqI), No. 404 Fifth street. 
 WEISS, MRS. IDA M (40), No. 1335 Third avenue. 
 WEISS, GEORGE (15), No. 1339 Third avenue. 
 WALTER, MRS. ELIZABETH (66), No. 336 Sixth street. 
 Five children of the above. 
 
 WOLLMER, MRS. ELIZA, No. 246 Woodbine street, Brooklyn. 
 WOLLMER, LOUISE (22), No. 246 Woodbine street, Brooklyn. 
 WORMSTITCH, MR., No. 413 Fifth street. 
 WOOD, MRS. KATIE (30), Kurtzville, N. J. 
 WEIDLER, MRS. HENRY (55), No. 411 East Ninth street. 
 WEIDLER, HERBERT (12), No. 411 East Ninth street. 
 WENTZ, LEO (11), No. 421 Fifth street. 
 
 WENTZ (9), No. 421 Fifth street. 
 
 WENGERT, ETHEL (7), No 409 Fifth street. 
 
 WEISS, LOUIS ( ), No. 532 Fifth street. 
 
 WOLFERT, MRS. ROBERT ( ), No. 106 Seventh street. 
 
 WOLFERT, ROBERT (11), No. 106 Seventh street. 
 
 WOLFERT (8), No. 106 Seventh street. 
 
 WURTEMBERGER, MRS MAMIE (22), No. 55 First avenue. 
 WILLIAM, FRANK (19), No. 119 East Twenty-fifth street. 
 WEBER, EMMA (10), No 404 Fifth street. 
 WEBER, FRANK (7), same address. 
 WORTHMANN, JULIA (18), No. 178 Avenue A. 
 
 Z 
 ZUNDEL, CHARLES (6), No. 104 First avenue. 
 ZUDERMAN, HENRIETTA, No. 104 First avenue. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 RECORD OF STEAMBOAT DISASTERS 
 
 Worse accidents, with greater loss of life, than the burning 
 of the General Slocum have occurred, and yet instances of 
 greater fatality in accidents due to human agency are difficult 
 to find. Probably the worst catastrophe of this character was 
 the fire which, on December 8, 1863, suddenly swept through 
 the crowded Church of the Campania, in Santiago, Chili, 
 where hundreds of women and children were celebrating 
 the last day of "The Month of Mary," and destroyed more 
 than two thousand of them. Caught in the crowded church, 
 without proper exits, the worshipers were cremated, and the 
 public indignation which attended the catastrophe was so 
 violent that the church was razed to the ground. 
 
 Of natural convulsions New York has little to fear, but of 
 the accidents which belong particularly to a great city its 
 record is long and melancholy. On water there have been at 
 least two fatal accidents rivaling in a measure that of the 
 Slocum, while on shore there have been countless fatalities, 
 stretching all the way from accidents like that rear end col- 
 lision in the New York Central's Park avenue tunnel to the 
 great fire on the Hoboken piers, when the North River was 
 filled with burning liners. 
 
 Of the accidents in the waters of New York, the first of 
 great importance occurred on July 30, 1871. This day, a 
 
 pleasant Sunday, brought out the usual number of excursion- 
 
 307 
 
308 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 ists to the beaches, and the Staten Island Ferry line was 
 obliged to put on the Westfield for an extra trip. Laden with 
 passengers, this boat had moved well into the stream when 
 she was suddenly shaken by a terrific explosion. Her pilot- 
 house was hurled into the air, great beams were twisted and 
 bent, and many of her passengers who were amidships were 
 blown into the air by the explosion. Many fell into the 
 water; others fell back on the wrecked portion of the boat, 
 from which clouds of steam poured forth. Of the passengers 
 some were drowned, more were burned and scalded to death 
 by the escaping steam. Divers recovered thirty bodies from 
 the harbor, and the total death list was above eighty, while 
 more than one hundred and twenty were injured. Investiga- 
 tion revealed the cause of the accident to have been a 
 defective boiler. Following the catastrophe, the press of the 
 day was filled with clamors for the more careful inspection of 
 steamers, the proper regulation of passenger craft, and other 
 comments strangely like those to be heard at the present 
 moment. The national government undertook an investiga- 
 tion, while the local authorities were busy for days placing the 
 responsibility and recovering the bodies. 
 
 But it is the Seawanhaka holocaust, which happened on 
 June 28, 1880, that most strikingly recalls the Slocum tragedy, 
 not merely because it occurred at almost identically the same 
 place in the East River, but also because in incident it is 
 strangely similar. The Seawanhaka was a pleasure steamer 
 plying between Glen Cove and the city, and on the day of the 
 accident she was on her way to the former place, carrying a 
 considerable number of well-known merchants of the city. 
 
 Just as the Seawanhaka passed through Hell Gate several 
 
RECORD OF STEAMBOAT DISASTERS 309 
 
 of her crew noticed flames coming from her engine-room. 
 One man ran on deck crying "Fire!" Others endeavored to 
 prevent a panic. The captain, C. P. Smith, from the pilot- 
 house, repeatedly encouraged the excited crowd. As soon as 
 he saw the extent of the fire he turned the boat for Ward's 
 Island, then changed his mind, fearing to attempt grounding, 
 and made for the Sunken Meadows, so frequently mentioned 
 in the accounts of the recent accident. 
 
 Meantime the flames swept rapidly over the steamer; pas- 
 sengers one after another felt their clothes catch fire and 
 leaped overboard. But Captain Smith, burned but undaunted, 
 held his place at the wheel until the steamer grounded, and 
 then leaped overboard. Meanwhile women and children were 
 burned to death, exactly as they were on the General Slocum. 
 Fortunately, in this instance the life preservers proved sound 
 and there was time to serve them out. From all sides passing 
 craft hastened to the assistance of the passengers. One yacht 
 that ran alongside was capsized by the rush of people. 
 
 After the accident Randall's Island presented the same 
 appearance as North Brother Island after the Slocum 
 disaster — bodies were washed ashore there, divers brought up 
 the bodies of children, in one instance a mother and child, the 
 mother's arms still about her baby. At the morgues precisely 
 the same scene took place. As a result of the good condition 
 of the life preservers, the speedy beaching of the steamer and 
 the absence of a panic, the loss of life was far less than on the 
 General Slocum. Thirty-two bodies were recovered and 
 thirty were subsequently reported missing, making a total of 
 sixty-two, less than a tenth of that caused by the recent 
 disaster. 
 
310 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Prior to the recent horror, the accident which was attended 
 with the greatest loss of life in this vicinity was the burning of 
 the Brooklyn Theater, which for many years was regarded as 
 the worst catastrophe in the annals of the city. This hap- 
 pened on the night of December 5, 1876, when the theater was 
 crowded. Suddenly the cry of "Fire!" was raised, a panic 
 resulted, women and children were buried in the ruins, and a 
 fearful loss of life ensued. Curiously enough, the papers of 
 the following morning gave no suggestion of the extent of the 
 disaster, and even expressed the hope that no lives had been 
 lost. But the next day, when the firemen began to clear away 
 the debris, the extent of the holocaust became apparent. The 
 whole body of the theater was filled with the dead, and 295 
 bodies were taken out. Of these only 217 could be identified; 
 the remainder were buried under a circular mound in Green- 
 wood Cemetery, and the city of Brooklyn raised a monument 
 to their memory. 
 
 But, fearful as was the Brooklyn disaster, it pales before 
 the recent holocaust which happened at the Iroquois Theater, 
 in Chicago, last December. On the afternoon of December 
 30th this theater, newly opened, and believed to be one of the 
 finest and most modern in the country, was crowded with an 
 audience numbering more than two thousand, and largely con- 
 sisting of children — a circumstance which closely resembles 
 the situation on the General Slocum. The details of the 
 tragedy are familiar — a sudden burst of flame, an effort on the 
 part of the actors to check the panic, the failure of the asbes- 
 tos curtain to work, and then, as the flames were driven out 
 by explosions, one wild, frantic rush for the narrow doors — all 
 these incidents were but recently recorded. When the panic 
 
RECORD OF STEAMBOAT DISASTERS 
 
 311 
 
 was over and the relief came, Chicago was dazed by the 
 extent of the catastrophe. 
 
 At the entrance bodies were piled in tiers, while many who 
 sat in their seats were suffocated. Over six hundred bodies 
 were taken from the theater, in the larger part those of chil- 
 dren, in many cases fearfully crushed in the struggle for life. 
 The effects of the Chicago disaster were felt over the world, 
 and in every civilized country there was instant action by pub- 
 lic authorities to prevent a repetition. 
 
 A list of remarkable disasters to steamers on oceans, rivers 
 and lakes in the last century is appended. 
 
 President, foundered in midocean March, 1841 ; 136 lives lost 
 
 St. George, burned in midocean December, 1852 ; 51 lives lost 
 
 Arctic,, collision September, 1854; 322 lives lost 
 
 Pacific, never heard of September, 1856; 240 persons on board 
 
 120 lives lost 
 150 lives lost 
 470 lives lost 
 237 lives lost 
 297 lives lost 
 250 lives lost 
 80 lives lost 
 178 lives lost 
 180 lives lost 
 585 lives lost 
 220 lives lost 
 312 lives lost 
 165 lives lost 
 389 lives lost 
 147 lives lost 
 116 lives lost 
 103 lives lost 
 182 lives lost 
 119 lives lost 
 72 lives lost 
 563 lives lost 
 160 lives lost 
 113 lives lost 
 74 lives lost 
 
 Le Lyonnais, collision November, 1S56 
 
 Tempest, never heard of November, 1857 
 
 Austria, burned September, 1858 
 
 Hungarian, wrecked February, i860 
 
 Lady Elgin September, i860 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, wrecked April, 1863 
 
 United Kingdom, disappeared 1868 
 
 City of Boston, never heard of January, 1870 
 
 Cambria, wrecked October, 1870 
 
 Atlantic, wrecked April, 1873 
 
 Ville de Havre, collision November, 1873 
 
 Schiller, wrecked May, 1875 
 
 Borussia, foundered December, 1879 
 
 Cimbria, collision January, 1883 
 
 Vicksburg, struck by an iceberg June, 1875 
 
 Dan Steinman, wrecked April, 1874 
 
 State of Florida, collision April, 1884 
 
 W. A Scholton, collision November, 1887 
 
 Geiser, collision August, 1888 
 
 Erin, disappeared December, 1889 
 
 Utopia, collision March, 1891 
 
 Bokhari, wrecked October, 1892 
 
 Roumanian, wrecked October, 1892 
 
 Naronic, never heard of February, 1893 
 
312 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Warship Victoria, collision June, 1893 ; 360 lives lost 
 
 Horn Head, sunk by iceberg August, 1893 1 62 lives lost 
 
 Alvo, disappeared October, 1893 ; 08 lives lost 
 
 Elbe, collision Januarj', 1895 ; 361 lives lost 
 
 City of Haverhill, wrecked April, 1895 ; 90 lives lost 
 
 Cohma, wrecked May, 1895 ; 171 lives lost 
 
 Osaka Maru, foundered '.January, 1896 ; 68 lives lost 
 
 Copernicus, wrecked January, 1896 ; 163 lives lost 
 
 Memphis November, 1896 ; 62 lives lost 
 
 Utopia, wrecked February, 1897 ; 72 lives lost 
 
 Ville de St. Nazaire, foundered March, 1897 ; 63 lives lost 
 
 La Bourgogne, collision June, 1898 ; 594 lives lost 
 
 British warship Captain, foundered in the Bay of Biscay 1870; 4S2 lives lost 
 
 German battleship Grosser Kurfurst, rammed by another ship.. 1878; 281 lives lost 
 
 British warship Eurydice, capsized 1S79 ; all hands (250) lost 
 
 Princess Alice, collision September, 1878 ; 700 lives lost 
 
 Nanchow, foundered May, 1892 ; 509 lives lost 
 
 Utorsia, collision April, 1891 ; 564 lives lost 
 
 Shanghai, burned 1 8go ; 300 Chinese perished 
 
 Quetta, lost in Terres Straits 1890; 133 drowned 
 
 Chicora, never heard of Januarj^, 1895 ; 26 lives lost 
 
 Teuton, foundered after striking a rock 1881 ; 175 lives lost 
 
 Spanish cruiser Reina Regina, collision March, 1895 ; 400 lives lost 
 
 Gijon and Laxham, collision, both sunk Jul}', 18S4; 150 lives lost 
 
 Uncle Joseph, collision November, 1880 ; 250 lives lost 
 
 British training ship Atlanta, disappeared. .. .January, 1880; 70 men and boys lost 
 
 Byzantine, collision in the Dardanelles December, 1S78; 225 lives lost 
 
 Queen Charlotte, burned, flagship of Lord ICeith, off Leghorn Harbor, March, 1880; 
 
 700 lives lost 
 
 Ajax, burned off island of Tenedos February, 1807 ; 250 lives lost 
 
 Steamer Lexington, Long Island sound, burned off Norwalk, Conn., January, 1840; 
 
 122 lives lost 
 
 Steamer Erie, burned. Lake Erie August, 1841 ; 250 lives lost 
 
 Steamer J. P. Griffith, burned. Lake Erie June, 1850; 200 lives lost 
 
 Steamer Webster, burned, Mississippi River May, 1851 ; 40 lives lost 
 
 Steamer Henry Clay, burned, Hudson River July, 1852 ; 50 lives lost 
 
 Independence, burned off Lower California February, 1853; 471 lives lost 
 
 Steamer Ocean Wave, burned. Lake Erie May, 1853; 85 lives lost 
 
 H. M. S, Bombay, burned off Floras Island December, 1864; 91 lives lost 
 
 Steamer W. A. Waset, burned, Potomac River August, 1S73; 50 lives lost 
 
 Costpatrick, emigrant vessel on way to Auckland, burned November, 1874; 470 
 
 lives lost 
 
 Steamer Seawanhaka, burned, East River June, 1880; 62 lives lost 
 
 London, foundered January, 1866; 220 killed 
 
 Evening Star, foundered October, 1866 ; 250 killed 
 
RECORD OF STEAMBOAT DISASTERS 
 
 313 
 
 82 killed 
 300 killed 
 104 killed 
 104 killed 
 124 killed 
 99 killed 
 300 killed 
 100 killed 
 
 , 89 killed 
 
 Islands, March, 
 
 1871 
 1873 
 
 1877 
 1878 
 1883 
 1884 
 1S87 
 1877 
 
 Rhone and Wye, wrecked October, 1867; 1,000 killed 
 
 Westfield, explosion Ju'y. 
 
 Northfleet, collision January, 
 
 Huron, wrecked November, 
 
 Metropolis, v/recked January, 
 
 Daphne, turned turtle July, 
 
 City of Columbus, wrecked ., January, 
 
 Kapunda, collision January, 
 
 Wah Young, burned , 
 
 Sud America and La France, collision September, 
 
 Trenton, Vandalia, Nipsic, Adler and Eber, wrecked on Samoan 
 18S9; 147 killed 
 
 Persia, wrecked January, 1890 
 
 Dubourg, wrecked February, 1890 
 
 Serpent, wrecked November, 1890 
 
 Ertogaul, foundered September, 1890 
 
 St. Catharis, wrecked April, 1891 
 
 Trinabria, wrecked February, 1893 
 
 Wairaro, wrecked November, 1894 
 
 Reina Regenta, foundered March 11, 1891 
 
 Drummond Castle, went ashore June, 1896 
 
 Mohegan, wrecked October 14, 1898 
 
 Portland, foundered October, 1898 
 
 Northfield, collision June 14, 1901 ; i- killed 
 
 130 killed 
 400 killed 
 167 killed 
 loi killed 
 90 killed 
 115 killed 
 134 killed 
 400 killed 
 250 killed 
 100 killed 
 1 29 killed 
 5 missing 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE NORGE DISASTER 
 
 A lone pile of granite rising sheer out of the Atlantic, 290 
 miles from the Scottish mainland, now is a monument to 
 almost seven hundred dead who lie in the ocean bed at its 
 base. Near by, completely hidden in the water, is the Scandi- 
 navian-American liner Norge, which was carrying nearly eight 
 hundred Danes, Norwegians, Swedes and Finns to join rela- 
 tives or friends in America. Of these only about one hundred 
 and fifty were saved. 
 
 SENT FAST TO DOOM 
 
 No tragedy of [the sea has had more appalling conse- 
 ences, and none has occurred in a shorter time. The pas- 
 igers were aroused suddenly from their sleep, terrified by 
 I contact of the bows of the ship with the solid granite, fol- 
 lowed by a grinding, rasping sound, as if the hull were being 
 shoved over huge rocks. 
 
 Then silence, except the clanging bells, that brought the 
 engines to a stop. Those of the passengers who were stand- 
 ing when the steamer struck were thrown against the bulk- 
 heads or on the decks, and had not recovered their feet when 
 a stentorian voice gave the terrifying order: "All hands on 
 deck! Hurry, or you may sink!" 
 
 PINNED AGAINST THE ROCK 
 
 Immediately there was a rush for the narrow, companion- 
 ways, and men, women and children pushed and struggled and 
 
 3U 
 
THE NORGE DISASTER 315 
 
 made every other effort to reach the deck, where the boats 
 swung from the davits. Many persons, retaining the>r presence 
 of mind, seized life preservers, only to find in some mstances 
 that the strings were rotten and they could not be put quickly 
 around their bodies. Those who reached the deck saw the 
 nose of the Norge pinned directly against the rock. 
 
 It remained there only a few minutes, for Captam Gundel, 
 commanding, who had gone immediately to the bridge, gave 
 the order to the engine-room to reverse the engmes. Some 
 men of the engine force had relatives among the passengers, 
 and after seeing them safely to the boats they heroically 
 returned to their stations below. 
 
 SUPREME FRIGHT AKD AGONY 
 
 Slowly the ship backed off, and as she gained way it was 
 found that water was pouring into her hold. This announce- 
 ment, called out in Scandinavian and presagmg death added 
 to the supreme fright and agony. The passengers who were 
 piled in the boats were the fortunate ones who were to escape, 
 while the unfortunates, who saw death near, clustered m the 
 vicinity in seething, struggling masses, some on their knees, 
 praying, surrounded by children, others supphcatmg a,d from 
 any one and shrieking for permission to enter the boats 
 elbowing, fighting their way to the places from which the 
 
 boats were being lowered. , , , t ,u^ Nnrcre 
 
 The sound of grinding ceased and the bow of the Norge 
 yawed as the steamer returned to deep water. The sea 
 rushed hungrily into the huge rents made by the rocks in the 
 iron hull. Swiftly the vessel began to sink by the bows. 
 
3i6 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 TACKLE FAILS TO WORK 
 
 Without waiting for orders, without paying attention to 
 their proper manning, the occupants began to lower the boats. 
 The starboard Hfeboat began slowly to fall, when, to the hor- 
 ror of those on board, the stern tackle failed, while the bow 
 tackle ran free. 
 
 Soon the boat was almost perpendicular. Those in it clung 
 desperately to the sides and sea's until a great wave came 
 towering along and struck the boat, smashing it against the 
 side of the ship. The occupants of the boat who were not 
 killed by the impact were thrown into the water. The crew 
 and passengers on deck had no time to spare to assist the few 
 who had a chance to escape but lost it. Undeterred by the 
 experience of the first boat, a second, loaded principally with 
 women and children, was lowered. This time the tackle ran 
 smoothly, but the hopes of escape of the passengers on board 
 were blasted. 
 
 WAVES SMASH BOAT 
 
 The moment it touched the water the waves picked up the 
 small craft as if it had been a feather and dashed it against 
 the side of the ship in spite of the frantic efforts of the pas- 
 sengers to fend it off. The crash was heard on deck. Then 
 the sea swallowed more victims, and pieces of wreckage slowly 
 drifted toward the rock. 
 
 The upper deck of the Norge at the time of the disaster to 
 the second boat was only a few feet from the water, and it was 
 apparent to every one that only a few minutes more and she 
 would plunge beneath the waves, In the final crisis those 
 who were able to remember clearly what happened say that 
 the shrieks and sobs died away, and that the quiet was broken 
 
THE NORGE DISASTER 31; 
 
 only by the curses of some men whose fear found vent in 
 blasphemy. 
 
 TAKE TO THE SEA 
 
 Suddenly one man threw himself overboard and another 
 followed his example. Still another jumped into the water, 
 and soon around the ship hundreds of persons were struggling 
 in the sea, preferring death in the open to being submerged 
 with the ship. Others determined to stand by the ship, hoping 
 against hope that she would remain afloat. 
 
 Three boats, it is known, successfully reached the sea. 
 The passengers frantically pulled away from the doomed ship, 
 passing by poor wretches who still were afloat and who vainly 
 begged to be taken on board, while from the ship came long, 
 despairing cries. 
 
 DIE WHILE PRAYING 
 
 The women in the boat which reached Grimsby hid their 
 eyes, but the men who were sitting facing the Norge say they 
 saw the captain still on the bridge and the passengers on deck 
 in attitudes of prayer. While they looked, the Norge plunged 
 forward, her stern shot up in the air and she disappeared. 
 The swimmers in the vicinity of the ship were drawn into the 
 vortex, around which they swirled like chips in the maelstrom. 
 
 But twelve minutes elapsed from the time the ship struck 
 until she sank. A fine Scotch mist which was falling at the 
 time shut out the other survivors from the view of those who 
 were brought to Grimsby. The latter, so soon as their boat 
 was clear of the scene of the wreck, devoted themselves to 
 thoughts of their own safety. 
 
 A jacket was tied to an oar, which was in turn fastened in 
 the bow of the boat, and a sailor, a Dane, took charge of the 
 
3i8 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 boat. Men and women were put to work keeping the boat 
 afloat, as a hole had been stove in her bow when it was lowered 
 from the ship. An examination of the water cask showed that 
 it contained not a drop of water. There were some biscuits, 
 however, and these were eaten by the shipwrecked people 
 during the twenty-four hours from the time the ship struck, at 
 7 o'clock a. m., June 28th, 1904, until they were picked up by 
 the Grimsby trawler Sylvia. 
 
 NO FIRE DRILL 
 
 Karl Mathieson, the Danish sailor who assumed command 
 of the boat brought to Grimsby, joined the Norge at Copen- 
 hagen just before she sailed for New York. He said he knew 
 nothing about the ship's arrangements in case of collision or 
 fire. He never had been instructed in fire drill and did not 
 understand what it meant. He was on deck when the vessel 
 struck, but he did not know, until he heard the captain shout- 
 ing the order to man the boats, that the damage was great. 
 Mathieson said further: 
 
 "I worked with the third mate and followed him to the 
 different boats. The first we attempted to lower fouled her 
 tackle, keeping her stern fixed, while her bows fell and shot the 
 occupants into the water. A heavy sea washed the boat 
 against the ship's side. 
 
 CREW DISORDERLY 
 
 "We went to another, a crowd of shrieking women and 
 children following. The launching operations were not con- 
 ducted simultaneously, the officers and crew going from one to 
 another. Had men been set at work at each boat more would 
 have been saved. Some of the crew were worse than the 
 passengers, and but for the officers would have put off in the 
 
THE NORGE DISASTER 319 
 
 boats themselves. These were driven back and threatened 
 with death unless they obeyed orders. The captain never left 
 the bridge, but he shouted so many orders that the crew did 
 not know what to do. Therefore I stuck to the third mate. 
 Together we jumped into a small boat just before the vessel 
 went down, but we did not think so many were left behind as 
 appeared on the water when the Norge sank. Those remain- 
 ing on board were chiefly women and children. I saw only 
 two other boats afloat, one a big lifeboat, easily carrying sixty 
 persons, and the other a smaller boat, carrying possibly forty. 
 No other boats got away, though there were eight on board." 
 Katrina Tellander, whose husband lives at 331 North 
 Franklin street, Chicago, said: 
 
 MOTHERS CALL CHILDREN 
 
 Everything was quiet and most of the passengers were 
 sleeping. I had left my berth and was dressing my baby. 
 When the ship struck the first time I did not know what it 
 meant, but when it struck again I realized the meaning. I 
 seized my child by the hair and ran up the companionway. 
 I threw the baby into the bottom of a boat and then jumped 
 in myself. 
 
 "Some of the women on board had seven or eight children 
 each, from whom they became separated, and the cries of 
 these mothers calling for their missing children were heart- 
 rending. 
 
 "The life belts were almost useless, for the strings would 
 not hold. When the boat left the ship there were many pas- 
 sengers standing on the decks, begging, with hands out- 
 stretched. Many, too, threw themselves into the water." 
 
320 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 INSTANT BRINGS HEROES 
 
 Many deeds of heroism shine brightly through the pall of 
 catastrophe. That of Jans Peters Jansen, who has relatives in 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., is told with admiration by the survivors. He 
 was one of the engineers of the Norge. When the ship struck 
 he learned the extent of the disaster and went below to where 
 his relatives were, and told them and those near by to go at 
 once to the upper deck. He accompanied them to the boats 
 and saw them safely on board. He was urged to join them, 
 but said he must return to the engine-room, and shouting a 
 farewell, ran to his post of duty, where he died. 
 
 Some of the male passengers, without a thought of self, 
 placed women and children in the boats, preferring to remain 
 behind rather than take advantage of their strength. 
 
 The mate of the Norge, who left the ship in the boat which 
 arrived at Grimsby, England, seeing that it was overcrowded, 
 leaped into the water for the purpose of swimming to a second 
 boat not far away. He had only gone a short distance when, 
 weighted by his clothes, his strength gave out and he sank. 
 
 ORDERS MISUNDERSTOOD 
 
 The crew of the Norge appear to have behaved well 
 after the first panic, when, it is said, the officers were com- 
 pelled to drive them back from the boats. But there appar- 
 ently was no discipline, the orders which the captain shouted 
 from the bridge being misinterpreted or unheard. So far as 
 the survivors here remember, there was no systematic distri- 
 bution of the people to the boats, which were not adequately 
 manned. No attempt was made by any of the survivors to 
 save property. There was no time to make preparations. 
 
 Careful inquiry was made to discover why the Norge was 
 
TllK NOKGE DISASTER 
 
 3-' I 
 
 SO far off her course. Rockall reef is known to every sailor 
 on the North Atlantic and is marked plainly on the charts. A 
 strong current sweeps in its direction, and it is presumed, 
 owing to absence of definite knowledge, that the current 
 drew the Norge to her grave; that a heavy mist prevented 
 the lookouts from seeing the danger, and that there was no 
 thought of Rockall reef until the ship struck and the captain 
 called out that they had struck this terror of northern navi- 
 gation. 
 
 ROCKALL ROCK 
 
 Rockall is a lonely pyramidal rock some 70 feet in height 
 and 250 feet in circumference, rising sheer out of the wild 
 Atlantic waves, about 184 miles west-half south from St. Kilda, 
 in the Outer Hebrides, 290 miles from the nearest point of the 
 Scottish mainland and 260 miles northwest from the nearest 
 point on the Irish coast. More exactly, its position — at least, 
 as nearly as this has been ascertained — is latitude 57 deg. 30 
 min. north, longitude 13 deg. 42 min. Vvest. There is neither 
 soil upon it nor sandy beach around it, the depth of water 
 close up to it being tv;enty or thirty fathoms, A "rock," 
 therefore, it must be called, rather than an island or even an 
 islet, and of all the rocks and islands, great and small, sur- 
 rounding the British shores it is at once the most remote, the 
 most desolate, the least known and in many respects the most 
 remarkable. 
 
 Not only has it never boasted a human inhabitant, but no 
 holiday tripper or sportsman has ever desecrated its shores, 
 and only on one or two occasions is it even known to have 
 been landed upon. Only in the finest weather, when the 
 almost ceaseless swell of the Atlantic has subsided for an hour 
 
322 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 or tv/o, Is it possible to land upon it, v/hile in winter the ocean 
 waves far overtop its summit. This summit can only be 
 reached, even when a landing has been effected, by an ascent 
 on the northeastern face of the rock, so precipitous are its 
 other sides. 
 
 Yet, isolated as Rockall is, it forms, nevertheless, the sum- 
 mit or peak of an extensive submarine plateau known as 
 "Rockall Bank," which extends in a northeasterly and south- 
 westerly direction for about one hundred and fifty miles, which 
 has a breadth of about forty miles and about half of which is 
 submerged to a depth of less than one hundred fathoms. 
 Probably within comparatively recent times (in the geological 
 sense) the greater part of this "bank" was exposed as dry 
 land, which disappeared partly through gradual subsidence 
 and partly through the action of the sea waves. 
 
 Close to the main rock and with deep water between them 
 lies a dangerous reef, exposed at low tide, knovv^n as Hazle- 
 wood Rock; while a mile and a half southeast lies another 
 similar rock, known as Helen's Reef, from a vessel of that 
 name whose wreck upon it first made it known. 
 
 That Rockall belongs, politically speaking, to Great Britain 
 is a fact never likely to be disputed, for not only does it lie 
 nearer to the British Isles than to any other land, but none 
 except British fishermen have ever systematically resorted 
 thither to fish. Yet Rockall is certainly no part of the British 
 Isles, speaking strictly and in a physiographical sense, for 
 while all the other islands lying adjacent to Britain, except the 
 Faeros, lie well within what is known as the one hundred 
 fathom contour line, including even St. Kilda, the nearest 
 land, Rockall and the bank surrounding it are separated from 
 
THE NORGE DISASTER 323 
 
 Britain by a sea giving soundings of from eleven hundred to 
 sixteen hundred fathoms — depths which are truly oceanic and 
 which indicate that the period v/hen a dry land communica- 
 tion existed between Rockall and Britain (if, indeed, it ever 
 did so), must have been immensely remote even as the geolo- 
 gist reckons time. 
 
 To the mariner Rockall presents itself as a serious danger. 
 Neither the main rock nor the surrounding reef has ever been 
 lighted, belled or buoyed, and the officials of the Trinity 
 House regard them as lying outside their sphere of opera- 
 tions. Yet, though not in the main line of cross-Atlantic 
 traffic, there can be no doubt that they have frequently proved 
 fatal to vessels. There are several actual records of wrecks 
 upon them, the earliest being in 16S6, and it is probable that 
 they are partly accountable for some of the disappearances 
 of well found vessels which are reported annually from the 
 Atlantic. Even in broad daylight the main rock is a menace, 
 for, with its steep, tall sides and its pointed top, always 
 whitened by the deposits of sea birds, it is invariably taken at 
 first sight for*a ship in full sail. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S STORY 
 
 Thirty-tv/o survivors of the steamer Norge were landed at 
 Stornoway, Scotland, on July 4th, by the British steamer 
 Cervona. Seventy survivors were also taken off by the Ger- 
 man steamer Energie. They were all in a pitiful condition. 
 Many were taken to the hospital and most of them had to be 
 carried ashore. 
 
 Among those on board the Energie was Captain Gundel, 
 of the Norge. He said: 
 
 "All v.ent well until about a quarter to eight o'clock last 
 
324 NEW YORK'S AWFUL EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 
 Tuesday. When about eighteen miles south of Rockali I felt 
 the steamer strike heavily forward on a sunken rock. There 
 was a gentle breeze blowing from the south, with a cloudy sky. 
 "J was on the bridge with the chief officer, Carpenter. 
 Soundings were taken and it was reported that there were 
 five feet of water in the forward hold. 
 
 TRIED TO SAVE LIFE 
 
 "Orders were given to commence pumping and also to the 
 passengers to put on life belts and be ready to get into the 
 boats, which were ordered to be put out. 
 
 "The crew worked nobly under the leadership of the chief 
 officer. Seven boats got safely avv'ay, the life rafts were cut 
 adrift and the steamer went donn by the bow. The chief 
 officer told me she was sinking, and I told him to jump over- 
 board, which he did. I did not see him again. 
 
 "I went down with the steamer. My right leg got jammed 
 between two stanchions and was very much injured. When 
 I rose to the surface I noticed a number of bodies floating. 
 
 "The Norge was afloat only about twenty minutes after 
 striking. I swam for about twenty minutes and came across 
 Second Engineer Brunn, who is a good swimmer. We kept 
 company for about an hour and a half, when we noticed a 
 boat some distance off, and we both made for it. I was hin- 
 dered by my leg, and the engineer reached the boat first. 
 Both of us were taken on board quite exhausted. We found 
 that it was Lifeboat No. i. It was crowded and under the 
 charge of Able Seaman Peter Olsen. 
 
 "After recovering a little I took charge of the boat and 
 the provisions, which consisted only of a box with bread and 
 
THE NORGE DISASTER 325 
 
 two casks of water. The boat was steered for St. Kilda, one 
 hundred and fifty miles distant. 
 
 "On Saturday morning we saw a large schooner-rigged 
 steamer about four miles distant. We put up a blanket on an 
 oar, but the steamer passed on without taking any notice of us. 
 
 "On Sunday morning a bark passed some distance off, but 
 with the same result. 
 
 "At about twelve o'clock Sunday land was sighted and the 
 drooping spirits of all were revived. It proved to be St. 
 Kilda. 
 
 "Some time afterward a steamer was noticed coming from 
 the west, bearing down upon our boat. She proved to be the 
 Energie, and at six o'clock we were safe on board." 
 
 A pathetic little sequel to this tale of rescue is contained in 
 the statement that one of the children in the lifeboat died, and 
 "with the consent of the parents, who were in the boat, the 
 body was buried at sea." 
 
 HARDSHIPS OF THE SURVIVORS 
 
 The seventeen survivors from the steamer Norge, picked 
 up in a small boat near the island of St. Kilda and landed at 
 Aberdeen by the steamer Rattray B^y, included twelve pas- 
 sengers, the third mate, and the quartermaster, a steward, a 
 lamp trimmer, and one of the crew. They had lived for six 
 days on thirty-four biscuits and six buckets of water. 
 
 The party drifted at the mercy of the Atlantic for six days. 
 When both water and food were gone, and when the occu- 
 pants were almost too exhausted even to hope, the Rattray 
 Bay hove in sight. This was on Jul}' 4th, when the boat was 
 about thirty mih-s off St. Kilda. 
 
326 NEW YORK'S AWPX'L EXCURSION BOAT HORROR 
 ON VERGE OF STARVATION 
 
 Those rescued had eked out an existence on two biscuits 
 per day. When they started from the ill-fated ship there was 
 only one small cask of fresh water in the boat. Before the 
 Rattray Bay fell in with them this and the biscuits had been 
 finished and the pangs of hunger had set in. They weathered 
 a gale and continued as best they might, striving to reach the 
 coast of Scotland against the heavy seas. From strips of life 
 belts they constructed a crude sail. The men had scarcely 
 enough strength to hold the oars. 
 
 When the survivors were dragged on board the steamer, 
 the fishermen were obliged to prevent them by force from 
 eating and drinking too much.