Ship Ablaze

by Ed O'Donnell

  EXTRA!

  On shore, people watched the dreadful scene pass before their eyes. Some stood in stunned silence. Others ran to pull fire alarms or call the police. Still more jumped into boats and set out in pursuit.

  One witness dialed the city desk of the New York World. Editor Martin Green answered the phone and in a second sat bolt upright and began scribbling in shorthand a frantically dictated account of the steamer’s final minute.

  “I’m in an office overlooking the East River. There’s a steamboat on fire. A sidewheeler. I can see women and children running around on her decks…. Smoke is rolling up…. Oh, God! Women and children are leaping over the railing by the dozens….The ship is veering toward the shore…toward the Bronx around One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street….Now it’s turning away … speeding upriver, heading for North Brother Island….The whole thing is a floating furnace….This is ghastly, horrible…. She’s struck on North Brother Island and is listing. … She’s a mass of flames … and all that smoke….The people dying…dying… God, man! I’m sick to my stomach! I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t talk…. Good-bye…”

  Then the line went dead.

  Green’s mind raced. If it wasn’t a hoax, this was a big story, perhaps even a major one. At that precise moment he was more than likely, courtesy of that phone call, ahead of the competition at the Journal, Post, Tribune, Sun, Times, and other dailies. But he knew from experience that it was a lead measured in seconds—a few minutes if he was lucky.

  How to get there first? The caller said something about North Brother Island—what about taking a boat? A moment later and Green was speaking with Eugene F. Moran, head of the Moran Towing Company, the city’s largest tugboat operator. How fast, he asked, could they get his team to North Brother Island? Not as fast, Moran replied, as simply taking the elevated railroad to the Port Morris station.

  In seconds dozens of reporters and photographers were out the door, intent on being the first on the scene at the biggest disaster in the city’s history.

  DEAD IN THE WATER

  With the Slocum now at rest, the armada of tugs and other boats that had fallen into line in hot pursuit of the floating inferno now went into action. Van Schaick had hoped to ground the Slocum broadside to the beach so that the vessel’s stern—the only part not completely engulfed in flame—would lie in the shallow water. This would allow the passengers fortunate enough to have hung on during the harrowing race for the island to jump into water only seven or so feet deep. Unfortunately, the steamer hit ground earlier than expected, preventing the stern from swinging fully toward the beach. The bow rested in just seven feet of water about twenty feet from shore, but the stern jutted out more than fifty feet from shore in thirty feet of water. For people unable to swim this might as well have been three hundred feet.

  Closest to the Slocum when it beached was the Massasoit, a 153-foot vessel used by the Department of Corrections to transport prisoners and guards to and from the prison on Rikers Island. But it drew too much water to pull alongside the Slocum’s stern, where hundreds stood pinned against the railings, moments from making the hideous choice between death by fire or drowning. Undeterred, Capt. Frederick W. Parkinson pulled within fifty feet of the raging boat and his crew leaped into action. Coxswain Carl Rappaport dove off the bow into the water below, teeming with passengers, some still struggling for life, others already gone. In an instant he was back bearing a little boy who refused to let go of his rescuer and had to be pried loose. Next came two babies—both still breathing. By the time he deposited his seventh person aboard the Massasoit, Rappaport was completely naked, having lost all his clothes in struggles with people in the water.

  At the same time, the Massasoit ’s deckhand, James J. Duane, put over a lifeboat. Captain Parkinson ordered another crewman to play the boat’s fire hose on him while he rowed toward the inferno. Despite the overpowering heat—minimized but by no means eliminated by the waterfall from Massasoit ’s fire hose—and the danger posed by falling debris, Duane rowed to within a few feet of the Slocum and pulled seven victims aboard.

  The Franklin Edson, a tug owned by the Department of Health and used for transporting patients to and from North Brother Island, was piloted by Captain Parkinson’s mentor and uncle, fifty-eight-year-old Capt. Henry Fick. He also got only to within fifty feet before its pilothouse windows cracked and paint blistered. His crew pulled twenty-five victims aboard. Overwhelmed by the sight of so many helpless forms still thrashing in the water, Captain Fick dove over the side and retrieved a woman. “I don’t want any rewards or any medals,” he afterward told a reporter. “I am too old for that kind of thing.”

  Similar scenes of selfless heroism were played out all around the blazing steamboat. From the tug Arnot, crewmen Olsen and Andersen jumped in and saved six women and two children. Olsen then spied three toddlers struggling for life. He swam to them and managed to drag two to the North Brother Island beach before returning for the third. The tug Sumner pulled up to one of the Slocum’s paddle boxes and off-loaded a score of cowering passengers, among them John Holthusen, the head of St. Mark’s Sunday school, and his two daughters. The Goldenrod too made a pass at the Slocum, where, Captain Hillery remembered, “Men, women, and children hailed down upon my decks.”

  Everywhere, men tossed overboard every available life preserver, barrel, plank, chair—anything that floated—and launched dozens of lifeboats. Private boats did their part as well. The yacht Easy Times, piloted by off- duty fireman James C. Ward, pulled to within one hundred feet before the owner ordered him to stop—fearing the loss of his prized vessel. Ward complied but immediately put over lifeboats, allowing scores to grab hold. Captain McGovern filled his small launch Mosquito with five women and six children. Peter Jensen piloted his small launch Peter right up to a paddle box and grabbed three small children and brought them to the beach. From there he ran to the seawall and pulled forty more to safety.

  Jack Wade’s tug was not the first on the scene, but it immediately proved the most important. Knowing that his smallish tug drew less water than most (just four feet), Wade threw caution to the wind and ordered Fitzgerald to pull alongside the Slocum at the stern. In seconds they slipped past the Franklin Edson and Massasoit standing fifty feet off the burning hulk and edged closer. The heat was unlike anything they’d ever experienced—even in the Hoboken fire of 1900. It rose steadily by hundreds of degrees as Fitzgerald looked for a place to draw up. The scene before them took on a watery appearance as waves of radiated heat warped their vision.

  At twenty feet off the stern, the two-thousand-degree heat caused the tug to groan, but Wade ordered his helmsman to press on. They cringed and shielded their eyes as one by one the pilothouse windows shattered, kaposh, allowing smoke and fumes from the Wade’s bubbling deck paint to waft in. Still Wade kept his eyes fixed on the hundreds of helpless passengers clinging to the Slocum. He could see them waving at him, beckoning him to save them from the horrible death now bearing down on them. He might share in their fiery demise, but it was a risk he was prepared to take. He wasn’t going to get this close to hell only to turn away.

  You’ll lose your tug and livelihood, Fitzgerald shouted just before they hit.

  “Damn the tug!” shouted Wade. “Let her burn.”

  Two of those helpless victims waving to Jack Wade were Rev. George Schultze, Reverend Haas’s guest from Erie, Pennsylvania, and Mr. Muller, a Sunday school teacher at St. Mark’s. To them the sudden appearance of Jack Wade through the curtains of smoke surrounding the Slocum seemed nothing short of a miracle. When the general panic broke out on the boat, they had managed to corral about fifty terrified children into a corner of the Slocum’s stern. Knowing that few of the little ones could swim, they determined to keep them on the steamer as long as possible. Despite the pitiful pleas to be allowed to jump over the railing, the men refused. They put their backs to the flames to shield the children, urging them to remain calm while silently uttering prayers of desperation. Jus
t as they had about given up hope, Schultze spied the answer to his prayers— the bow of a small black tugboat moving steadily in their direction.

  As soon as the John Wade nudged against the Slocum, Schultze and Muller off-loaded their precious cargo. “Mr. Muller and I dropped the children into it one by one,” Schultze later recounted, “until there were fifty on board.” Then the two men followed.

  Clara Stuer described a similar moment of deliverance, though possibly by another tug other than the Wade. Convinced of the need to jump overboard, she’d stripped off most of her clothing to improve her chances in the water. “I started down the side of the boat,” she recounted, “when I heard a voice calling me to hold on a minute. I turned and saw a man standing on the bow of a tug which was approaching.” In an instant she fell to the tug’s deck, followed by many more.

  As the pell-mell off-loading from the Slocum proceeded, two of Wade’s crewmen, Ruddy McCarroll and Tony Marcetti, took to the water and returned moments later with sputtering victims. Again and again they ventured out amid the frantic victims clawing at water that inexorably drew them downward. As McCarroll approached a drowning woman, he was immediately surrounded by five more. Several latched on to him, pulling him under. Luckily for McCarroll, there was enough life left in them that the quick immersion caused them to release him. Still gasping for air and vomiting water, he snared one of the women and pulled her to the Wade, where they were both pulled aboard. McCarroll had just passed out when the woman he’d saved suddenly came to life and began shaking him.

  “Wake up! You, wake up! There is my Claus in the water!” With that she picked him up and hurled him over the side. Revived somewhat by the cold water, he made for the boy, grabbed him, and with the last ounce of strength in his big frame, pulled him to the tug’s side. Back on board a second time, McCarroll passed out once again. Jack Wade then plunged into the roiling waters and saved three more.

  But even Wade—as real a Jim Bludso as New York had ever seen— knew they couldn’t keep at it indefinitely. He’d lost all the hair on his arms to the heat and several of his men had their shirts burned right off their backs. His tug was on fire in several places and the Slocum might blow at any moment, sending the rescued and rescuers alike to eternity. Reluctantly—for he could see people still trapped on the steamboat—he gave the order to back off.

  Suddenly a frantic Fitzgerald was shouting something about the propeller. In all the excitement no one had noticed that they’d become immobilized, the victim of a loose line snared around the propeller. As the deckhands scrambled to fix the problem, the small fires on the tug grew larger and began to threaten the very people they’d just snatched from the Slocum.Now the very real possibility loomed that Wade’s vessel would blow, or at the very least go up in flames. Every second counted, and they would need several minutes—likely five or more—in order to free the propeller.

  At this moment it became Wade’s turn to receive deliverance. Out of nowhere there suddenly came a hard stream of cold saltwater. It burst into steam upon contact with the Wade’s baking deck and pilothouse and stung the skin of Wade, his crewmen, and the passengers. The fireboat Zophar Mills had just arrived and, seeing that its streams of water were having no effect on the Slocum fire, began to hose down the Wade and other rescue vessels that had moved in close.

  Quite unintentionally, Wade’s moment of peril had allowed still more victims aboard the Slocum to be saved. For as the John Wade lay immobilized yet protected by the fire hoses, dozens more jumped aboard from the burning steamer. More important, the Wade’s stern swung toward the shore of North Brother Island and into shallow water. “Over this bridge,” a reporter scribbled later that day, “seventy-eight persons found their way to safety.” Eventually, Captain Hillery threw a line to the Wade, and his Goldenrod pulled the tug to safety. All told, Wade and his six-man crew saved 155 souls.

  Among those saved that morning was nearly the entire crew of the Slocum. Although many would later criticize him for his decision to race for North Brother Island, none questioned Captain Van Schaick’s physical courage in the face of near-certain death. Even as the flames surrounded the pilothouse on all sides and filled it with smoke, Van Schaick and his two pilots bravely manned their posts. Only when the stricken vessel ground to a halt did they attempt to save themselves by climbing through a window of the pilothouse and leaping to the rocks thirty feet below. Van Wart went first, crossing himself before jumping, followed by Weaver and last, almost reluctantly, Van Schaick. Down in the engine room Chief Engineer Ben Conklin and second engineer Everett Brandow likewise stayed at their posts until the very end. Both managed to escape with minor burns when by chance a tug drew up just as they emerged from the engine room.

  Most of Van Schaick’s crew, however, proved useless to the end. Incapable and in some cases unwilling to save any passengers, they somehow managed to save themselves. All but steward McGrann, the one who sank with the vessel’s money, and a fireman and three members of the kitchen staff survived. But even in saving themselves, some of them proved singu larly inept. First Mate Ed Flanagan, who would later try to make himself out a hero, jumped onto Jack Wade’s tug. Still out of his mind with panic, he ran to the tug’s line that held it to the Slocum and cast it off. An enraged Wade pounced and heaved Flanagan from the tug. “I went for him,” he remembered almost sheepishly, “and well—oh, I just put him off the boat, that’s all.”

  Not to be outdone, deckhand Daniel O’Neill saw a small rowboat full of people below him as he hung over the Slocum’s side. Despite pleas for him not to jump, he did so anyway. His impact flipped the boat, tossing rescuers and rescued alike into the water. O’Neill, who knew how to swim, paddled to shore while the victims of his recklessness struggled to stay afloat.

  A few members of the Slocum’s crew did distinguish themselves with conspicuous acts of bravery after the beaching. One deckhand who was never identified earned the praise of Captain Parkinson of the Massasoit. He deserved, said the gruff captain, “all the medals which may be coming his way.” The moment he escaped the Slocum by diving into the water from what Parkinson called “a nest of flames,” he began dragging people ashore. Each time he returned to the water to pull another victim to safety. With his strength fading fast, he made one more plunge into the water and returned with three babies—two on one arm and a third in his teeth. “How he did it,” said an incredulous Parkinson, “… I don’t know.” The anonymous deckhand promptly collapsed in a heap, unable to move.

  Another who exhibited great courage was the Slocum’s African- American cook, Henry Canfield. He went overboard wearing a life preserver and was instantly attacked by several drowning passengers. Knowing how to swim, he slipped out of the life preserver—apparently one of the few good ones—and let them cling to it until rescued by a rowboat. Then he swam around and pulled several more victims to nearby boats. Just how many was never recorded, but many of the rescued noted that they were saved “by a colored man.” Yet when Canfield briefly grabbed the side of a rowboat to catch his breath, the boatman lifted an oar as if to strike and shouted, “Turn loose of that.” Even in the teeth of a catastrophe, racial animosity remained undiminished in the hearts of some rescuers. Canfield was eventually allowed aboard the tug Massasoit.

  Policemen Van Tassel and Kelk displayed a similar courage and steadiness of nerve to the very end. Kelk, though badly burned, was one of the last to leave the boat. Standing on the stern of the Slocum, assisting people onto tugs and directing rescue efforts on the water, he appeared, according to one reporter, “as calm as though he were on parade.”

  His partner Van Tassel had spent the harrowing journey to North Brother Island hanging on the outside of the Slocum’s railing, imploring the terrified passengers to remain calm, and, when the Walter Tracey briefly pulled alongside, passing dozens of children onto its deck. “I stood on the outside of the rail,” he said later, “passing the children into the tugs and trying to keep order.” Like Kelk, he resisted the tempta
tion to jump himself and stayed with the steamer to the bitter end. “Every time I saw a little face turning its pitiful appeal to me,” he explained, “I thought of my own two children at home.”

  Just as the Slocum beached, a woman leaped from above and struck Van Tassel on the head and back of his neck with her shoes. Knocked unconscious, he fell into the water. “The water, of course, revived me,” he later remembered, “and I started for the shore.” Too weak to swim, however, he knew enough from his training in the marine division of the police department to float on his back. Out of nowhere a group of frantic women and children began to grab at him as though he were a small island.

  Stop! he shouted, or we’ll all drown. Keep calm and I’ll save every one of you.

  Somehow, his words penetrated the fog of panic and they calmed down. Holding on to their human raft, they floated to the beach.

  BEAUTIFUL RECKLESSNESS

  Even before the bonfire that was the Slocum ground to a halt just off the shore of North Brother Island, the workers there had begun to mobilize. The twenty-acre North Brother Island lay just off the Bronx shore. Like many of the city’s East River islands, it held an institution city officials sought to isolate from the general population. The Riverside Hospital for contagious diseases replaced an earlier hospital established there by the Sisters of Charity in 1871. It was a comparatively pleasant place in contrast to nearby Blackwells Island, where one found not only hospitals but also a prison, insane asylum, and almshouse. By 1904 the hospital at North Brother Island cared for several hundred patients and employed 164 workers, including thirty-five nurses and six doctors. Only a few years later it would achieve notoriety as the home for Typhoid Mary.