Ship Ablaze

by Ed O'Donnell

  Many terrified victims, adults and children, never had to make the choice of when and where to jump. They were simply forced overboard by the crush at the rails. Albertina Lembach was fortunate enough to collect her five children in the chaos and find a space at the rail near Pastor Haas and his family. Mrs. Haas urged her to stay with the boat as long as they could, but that quickly proved impossible. “There was a fearful rush,” she remembered. “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.” Lena De Luccia told a similar story. “I was close to the rail,” she tearfully recalled, “when a wave of frenzied women and children forced us overboard.” She immediately lost sight of her four children. Nearly all were swallowed, one eyewitness later wrote, by “the hungry jaws of the devouring tide.”

  THE DECISION

  Chased back to the pilothouse by the flames, Van Schaick rapidly explained the situation to his two stunned pilots. There’s a huge fire raging belowdecks and the passengers have begun to panic. We don’t have much time and need to…to do what? Land the steamer, yes, but where?

  Van Schaick wasn’t sure. They had just then passed through the manic waters of Hell Gate, but were hardly free of jagged shoals and whirling currents. In a nearly identical situation twenty-four years earlier, the captain of the Seawanhaka had immediately beached his burning steamboat on the Sunken Meadow just beyond Hell Gate. Some 62 passengers perished in the fire and water, but more than 200 were saved by his quick thinking. Most jumped into the shallow water, where they waded ashore or climbed aboard rescue boats. But Van Schaick ruled that option out, for in his judgment they were too far past the Sunken Meadow and could not risk trying to bring the steamboat around in the unpredictable currents. If it hit a rock and lost power or steering it might never reach shore and instead simply burn in the open water, taking everyone on board with it. Even if they pulled it off without incident, he reasoned, the maneuver might take three minutes.

  Yet other factors argued in favor of an attempted beaching at Sunken Meadow, or somewhere close to it. Bringing the Slocum around would have the added benefit, as any captain knew, of putting the fire at the bow downwind of the remaining half of the boat. The Slocum would surely be lost, but not as quickly as with the vessel charging into the wind and fanning the flames from bow to stern. And then there were the dozens of boats in pursuit of the distressed steamer—wouldn’t they be able to off-load most if not all of the passengers even if the Slocum hit a shoal?

  If he considered these factors at all, Van Schaick quickly rejected them. That left two possibilities. The first, and the one that seems obvious to any landlubber gazing at a map of the East River, was to put the vessel hard over to port and make for the docks along the Bronx waterfront, or hard over to starboard and head for the Queens shore. Indeed, that’s what the great Bludso had done—

  And quick as a flash she turned, and made

  For that willer-bank on the right

  And it’s what the captain of the ill-fated steamer Henry Clay did when it caught fire on the Hudson in 1852. “The boat suddenly changes her course,” remembered the minister in his description, “with unslacked speed she approaches the shore.”

  But again the specter of the river’s treacherous shoals and fierce currents dominated Van Schaick’s mind and he rejected that option as too risky. What he wanted was a safe and familiar place where he could bring the flaming boat to a stop. He knew every inch of the river, and in a flash it came to him. There was a small island off the Bronx shore. On its western side, if he remembered correctly, the water ran deep and there was a sandy beach—ideal for bringing a large steamer as close to shore as possible.

  There was only one problem. It lay nearly a mile upriver—at least three precious minutes away. A full-speed sprint for it would surely feed the flames and push them to the stern. But that known risk was one Van Schaick was prepared to accept, and once he’d latched on to the plan there was no changing his mind. Psychologists who study leadership and decision-making note that in situations of extreme stress, normally rational people will choose a course of action (often the riskiest option, it turns out) and refuse to deviate from it despite mounting evidence that it’s the wrong one. Often the more hopeless the situation becomes, the more determined they are to carry out their original plan.

  Such a fixated mind-set can and often does produce positive results. During the Civil War, for example, Adm. David Farragut became a national hero when during the Battle of Mobile Bay he shouted, “Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead!” and breached the last Confederate stronghold on the Gulf of Mexico. But it is just as likely, as was the case with Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, to bring disastrous results.

  His mind made up, Van Schaick shouted to his pilot Van Wart, “Put her on North Brother Island!” The veteran pilot, trained to carry out orders and not question them, signaled to the engine room for more steam and opened up the throttle.

  The race—to safety and rescue, Van Schaick hoped—was on.

  MURDEROUS INTENSITY

  By now the fire was spreading rapidly belowdecks. The steamboat, made entirely of wood, provided an enormous quantity of fuel. But there were other factors at work in this and nearly every fire aboard a wooden vessel that made it burn far faster than an ordinary house fire. A boat’s wood, constantly exposed to wind, sun, and salt, will rapidly dry out and become brittle unless measures are taken to prevent it. At the turn of the century, steamers like the Slocum had their wood planking routinely “slushed down” with a warm mixture of linseed oil and turpentine. It penetrated deep into the wood fiber and thus kept it flexible, strong, and water- resistant. It also progressively turned the wood into something akin to a Duraflame log. Annual coats of oil-based varnish likewise protected the wood, but also added to its unusual inflammability. As Jonathan Klopman, a Massachusetts-based marine surveyor, puts it, once a fire on such a vessel gets out of control, it goes “Kawoosh!”

  Klopman also points out that the key factor in a fire’s progression on a boat is not the availability of wood, but rather oxygen. Every child in modern America is told to “stop, drop, and roll” if ever on fire. Running, they are taught, fans the flames and only makes the fire worse. Captains then and now are similarly instructed to swing their vessel around so the wind blows the flames away from the passengers and crew until help arrives. Captain Van Schaick’s decision to “run” for North Brother Island at full speed into the wind had the perverse effect of speeding the boat’s demise by feeding the fire. As the steamer moved ahead, the large air ducts placed throughout its forward sections swallowed air and forced it belowdecks into interior rooms. Under normal conditions this kept the Slocum and its boilers supplied with abundant fresh air. On June 15, 1904, it turned a minor storage room fire into a catastrophic inferno.

  By the time the first passengers actually saw the flames, the fire had long since achieved what one journalist so aptly termed “its murderous intensity.” But fires are greedy in nature. They are never satisfied with their immediate surroundings, no matter how rich in oxygen and fuel. So using the raging hold as a launching pad, the fire aboard the Slocum raced upward, as is characteristic of ship fires. “The flames kept sweeping up in puffs,” testified one survivor, “each one growing higher and spreading.” It left virtually untouched most of the Slocum’s lower regions and instead headed in the direction where oxygen was most plentiful. Like a giant octopus it sent out tentacles of flame that probed for openings—not just large ones like stairs and air vents, but invisible ones like gaps in planking and seams between walls. It found aboard the Slocum, a floating tinderbox of a boat, an endless supply of highly flammable pathways through which it could extend its reach. Additional supplies of oxygen discovered in this way only fueled the fire’s insatiable desire for still more.

  Onward it surged, filling in the gaps between the probing lines of fire until it burst through the upper decks and the hit the moth
er lode—the inexhaustible supply of oxygen surrounding the boat. With its upward progress now complete, the fire engorged itself with oxygen and began moving outward in all directions. In less than a minute it stretched from the starboard to port rail on the main deck, cutting off the bow section from the rest of the vessel. From here it proceeded to move simultaneously forward to the bow and aft to the stern in a relentless effort to envelop and consume every particle of fuel on the entire vessel. “The flames were sweeping back as the boat raced on,” remembered Annie Weber, “and it was like the breath of a red-hot furnace.”

  Nearly every passenger who later described the fire expressed astonishment at the lightning speed with which it moved. “The boat went up in five minutes,”declared porter Walter Payne.“Poof! Just like a powder keg.” Reverend Haas thought it moved even faster. “In three minutes from the time the fire started,” he remembered, “all the decks were ablaze.” Victims huddled in seeming places of refuge were scattered when tentacles of fire exploded through windows or floorboards. “The flames spread in bursts,” asserted fourteen-year-old John Ell, “that soon had the entire deck enveloped.”

  To many the fire seemed more than just fast, it appeared to actually chase them like a tiger loose at a circus. “When I ran back to look for my children,” Frank Weber told a reporter, “the flames seemed to follow me.” Cornered and out of options, some parents turned the tables on the pursuing fire and “rushed like maniacs into the very heart of the flames in the vain search for their little ones.”

  Some of the pursued, perhaps because they were too frightened to jump, never made it into the water. One by one or in groups the fire found and devoured them in scenes never forgotten by those who witnessed them. “No brain can imagine the fullness of that horror, no pen can write it,” wrote one reporter nonetheless determined to try. “Feeble mothers covered their babies with their bodies, presenting a living barrier of flesh and blood to the flames that leaped toward their darlings.” But these selfless acts of maternal love only delayed the inevitable. “Helpless, screaming and praying for mercy, they were shriveled before the fiery breath of the flames.”

  Some surrendered to their fate in silence, as witnessed by seventeen- year-old George Heins. During his frantic attempt to free one of the boat’s lifeboats, he turned to check the progress of the advancing flames. His eye caught the figure of a small girl kneeling in prayer about fifty feet away. He ran to grab her, but she disappeared without a whimper in the advancing wall of flame.

  Despite its best efforts, the fire left behind—temporarily, of course—a few pockets of refuge here and there throughout the vessel. Clusters of passengers huddled in them, either too scared to jump or determined to wait for the boat to hit land. As the flames moved in, they hung on the outside of the railing, desperate to stay on the steamer until the last possible moment. Heat in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit burned their flesh, though many were so panic-stricken they barely noticed.

  Anna Frese was one of them. The fifteen-year-old hung outside the railing near the bow of the steamer. Her father kept telling her to hold on just a little longer and to jump only on his word. Just as the Slocum beached on North Brother Island, he told her to jump. To her astonishment, she was unable to let go. Without her realizing it, the intense heat had seared her right hand to the melted railing paint. With all her might she tore herself free and jumped, leaving behind a large patch of skin and her dreams of one day becoming a concert pianist.

  A FAINT RAY OF HOPE

  To those standing onshore or on the decks of nearby rescue vessels, the sight of the Slocum as it steamed at full throttle upriver almost defied description. “No artist,” wrote a journalist in the aftermath, “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 flames….”

  Superintendent Grafeling of the gas works at Casino Beach near Astoria noticed smoke coming from near the port bow of the steamboat. He grabbed his field glasses and trained them on the strange spectacle. Immediately he saw bright orange shards of flame shooting out from the clouds of smoke. He knew then the boat was on fire, but wondered why the band continued to play.

  William Halloway, an engineer on a dredge at work just off the Astoria shore, saw the burning vessel and let fly four loud blasts from his steam whistle as a signal to other boats that the Slocum was in trouble. He then set off in hot pursuit. He was followed by Captain McGovern of the launch Mosquito, who was employed on the same project, and countless others, in cluding eleven members of the Bronx Yacht Club who put out in three small launches.

  On the Bronx side, Officer John A. Scheuing of the 34th Precinct was walking his beat along 138th Street near the water when he heard someone shouting about a steamer on fire. Looking down a side street that led to the river, he saw the Slocum coming upriver covered in flames. He bolted across the street to where a soda wagon stood and ordered the driver to take him to the river’s edge. With a crack of his whip they were off, scattering pedestrians and other vehicles that lay in their path. At the water’s edge, Scheuing jumped from the wagon and ran for the pier. Up ahead he could see several small boats, and beyond them the burning wreck of the Slocum as it approached North Brother Island. He jumped in a small rowboat and rowed as fast as he could to the scene of the disaster.

  Scheuing was followed almost immediately by several other policemen, who likewise put out in boats. Officer James A. Collins was at the East River near 134th Street when he saw “a solid mass of flames” moving upriver. He ran to a nearby call box and got word to the fire department. Then he sprinted two blocks to a dock at 136th Street and with another policeman, Officer Hubert C. Farrell, commandeered a nineteen-foot boat and instructed its mate to make for North Brother Island.

  Moments after they cast off, Engine Company No. 60 and Ladder No. 17 roared to the river’s edge, expecting to find the Slocum at one of the nearby piers. In frustration they watched the burning boat moving away from them and knew there was nothing they could do. Nearby, however, one piece of firefighting apparatus was heading off in pursuit, the fireboat Zophar Mills.

  Out on Rikers Island, where the city maintained a prison workhouse, two inmates saw the Slocum pass and ran for a boat. John Merther and Dan Casey knew they were taking a big risk, for their actions might easily be taken for an escape attempt, but there was no time to seek permission. Fortunately, when they reached the small skiff, they were met by one of the workhouse doctors, who joined them.

  Some who saw the Slocum that morning were in a better position than others to offer assistance. One of them was John L. “Jack” Wade, a tough harbor rat of a tugboat captain. Somewhat slight of build, he nonetheless exuded strength and self-assuredness. His tug, named John Wade in honor of his father, was a workhorse of a boat—not much to look at, but capable of performing all manner of jobs on the New York waterways. While many of his fellow captains piloted a tug for one of the big towing companies like Moran or for one of the railroads, Wade was an independent operator. He owned the John Wade outright and earned his living working job to job along the busy waterfront, “in the manner of a cruising cabman on land,” according to one description.

  He was working on North Brother Island when he spied the Slocum charging upriver, a mass of smoke and flame. Some captains in his position that morning hesitated and some looked the other way, certain that others would come to the steamer’s aid. They had in mind men like Jack Wade, tug captains who acted on instinct when sighting a boat in distress. It did not matter if he knew the vessel or the captain—though in this case he certainly knew both—for among men of his breed there was a code of honor that demanded only one response: to offer immediate assistance. This was not a job but an obligation.

  It took Jack Wade only a second or two to act. From a distance the steamer—the Slocum by all appearances—looked to be in bad shape and getting worse by the second. But Wade had seen a lot of ship fires in his day, including that day four years ea
rlier when the four German Lloyd liners caught fire in Hoboken. Wade and his men had been in the thick of it that day on the Hudson and witnessed truly horrifying scenes of death and destruction—scenes not soon forgotten, even by a hardened tug captain. This situation looked bad, but obviously a far cry from the day when nearly four hundred perished on these waters. Or so it seemed.

  Wade rushed into the pilothouse and shouted to his pilot, Capt. Robert Fitzgerald, to go full throttle for the burning steamboat. Half a minute later the grimy, soot-covered tug was picking up steam, plodding out into the channel to meet the oncoming Slocum. Suddenly the blazing vessel, thundering along at top speed, passed before the intrepid tug. Wade and his men could scarcely believe their eyes. Two-thirds of the steamboat was engulfed in a fire sending sheets of flame thirty feet into the air. Women and children could be seen racing about the decks on fire, while others cascaded over the sides into the dark water below. Here was all the horror of the Hoboken fire now concentrated on a single wooden steamboat.

  Fitzgerald instinctively swung the Wade into the wake of the passing Slocum and began following the stricken vessel. Where was Van Schaick going? Wade and Fitzgerald wondered. They’d seen the old man and his pilots struggling in the pilothouse as the ship passed. He’d better stop soon, they agreed, or he’ll have no boat left to land.

  As the tug began its pursuit of the Slocum, Wade realized he was not alone. For a dozen or more captains had had the same reaction. The moment they saw the Slocum on fire, they put on steam and gave chase. The tug Walter Tracey was heading upriver not far behind the Slocum when its captain realized what was happening and called to his fireman and engineer for top speed. Moments later the tugs Arnot and Wheeler turned and joined the race, followed by the Sumner, Margaret, and Goldenrod. Several of them were towing barges and sloops that they simply cut loose in order to catch the Slocum.