1859 — Apr 24, steamer St. Nicholas boiler explosion/fire, MS Riv., 9m above Helena, AR-~60

— ~70 Bragg. Historic Names and Places on the Lower Miss. River.” Island No. 60,” 1977, p.96.
— 60 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 290.
— 60 Lytle and Holdcamper. Merchant Steam Vessels of the [U.S.] 1807-1868. 1952, p. 245.
— 60 Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 684.
— 60 Twaintimes.
— 60 Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994: Passenger Steamboats…[MS Riv. Sys.]… 1999, 413.
— 50 New York Times. “Further Particulars of the Steamboat Catastrophe,” Apr 28, 1859, p. 1.
— 45 Gould, E. W. Fifty Years on the Mississippi.1889, p. 437.

Narrative Information

Berman: “St. Nicholas. St.p. [Steam sidewheel] 666 [tons]. 1853 [built]. Apr 24, 1859. Exploded. St. Francis Island, Helena, Ark. 60 lives lost.” (Berman 1972, 290)

Bragg: “Island No. 60, also known as Helena Island, had a snag-filled navigation channel that steamboat pilots avoided whenever possible. When water stages were high enough they ignored the bendway and took the chute on the left or east side of the island.

“The steamboat St. Nicholas was in the island chute on April 24, 1859, when a sudden explosion tore away the boat’s stern and precipitated many of her passengers and crew and much of her cargo into the water. The boat caught fire immediately, and casks of whiskey and barrels of turpentine that had formed part of the freight load fed the flames. It was estimated that about 70 people lost their lives….

“After the flood of 1858, the chute channel behind Island No. 60 began to fill with silt. Soon the island attached itself to the Mississippi shore…” (Bragg 1977, p. 96.)

Way: St. Nicholas. Sidewheel wood-hull packet, built in California, PA in 1853, at 666 tons, measuring 264.7 x 35.5 x 7.3. “….At time of loss owned entire by Ambrose Reeder, St. Louis with Capt. O.H. McMullen, master. She was at Island 60, Mississippi River, seven miles below the scene of the Pennsylvania disaster…and nine miles above Helena, Ark., near St. Francis Island, Apr. 24, 1859, when she exploded boilers and burned. Sixty lives were lost including Capt. McMullen. Others of the crew lost included William Few, chief engineer; John Jenkins, 2nd engineer; Edward Stephens, pilot, all of St. Louis. Ben V. Glime, first clerk, was badly scalded and died two days late; his wife of 10 months died. One of the passengers was Gideon J. Pillow, Jr., son of Gen. Pillow, bound from Memphis to his father’s plantation in Tennessee near Helena, Ark. He was reported lost….” (Way, Frederick Jr., Joseph W. Rutter (contributor). Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994: Passenger Steamboats…[Miss.] River System…(Revised). 1999, p. 413.)

Newspaper

NYT: “Louisville, Wednesday, April 27. The loss of life among the passengers of the St. Nicholas, as far as ascertained, amounts to forty-nine, namely, twenty-six cabin passengers, including nine ladies, and twenty-three deck passengers….

“Memphis, Tenn., Wednesday, April 27. Benjamin V. Cline, one of the sufferers by the explosion of the steamboat St. Nicholas, died to-day….” (NYT. “Further Particulars of the Steamboat Catastrophe,” Apr 28, 1859, p. 1.)

Sources

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

Bragg, Marion. Historic Names and Places on the Lower Mississippi River. Vicksburg, MS: Mississippi River Commission, 1977. Accessed 9-15-2020 at: ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/noaa_documents.lib/NOAA_related_docs/US_Army/Mississippi_River_names_1977.pdf

Gould, E. W. Fifty Years on the Mississippi; or, Gould’s History of River Navigation. St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1889, 750 pages. Digitized by Google. Accessed 2008 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=udyywXOVBvsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Lytle, William M., compiler, from Official Merchant Marine Documents of the United States and Other Sources; Holdcamper, Forrest H. (Editor, and Introduction by). Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States 1807-1868. “The Lytle List.” Mystic, CT: Steamship Historical Society of America (Publication No. 6), 1952. Accessed 8-16-2020 at:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015018039084&view=1up&seq=8&size=125

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.

New York Times. “Further Particulars of the Steamboat Catastrophe,” Apr 28, 1859, p. 1. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=6161352

Twaintimes. 1857-1867. Accessed at: http://twaintimes.net/page4.html (inoperable link)

Way, Frederick Jr. (Author and Compiler), Joseph W. Rutter (contributor). Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994: Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi River System Since the Advent of Photography in Mid-Continent America (Revised). Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1999.