EXPLOSION OF AN AMERICAN STEAMER, AND SERIOUS LOSS OF LIFE.

Southland Times, Issue 973, 22 June 1868, Page 3

EXPLOSION OF AN AMERICAN STEAMER, AND SERIOUS LOSS OF LIFE.

A few years ago all England was startled by a steam boat collision on Lake Michigan, on board of which were several well-known Englishmen, who met a sudden death and a watery grave. Another of these frightful steamboat catastrophes has just occurred, the details of which are horrifying. It was about noon on the 19th of March, that the fine side-wheel mail steamer, Magnolia, left her wharf, at the foot of Walnut-street, Cincinnati, for Maysville. Her freight bills were heavy, and her passenger list contained the names of about 100 persons, in addition to a crew of nearly 40 persons — a total of 140 souls on board. The day being beautiful, a large portion of the passengers were on deck, and as the packet steamed' up the riv*r, many were the handkerchiefs waved by the friends on shore to those upward bouud. The steamer was in command of Captain J. H. Prather. She was a tri-weekly boat between Cincinnati and Maysville, and was exceedingly popular." — The explosion and horrible disaster to life and properly occurred

nearly opposite the town of California about twelve miles above the city. As is not generally the case*, the Magnolia had no passengers to put off at California, and consequently did not make a landing. Past the turn she steamed, passengers on board waving handkerchiefs to those on shore. A moment afterwards a terrible explosion occurred, and the Magnolia, with all its precious freight, was a wreck. No one knows how the explosion ocurred, but those in the vicinity say that the whole forward part of the upper works of the boat were blown to atomsCaptain J. B. Purcell, happennedto be out on the river with a skiff, and was one of the first at the resque. He describes the scene as being terrible in the extreme — women crying to their husbands for help, and children clinging to their mother for relief. Those not killed or blown overboard by the explosion gathered around the guards on the afterpart of the ! boat, but the wreck having taken fire, the flames spread with frightful rapidity, and those passengers clinging to the afterpart of the boat were forced to accept the alternative of jumping into the cold waters or being burned alive. Most of them madly jumped into the river, and as Capt. Purcell said, those who could swim stayed on board and were burned alive, and those who could not jumped overboard. The explosion occurred just as the first dinner-table had been cleared and the second was being prepared. Most of the male passengers, who had taken dinner at the first table, were standing on the forward deck, "end with them a considerable number of ladies. All of these, with but one or two exceptions, were lost. Those on the afterpart of the boat, who were not rescued by skiffs, were, as already said, eitheir drowned by jumping overboard or burned to death. The citizens of California with some eight or ten skiffs, rallied to the relief of the distressed persons, and succeeded in rescuing a large number of them. The whole number of persons lost is believed to 'be eightythree. Many persons were killed outright; others were blown up forty or fifty feet above the deck and thrown far out in the stream ; some were severely scalded on deck, others suffocated by escaping steam, others were burned, and, when the steamers upper works caught fire, many took refuge from the speedily advancing flames by leaping overboard. Soon after the bursting forth of | the fire, the shrieks and groans of the wounded and struggling travellers were drowned by a terific explosion of powder in the magazine, and thousands of splinters and missiles were rained down upon their heads. Those of the most seriously scalded and mangled, unable to crawl from the burning decks, were literally roasted alive. The Magnolia's yawl-boat, making trips between the wreck and the shore, picked up as many persons as she could carry, and several skiffs, which were sent out from the town of California, assisted in rescuing persons from drowning. The cause of this frightful calamity has not yet been ascertained.