1865 — Aug 21, Mud Drum explosion, Steamboat Argosy No. 3, Ohio River ~Rono, IN– 10

–10 Norrington. “Old Boat Column. The Argosy No. 3.” Waterways Journal Weekly, 4-2-2018.
–10 Way. Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994: Passenger Steamboats of the [MS]…1949, p. 28

Narrative Information

Norrington: “….On August 21, 1865, the boat was ascending the Ohio River loaded with some U.S. soldiers of the 70th Ohio Infantry, returning to Cincinnati from war duty. Some 80 miles below Louisville, at Hatfield Landing, a storm with tornadic winds blew the steamboat into the Indiana shore. As a result of the grounding, the mud drum exploded. Forty soldiers jumped overboard to avoid the escaping steam, eight of whom drowned. Twelve soldiers were scalded, two fatally….

“The fatally injured soldiers were buried in a mass grave, later marked with small individual monuments, near the site of the tragedy at Magnet, Ind., also known as Rono. An historical marker was erected near the grave by the Indiana Civil War Centennial Commission in 1965….” (Norrington, Keith. “Old Boat Column. The Argosy No. 3.” Waterways Journal Weekly, 4-2-2018.)

Way: Argosy No. 3. Build in Monongahela, PA in 1865. 155 ft x 33. Three boilers. “She became a fairly regular Pittsburgh-Cincinnati packet….There is a full account in S&D Reflector, issue Sept. 1976, pages 24-25, of a mud drum explosion near Rono, Ind., some 80 miles below Louisville on Aug. 21, 1865, in which ten Union soldiers were lost, drowned or scaled, upbound for Cincinnati. The story includes photograph of the boat, and also mass grave still in the locality….”

Sources

Norrington, Keith. “Old Boat Column. The Argosy No. 3.” Waterways Journal Weekly, 4-2-2018. Accessed 8-7-2020 at: https://www.waterwaysjournal.net/2018/04/02/the-argosy-no-3/

Steamboats.org. “Mud drum.” Accessed 8-7-2020 at: https://www.steamboats.org/history-education/glossary/mud_drum.html

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 Edition). Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1994-1999.