. Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disasters on the western waters . lt at Cincinnati in 1850, and was employed onthe Mississippi river until about a month before her destruction, atwhich time she was engaged on Lake Pontchartrain. The accidenttook place on that lake, at Pointe Aux Herbes. The St. James leftKey St. Louis on Sunday night, July 4th, 1852, in company with thesteamboat California, having on board a large number of persons whohad been spending the anniversary of Independence at the wateringplaces. Between two and three oclock, on the morning of the fifth,the St. James stopped at th
. Lloyd's steamboat directory, and disasters on the western waters . lt at Cincinnati in 1850, and was employed onthe Mississippi river until about a month before her destruction, atwhich time she was engaged on Lake Pontchartrain. The accidenttook place on that lake, at Pointe Aux Herbes. The St. James leftKey St. Louis on Sunday night, July 4th, 1852, in company with thesteamboat California, having on board a large number of persons whohad been spending the anniversary of Independence at the wateringplaces. Between two and three oclock, on the morning of the fifth,the St. James stopped at the point designated above, fifteen miles fromthe Pontchartrain railway landing, and having taken in several pas-sengers, started again on her course. Her companion, the California,was at this time a short distance astern; each boat, probably was en-deavoring to outrun the other, and it is conjectured that the ofiicers ofthe St. James, in their eagerness to beat their rival, exposed the livesof their passengers to very obvious danger. LLOYDS STEAMBOAT DISASTERS. 241. EXPLOSION OF THB ST. JAMES. The St. James had run scarcely two hundred yards from the pointwhere she had stopped, when all the boilers exploded, and nearly atthe same moment, the boat took fire. The staunchions being tornaway by the explosion, the whole of the boiler deck fell upon theboilers and machinery, precipitating a great many persons into thelower part of the boat, which was now flooded with scalding water,or strewn with the ignited fuel, which had been scattered to this circumstance, a number of passengers who had not beeninjured by the explosion itself, were severely scalded or burned whenthe deck fell in. As the time at which the disaster took place waslong before dnylfght, many of the passengers were asleep. Some ofthem awoke in eternity, without knowing, perhaps, what cause hadhurried them thither, and others were aroused from their slumbers bya sense of intolerable bodily anguish. Vainly wo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, booksubjectrailroa, bookyear1856
