1830 — Feb 24, steamboat Helen McGregor boiler explosion, Miss. Riv., Memphis, TN-33-60
–33-60 Blanchard estimated death toll range.*
–30-60 Coggins. Tennessee Tragedies: Natural, Technological…Disasters… 2011, p. 175.
— 60 Debow’s Review. “Steamboat Explosions in the West,” Vol. 2, Is. 3, Sep 1866.
— 60 Fisher/McCord. Table: “Steamboat Explosions…Fifty-Five Years.” Scharf 1883, 1108.
— 60 Gould. Fifty Years on the Mississippi. 1889, p. 437.
— 60 Hunter, Louis and Beatrice. Steamboats on the Western Rivers… 1949, p. 57.
— 60 Nash. Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 678.
–30-60 Steamboats.org. “Explosion of the Helen McGregor, at Memphis, [TN], [Feb.] 24, 1830.”
— 60 US Patent Office. Report of…Commissioner…steam boiler explosions. 12-30-1848, p60.
–40-50 Howland. Steamboat Disasters…in the United States (Rev.). 1843, p135. Survivor account.
— < 50 Sandukas. Gently Down the Stream. 2002, p. 16.
--30-60 Lloyd. Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters. 1856, p. 71.
-- >40 Hunter, Louis and Beatrice. Steamboats on the Western Rivers… 1949, p. 284.
— 40 Wiard, Norman. The Cause of Boiler Explosions, etc. 1868, p. 10.
— 33 American Journal of Science and Arts. XX/July 1831. “List of Steam Boat Explosions…” 336.
— ~33 Surviving passenger response to query from House Select Committee on Steamboats.
— 33 U.S. Congress, House. Select Committee Report: “Steamboats.” 5-18-1832, p. 21.
* Blanchard estimated death toll range. It has become obvious to me that I can do no better than others before, it trying to “nail down” a death-toll for the Helen McGregor boiler explosion. It would appear that there were at least thirty-three deaths, and I cannot find a way to discredit the accounts of forty, fifty, or sixty deaths. Thus I resort to employing a range of 33-60 deaths.
Narrative Information
Howland: EXPLOSION of THE HELEN M’GREGOR
at Memphis, Tennessee, February, 24, 1830
The following interesting narrative was written by a gentleman, who was passenger on board the Helen McGregor:
“On the morning of the 24th of February, the Helen M’Gregor stopped at Memphis, to deliver freight, and land a number of passengers who resided in that section of Tennessee. The time occupied in so do¬ing could not have exceeded three quarters of an hour. While the boat was thus detained, I went ashore to see a gentleman with whom I had some business. I found him on the beach, and after a short conversa¬tion returned to the boat. I recollect looking at my watch as I passed the gangway. It was half past 8 o’clock. A great number of persons were standing on what is called the boiler deck — being that part of the upper deck situated immediately over the boilers.
“It was crowded to excess, and presented one dense mass of human bodies. In a few minutes we sat down to breakfast in the cabin. The table, although extending the whole length of the cabin, was completely filled, there being upward of sixty cabin passengers, among whom were several ladies and children. The number of passengers on board, deck and cabin united, was between four and five hundred.
“I had almost finished my breakfast when the pilot rung his bell for the engineer to put his machinery in motion. The boat having just shoved off, I was in the, act of raising my cup to my lip, the tingling of the pilot bell yet on my ear, when I heard an explosion resembling the discharge of a small piece of artillery — the report was perhaps louder than usual in such cases –for an exclamation was half uttered by me that the gun was well loaded, when the rushing sound of steam, and the rattling of glass in some of the cabin windows checked my speech, and too well told what had occurred. I almost involuntarily bent my head and body down to the floor—a vague idea seemed to shoot across my mind that more than one boiler might burst, and that, by assuming this pos¬ture, the destroying matter would pass over without touching me.
“The general cry of ‘a boiler has burst,’ resounded from one end of the table to the other; and, as if by a simultaneous movement, all started on their feet. Then commenced a general race to the ladies’ cabin, which lay more toward the stern of the boat. All regard to order, or deference to sex, seemed to be lost in the struggle for which should be first and farthest removed from the dreaded boilers. The danger had already passed away! I remained standing by the chair on which I had been previously sitting. Only one persons or two staid in the cabin with me. As yet not more that half a minute had elapsed scene the explosion; but in that brief space, how had the scene changed!
In that ‘drop of time’ what confusion, distress, and dismay! An instant before, and all were in the quiet repose of security – another, and they were overwhelmed with alarm and consternation…
“I advances from my position to one of the cabin doors for the purpose of inquiring who were injured, when, just as I reached it, a man entered at the opposite one, both his hands covering his face, and exclaiming ‘O God, 0 God! I am lost! I am ruined!’ He immediately began to tear off his clothes. When stripped, he presented a most shocking and afflicting spectacle his face was entirely black; his body
without a particle of skin. He had been flayed alive. He gave me his name and place, of abode — then sunk in a state of exhaustion and agony on the floor. I assisted in placing him on a mattress taken from one of the berths, and covered him with blank¬ets. He complained of heat and cold as at once op¬pressing him. He bore his torments with a manly fortitude, yet a convulsive shriek would occasionally burst from him. His wife, his children; were his con¬stant theme: it was hard to die without seeing them; it was hard to go without bidding them one farewell! Oil and cotton were applied to his wounds: but he soon became insensible to earthly misery. Before I had done attending to him, the whole door of the cab¬in was covered with unfortunate sufferers. Some bore up under the horrors of their situation with a de-gree of resolution amounting to heroism. Others were wholly overcome by the sense of pain, the suddenness of the fatal disaster, and the near approach of death, which even to them was evident—whose pangs they already felt, Some implored as, as an act of humanity, to complete the work of destruction, and free them from present suffering. One entreated the presence of a clergyman to pray for him, declaring he was not fit to die. I inquired: none could be had. On every side were to be heard groans and mingled exclamations of grief and despair.
“To add to the confusion, persons were every moment running about to learn the fate of their friends and relatives,—fathers, sons, brothers,—for, in this scene of unmixed calamity, it was impossible to say who were saved, or who had perished. The coun-tenances of many were so much disfigured as to be past recognition. My attention, after sometime was particularly drawn toward a poor fellow who lay unnoticed on the floor, without uttering a single wool of complaint. He was at a little distance run-Loved from the rest. He was not much scalded, but one of his thighs was broken, and a principal artery had been severed, from which the blood was gushing rapidly….
“The number of lives lost will, in all probability, never be distinctly know. Many were seen flung into the river, most of whom sunk to rise no more. Could the survivors have been kept together until the list of passengers was called, the precise loss would have been ascertained; that, however, though it had been attempted, would, under the circumstances, have been impossible.
“Judging from the crowd which I saw on the boiler-deck immediately before the explosion, and the statement which I received as to the number of those who succeeded in swimming out after they were cast into the river, I am inclined to believe that between forty and fifty must have perished….” (Howland, Southworth Allen. Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents in the United States (Revised. Worcester: Warren Lazell. 1843, p. 135.)
Redfield: “1830…Helen McGregor…Mississippi…33 [killed]…14 wounded.” (U.S. Congress, House. Select Committee Report: “Steamboats.” 5-18-1832, p. 21.)
Sandukas: “…Congress was once again roused to action by the demands of a terrified public. On May 4, 1830, Representative Charles Wickliffe (Kentucky) proposed a regulatory bill that received little attention and was not passed, and the House again resolved to have the Secretary of the Treasury, now Samuel D. Ingham, investigate the causes of boiler explosions and their possible solutions. He circulated a form containing twenty-three interrogatories to customs collectors, steam engine manufacturers, scientists, and other members of the industry who were familiar with such disasters. In an interim report submitted to the House in March of 1831, he expressed regret at having yet to arrive at a satisfactory explanation of the causes of explosions, attributing the failure to ‘the unwillingness of the owners and masters of boats to aid the inquiry, or even communicate any information on the subject.’
“Within a year, though, Ingham’s successor, Louis McLane, had collected a sufficient amount of information and sent it to a House Select Committee chaired by Wickliffe. The committee then submitted a report to Congress on May 18, 1832… It was an impressive document of 192 pages featuring testimonials, charts, diagrams, and scientific data, yet it was made accessible by an introduction by the committee that decanted six causes of explosions: faulty boiler construction, defective materials, excessive and extended use, careless and unskilled engineers, excessive steam pressure, and deficiency in the supply of water. With lack of information no longer the obstacle to legislation it had been just a few years earlier, the committee seized the opportunity and proposed a bill in its report. It called for mandatory licensing and inspection like the 1824 bill, as well as hydrostatic testing of the boiler every three months at three times its operating pressure. It forewent any regulations regarding safety valves that were contained in previous bills and instead required that the engine be kept running at landings in order to power the pump supplying water to the boiler. Additionally, provisions were made for a long boat, fire hose, and lights on every steamboat under the threat of penalty. However, much like Secretary Crawford had done in 1825, the committee derailed its own bill in the preface to its report by emphasizing yet another obstacle that had not yet been much contemplated—the extent of Congress’ authority to regulate interstate commerce.” (Sandukas 2002, pp. 16-18)
“When asked by the House of Representatives to investigate the causes of boiler explosions in 1830, Secretary Ingham, in addition to circulating interrogatories that largely went unanswered, took the fortuitous step of committing $1500 to the newly-founded Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to help subsidize the cost of scientific experiments it was conducting on the problem. The results of this funding—the first-ever federal grant for scientific research—were six years of testing and a series of four reports…. The last of these reports (the General Report) was submitted to the House in 1837 and ultimately became the definitive work on the subject given its simplified summary of complex scientific information and the inclusion of suggested regulatory provisions.” (Sandukas 2002, p. 22)
U.S. Commissioner of Patents: “Helen McGregor, Captain Tyson, March 24, 1830 [sic., Feb.], bound from New Orleans to Louisville, stopped at Memphis twenty-five or thirty minutes, when her boilers burst. She had on board 350 deck passengers – 480 altogether. The captain was injured, not killed. The engineer and pilot were killed. Sixty persons, in all, were killed, and 14 wounded. Those in the cabins escaped injury.” (Report of the Commissioner of Patents, to the Senate of the United States, on the subject of steam boiler explosions. 12-30-1848, p. 60.)
Wiard: “The Helen McGregor exploded her boiler at Memphis, February 24, 1830; forty persons lost their lives. A witness stated that ‘the water was low in the starboard boiler, on account of the boat being careened as she lay at the levee, and that he noticed the fires were very hot’.” (Wiard, Norman. The Cause of Boiler Explosions, etc. 1868, p. 10.)
Newspaper
Feb 26: “The steamboat Helen McGregor, with about 410 passengers on board having stopped at this place for a short time, was in the act of pushing off, when one of her boilers having burst with a tremendous explosion, was thrown from its bed over the forecastle into the river, the chimneys thrown down; every boiler dislodged, and the boiler deck, engineer’s room, and adjacent offices made a complete wreck in an instant….
”A large number of deck passengers, as is usual when starting out of port, had crowded to the forward part of the boat, and were on this occasion the principal sufferers. Amid the smoke and dust were to be seen, at the same moment, the death struggle and spouting blood of those who had received their wounds; while the shrieks of the wounded and the dying were mingled with the general confusion. Our citizens rushed spontaneously to the scene of disaster, and, by their activity and exertion, rescued many a poor fellow from a watery grave.” (Memphis Advocate, “Horrible Disaster,” February 26, 1830.)
Sources
American Journal of Science and Arts. New Haven: Hezekiah Howe, Vol. XX, July 1831. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=cWIWAAAAYAAJ
Coggins, Allen R. Tennessee Tragedies: Natural, Technological and Societal Disasters in the Volunteer State. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2011. Google preview accessed 2-25-2021 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=SfK6aBuqohQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
De Bow, James Dunwoody Brownson (Ed.). Debow’s Review. “Steamboat Explosions in the West,” Vol. 2, Is. 3, Sep 1866. Accessed 2-25-2021 at: http://www.pddoc.com/skedaddle/049/steamboat_explosions_in_the_west.htm
Fisher, Captain S.L., and Captain James McCord. “Steamboat Explosions for Fifty-Five Years.” In Scharf, J. Thomas. History of Saint Louis City and County, From the Earliest Periods to the Present Day: Including Biographical Sketches of Representative Men. In Two Volumes, Illustrated. Volume II (Chapter XXVII. Navigation on the Mississippi River). Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts & Co., 1883. Digitized by Northern Illinois University, NU Libraries Digitization Projects. Accessed 2-25-2021 at: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.4487:4.lincoln
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Howland, Southworth Allen. Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents in the United States (Revised and Improved). Worcester: Warren Lazell. 1843.
Hunter, Louis C. and Beatrice J. Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1949, 1977, 1993, 684 pages. Accessible at: https://books.google.com/books?id=JzLN2GACaIYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=mcgregor&f=false
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Memphis Advocate. “Horrible Disaster,” February 26, 1830. Accessed at: http://www3.gendisasters.com/tennessee/6124/memphis-tn-steamboat-helen-mcgregor-explodes-feb-1830
Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages.
Sandukas, Gregory P. Gently Down the Stream: How Exploding Steamboat Boilers in the 19th Century Ignited Federal Public Welfare Regulation (Redacted Version). Harvard Law School, Class of 2002, Third Year Paper, 4-30-2002, 47 pages. Accessed at: http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/530/Sandukas_redacted.pdf
Steamboats.org. “Explosion of the Helen McGregor, at Memphis, Tennessee, February 24, 1830.” Accessed 2-25-2021 at: https://www.steamboats.org/archive/9082-2.html
United States Congress, House of Representatives Select Committee. Report: “Steamboats.” 5-18-1832. House of Representatives Report No. 478, in: Reports of Committees of The House of Representatives, at the First Session of the Twenty-Second Congress, begun and held at the City of Washington, December 7, 1831….in Five Volumes (Volume V. containing Reports from No. 464 to No. 513). Washington: Printed by Duff Green, 1831. Accessed 2-25-2021 at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/United_States_Congressional_Serial_Set/7P9RAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=mcgregor
United States Patent Office. Report of the Commissioner of Patents, to the Senate of the United States, on the subject of steam boiler explosions. (30th Congress, 2d Session Executive Document No. 18). 12-30-1848. Accessed 2-21-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=chpLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Wiard, Norman. The Cause of Boiler Explosions, etc. Philadelphia: Stein & Jones, 1868, p. 12. Digitized by Google. Accessed 2-25-2021 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Xj0OAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false