1869 — Oct 27, steamer Stonewall burns/grounds, Mississippi river, Tea Table Bar, MO-~209

— ~209 Blanchard estimated death toll.*

–~300 Nussbaum, Rose. “Wreck of the Stonewall.” Capegenealogy.org. Accessed 10-30-2020.
— 280 Daily Gazette, Davenport, IA. “The Stonewall Calamity.” Tuesday, 11-2-1869, p. 2.
— 250 New York Herald. “Another Steamboat Horror,” 10-29-1869, p. 2.
–~230 Missouri Republican, St. Louis. “Awful Calamity. Burning…Stonewall.” 10-29-1869, 2.
— 225 Cape Girardeau Weekly Argus, MO. 11-4-1869; cited in Bender.
— 223 Cape Girardeau Weekly Argus, MO. 11-4-1869 [elsewhere in article]; cited in Bender.
— 222 New York Times. “Terrible Disaster. The Steamer Stonewall Burned…” 10-29-1869, p1.
— 222 Rhodes, Joel P. Haunted Cape Girardeau. 2013 (no pagination).**
— 221 Elyria Independent Democrat OH. “Terrible Catastrophe…Stonewall…” 11-3-1869, 2.
— 209 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 263.
— 209 Lytle and Holdcamper. Merchant Steam Vessels of the [U.S.] 1807-1868. 1952, p. 276.
— 209 Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 686.
— 209 Nickell. “Almost Yesterday: The Sinking of the Stonewall.” KRCU, Cape Girardeau, 7-21-2020.
— 209 Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994, 1994, p. 434.
–~200 Engineer of Stonewall estimate in interview on Oct 28, Chicago dateline in NY Herald.
–~200 Harper’s Book of Facts. 1895. 872.
— 200 Insurance Engineering. “Marine Disasters.” Vol. 8, No, July, 1904, p. 82.
— 200 Simonds. The American Date Book. 1902, p. 101.
—<200 Waterloo Courier, IA. “Another Steamboat Horror on the Mississippi.” 11-4-1869, 2. -- 150 Insurance Co. petition in Board of Supervising Inspectors of Steamboats. 1872, p. 23. -- 125 Chappell. “Missouri River Steamboats.” 1906, p. 311. * Blanchard estimated death toll. *Once again we have an event concerning which a wide range of death tolls have been presented over time (we show a representative sampling). A large number of people were on the Stonewall when it burned and grounded. The boat records were destroyed. There were varying recollections of how many people were aboard. Not all bodies were recovered. This was the Mississippi River, known for its currents – bodies could have been lodged in snags and under debris along the shore and never found. Thus, a definitive death toll will never be known – see Bender below on this point. Sometimes in such cases an estimated round number such as “about 200” or “over 200.” Or range will be utilized – such as “200-250.” However, in this case a specific number of 209 has been used in several books and documents relating to maritime matters, from generally reliable sources. We are not clear as to exactly how 209 was established as the death toll afterwards, and then used by such sources as Lytle and Holdcamper, and Way, but they apparently thought it authoritative enough so as not to resort to reporting something like “over 200 deaths.” We do not use the higher numbers reported in the press at the time and in a genealogy page. Press reporting at the time generally reflected the speculative reports of survivors. In that all bodies were not recovered, and it was not clear exactly how many people were on the boat, nor even the exact number of survivors, we choose not to incorporate any of these fatality estimates into a range – say 209-225. In that case how is one to make a decision on the high-end of the range – 221?, 222?, 223?, 225?, 250?, or even 280 or 300? This would be guess-work. In regards to the Rhodes reporting that local county officials established a death toll of 222, we are skeptical, given the unknowns noted above. However determined, it was not based on a body count. Thus while we do not believe the estimate of exactly 209 fatalities is a proven fact beyond dispute, it does seem to us be the best attempt to capture the extent of the loss of life. ** “By morning, Cape Girardeau County officials had…made their way to Neelys Landing to sort through the destruction. Pronouncements of death were rendered, bodies were identified that could be and the grisly task of sorting through possessions in order to notify kin was begun. The county determined that out of 252 passengers and crew on the Stonewall, only 30 made it out of the water alive, including just 1 woman. Nearly 60 of the unrecognizable were buried together in a long mass grave on the Cotter farm.” Narrative Information Bender: “….The actual number of lives lost that night will never be known, and the newspaper reports of the day vary. The Cape Girardeau Weekly Argus reported the Stonewall had on board the following: cabin passengers, 35; deck passengers, 165; officers, 17; crew, 58. The total number of lives on board would be 275 ‘of which, not to exceed fifty-two are known to have been saved, leaving the loss of two hundred and twenty-five souls. Without having the boat’s passenger list, which, if it existed, went down with the boat, there would be no way to quantify the number of persons aboard the Stonewall, and because so many victims were never found in the muddy river, an accurate death toll would be impossible to tally. The St. Louis Missouri Republican ran a detailed story two days after the burning, however, and the following point should be noted: There were between two hundred and fifty and three hundred people on the ‘Stonewall,’ not more than fifty of whom are probably saved; yet it is impossible to know the names of the lost. The register of the steamer is gone, and there is no memoranda in this city [St. Louis] or elsewhere to tell who embarked on the doomed vessel to perish in the flames or find a watery grave in the bosom of the turbid Mississippi. (Bender, Steven. Tragedy at Neely’s Landing: The Burning of the Steamer Stonewall. Chappell: “1865-’69. Stonewall…A large side-wheel, lower Mississippi boat which came into the Missouri. On October 29, 1869, she exploded her boilers near Ste. Genevieve [MO], on the Mississippi, causing the loss of 125 lives. Among those lost on the Stonewall were many laborers en route from St. Louis to New Orleans to work on the sugar plantations of Louisiana, who were deck passengers. When their bodies were recovered, as they were when they came to the surface, several thousands of dollars were found. As there was no way to identify their bodies or to find out who their friends were, the money was paid into the state treasury of Missouri, as directed by the law.” (Chappell. “Missouri River Steamboats.” 1906, p. 311.) Insurance Company Petition to the Secretary of the Treasury: “In storing hay on steamboats, it is customary to put a part of it in what is called the engine or deck-room behind the boilers, where it is liable to take fire from sparks which may be blown aft from the fire-furnace, and where it is also greatly exposed to ignition from the carelessness of deck passengers and other persons. The steamer Stonewall caught fire from hay stowed in her deck-room in October, 1869, about a hundred and thirty miles below Saint Louis, and was wholly consumed, involving the loss of one hundred and fifty human lives, and not less than seventy thousand dollars’ worth of property, besides the boat herself.” (Petition of various insurance companies to the Senate and House of Representatives, found in: Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Board of Supervising Inspectors of Steamboats held at Washington, D.C., January, 1872, p. 23.) Way: “Stonewall…She had been operating out of St. Louis. Capt. John C. Dowty, New Orleans, had lost the St. Nicholas and loaded the Stonewall at St. Louis to go south for the New Orleans-Grand Encore trade. She caught fire about 45 miles above Cairo, Ill., at Neely’s Landing. Pilot Ed Fulkerson ran her ashore, this on Oct. 27, 1869, just after supper. She beached on a bar instead of getting to the bank, water all around her.…She had aboard an overload of deck passengers (this came up at the Inspector’s hearings later) and in all 209 persons were drowned and lost, including Captain Scott and his first clerk Mr. Albert. The Belle Memphis came along three hours later and rendered assistance. There was much outcry inasmuch as the wrecking boat Submarine No. 13, Capt. John T. Washington, passed by the wreck within an hour after the fire and did not stop….” (Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1994, 1994, p. 434.) Newspapers of the Time Oct 26: “St. Louis, Oct 26. – Mr. Phelps, a planter of Shreveport, has arrived from the wreck of the Stonewall, and furnishes us the following brief particulars of the terrible disaster to that boat. – The boat caught fire at half past six o’clock, on Wednesday evening, at a point a little below Neeley’s Landing, one hundred and twenty-five miles below St. Louis, from a candle which the deck passengers had near some hay, while playing cards. The steamer was run on a gravel bar, the pilot supposing that the passengers could wade ashore on the bar. Unfortunately, at the end of the bar there was a slough, and here it was that the larger number was drowned. The boat was not run but two feet on the bar, and the shallowest point about her had five or six feet of water. The boat had so much hay on board that she burned like tinder, and all efforts to put it out were unavailing ….” (Elyria Independent Democrat, OH. “Terrible Catastrophe…Stonewall…” 11-3-1869, p. 2.) Oct 29, Missouri Republican, St. Louis: “….A steamer, the ‘Stonewall,’ plying between St. Louis and New Orleans, caught fire while it had a living freight of some 275 persons on board, of whom, it is feared, comparatively few have escaped an untimely death…. “The point where it occurred was near Neeley’s Landing on the Mississippi river, about one hundred and twenty miles below St. Louis and fifteen above Cape Girardeau….. “As near as can now be estimated, there were aboard of the boat the following persons: Cabin passengers…. 35 Deck “ ……. 165 Officers…………… 17 Deck crew………… 38 Cabin “ …………. 20 275 “….There were about two hundred cabin and deck passengers aboard, quite a number of whom were women and children. The flames spread with great rapidity. Scores of men sprang into the water, and attempted to reach the shore, by swimming. Nearly all these were lost. Every conceivable object that could be obtained was thrown into the water, and to these the passengers clung with all the tenacity of life. The steamer Belle Memphis, Capt. Crane, on her way to St. Louis, reached the scene during the fire, and picked up from the water all that are known to be saved. The pilot, engineer, stoker, carpenter and 44 passengers are known to be saved. The captain, the clerks and other officers, deck hands, and many passengers were lost. All the books and papers of the boat were lost, as also were the cattle and other freight on board. A number of persons died soon after reaching the shore from exposure in the water. There was no explosion. All of the women and children were lost, nearly, if not all, being burned to death…. The Number Saved and Lost. “From the best information we have received by telegrams and from the personal statements of survivors, the total number saved appears to be between forty and fifty, which will make the total number of persons lost about two hundred and thirty. Only three or four cabin passengers are supposed to have been saved….” (Missouri Republican, St. Louis. “Awful Calamity. Burning of the Steamer Stonewall.” 10-29-1869, p. 2, col. 4. Oct 29, NY Herald: “St. Louis, Oct. 28, 1869. A private dispatch to the Memphis Packet Company says that the steamer Stonewall was burned this morning near Nealy’s Landing, on the Mississippi river, about forty-five miles above Cairo, that that forty passengers and three of the crew were saved. The Stonewall left here on Tuesday for New Orleans with 180 cabin and deck passengers and a crew of sixty hands on board. From the dispatch received it is inferred that all those above the number mentioned are lost. “A Passenger’s Account of the Burning of the Stonewall – The Disaster Caused by a Careless Passenger – Only Four of the Crew Saved. “St. Louis, Oct. 28, 1869. Mr. Phelps, a pilot, of Shreveport, LA., has arrived here from the wreck of the steamer Stonewall, and furnishes the following brief particulars of the horrible disaster to that boat: -- The boat caught fire at half-past six o'clock Wednesday evening, at a point a little below Neely's Landing, and 125 miles below St. Louis, from a candle which the deck passengers had placed near some hay while they were engaged playing cards. The Stonewall was then run on a gravel bar, the pilot supposing that the passengers could wade ashore. Unfortunately, at the end of the bar there was a slough, and here it was that the larger number were drowned. The boat was run on the bar but two feet, and the shallowest point about her had five or six feet of water. She had so much hay on board that she burned like tinder. All attempts to extinguish the fire were without avail. The Belle Memphis came up at half-past nine o'clock (three hours after the accident) and rendered all the assistance possible. Out of 252 passengers and crew only thirty are known to be saved. The last seen of Captain Scott he was floating down stream on a log. The people at Neely's Landing saw the light and hastened to assist the unfortunate passengers. One man rescued sixteen persons with a skiff. Had it not been for their help all would have been lost. A gentleman from Paducah. Ky., swam ashore with a lady on his back, and at her entreaty returned to save her child. While swimming ashore he was grasped by a drowning man, and was compelled to shake him off in order to save himself. One man was taken from the wreck so badly burned that he died as soon as he reached the shore…. There were thirty-nine cabin passengers and sixty of the crew. There were quite a number of ladies on board, and all are supposed to be lost except one. Fulkerson, the pilot, and the carpenter were the only ones of the crew saved. The Stonewall was owned by Captain John Shaw and Dennis Long, the latter of Louisville, and was valued at $45,000, and insured for $30,000. She had about 800 tons of freight, including 270 head of cattle, horses and mules. They were insured…. (New York Herald. “Another Steamboat Horror.” 10-29-1869, p. 2.) Oct 29, NY Herald: “Statement of the Assistant Engineer, the Only Surviving Officer – Rapid Progress of the Flames – Three Female Passengers Saved – But One Small Boat on Board the Steamer – Two Hundred Persons Drowned. “Chicago, Oct. 28, 1869. An interview with the Assistant engineer of the ill-fated steamer, by a telegraphic correspondent at Carbondale, gets from him the following statement:-- The alarm was given at half-past six o'clock, and in ten minutes the boat was in a sheet of flame and every person had deserted her. All that were lost were drowned. None were burned. Of eleven women on board but three were saved. But one yawl was seen, and that was taken possession of by some deck passengers. No other lifeboats or life preservers were seen. The boat grounded 200 yards from the shore, in about six feet of water. There were forty cabin passengers, 150 deck passengers and sixty of the crew – in all about 250 souls. About fifty were saved. (New York Herald. “Another Steamboat Horror,” October 29, 1869, p. 2.) Nov 2, Daily Gazette: “The Missouri Democrat gives the following additional particulars of the terrible steamboat disaster, of which very full accounts have already been presented to our readers… The Stonewall was a strongly built freight and passenger steamer, of one thousand tons capacity. She was built at Jeffersonville, Indiana, March 1866, by the Howards, for Dennis Long, John S. Shaw, E.R. Dix and J.P. McKinney. She was of these dimensions: Length, 230 feet; 6½ feet hold, and over 40 feet beam…. “The Stonewall left St. Louis Tuesday night at about 6 o’clock and having on freight and passengers. To prevent the crew from leaving, she sailed to the other side of the river, having loaded at the foot of Elm street, and set sail from the elevator at East St. Louis on Wednesday morning at 3 o’clock. She first landed at Chester, Illinois, where she took in eight hundred barrels of flour on Wednesday forenoon, between 10 and 11 o’clock. Many of the deck passengers were laborers who had howled the night before along the doggeries of the levee and taken their last spree on earth, and were bound for the New Orleans levees, to die beneath a sweltering sun, or worse, to linger into eternity by fevers, disease and pestilence. The boat next stopped at Grand Tower, and took in eight hundred or a thousand bushels of coal, but no passengers, and her next stop was to have been at Cape Girardeau, from which the scene of the catastrophe is about fifteen or twenty miles. The Place of the Catastrophe is just below Harris’ landing, nearly opposite, not more than two hundred yards from the Missouri shore, and at a point in the river where the width is a mile and a half from shore to shore. When the fire broke out, the boat was three hundred yards from shore, but by wheeling she landed at Tea Table Bar, just opposite Nealey’s landing, about two hundred yards from the shore. The Scene. It beggars description, words fail – imagination is at fault. Two hundred and eighty souls ushered into eternity. A blazing fire behind them, and a death amid icy waters before them. It was about half past 6 in the evening. In the cabin, the supper table was thronged… Few were on deck, for the night was dark and the air chilly and piercing. Down in the deck a motley crowd of a hundred and fifty emigrants and working people were gathered. Many had eaten their supper; others were taking their last mouthful, when a small blaze not larger than your hand broke out on a pile of hay, and a solitary deck hand ran forward and cried, ‘Fire, fire!’…. then in a second twinkling came the second cry, a yell, a maddening, deafening yell of ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’ that pierced the deck and rang through the ears of the supper-eaters like a death knell….That cry meant life or death, and everyone felt it. To the upper deck, to the cabins fore and aft, people ran. Panic, fear and frenzy ruled the hour. There were seventy-five life-preservers in the state-rooms, but only one man secured one. There was a yawl, but some of the deck passengers seized it, and, without oars, indiscriminately piled in and paddled ashore with their hands. From the small blaze on the hay near the boiler deck the fire spread to the coal oil, and the whole ship was in a blaze. The boat was loaded with bacon and other solidities, and the flames, spreading with fearful rapidity, soon found the solid combustibles, and an intense heat was generated. On deck the scene was most fearful. One hundred and fifty passengers, mostly foreigners – Irish, Italians…Germans and Americans – some with their families, all in confusion grand, trying to save their lives. The boat grounded two hundred yards from shore; the ponderous engines thumped and worked in vain. The passengers were rampant and wild. Efforts were made to adjust the hose to the donkey engine, but the crowd would not allow it. Some tried to throw out planks….they plunged pell-mell into the waters. Some clung to spars and bits of wood, but more found nothing to hold, swam or floated for a short time, and then benumbed by the icy chilliness of the waves, and blinded by the smoke, they sank to watery graves. Many mules and horses were on board, and with the deck passengers… they rushed with the people and jumped into the water with them, and on them and over them. Some few started and swam ashore, but most of them swam around the boats in circles, drowning men, women and helpless children….Very few who jumped to the water reached the shore….” (Daily Gazette, Davenport, IA. 11-2-1869, p. 2.) Sources Bender, Steven. Tragedy at Neely’s Landing: The Burning of the Steamer Stonewall. Cape Girardeau, MO: Southeast Missouri State University Press. Accessed 10-30-2020 at: http://www.semopress.com/tragedy-at-neelys-landing-the-burning-of-the-steamer-stonewall/ Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972. Board of Supervising Inspectors of Steamboats. Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Board of Supervising Inspectors of Steam-Vessels, held at Washington, D.C., January, 1872. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872. Accessed 10-30-2020 at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proceedings_of_the_annual_meeting_of_the/PE9WAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=steamer+Stonewall+fire+1869&pg=PA23&printsec=frontcover Chappell, Phil E. “Missouri River Steamboats.” Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1905-1906 (Vol. IX). Topeka: State Printing Office, 1906. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=2dw7AAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s Daily Gazette, Davenport, IA. “The Stonewall Calamity.” Tuesday, 11-2-1869. p. 2. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=16550508 Elyria Independent Democrat, OH. “Terrible Catastrophe. The Steamer Stonewall Burned.” 11-3-1869, p. 2. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=8266716 Harper’s Book of Facts. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1895. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ Insurance Engineering (Vol. 8, No. 1., July 1904). “Marine Disasters,” pp. 81-82. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=6bAPAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true 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 Missouri Republican, St. Louis. “Awful Calamity. Burning of the Steamer Stonewall.” 10-29-1869, p. 2, col. 4. Accessed 10-30-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/saint-louis-missouri-republican-oct-29-1869-p-2/ 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 Herald. “Another Steamboat Horror.” 10-29-1869, p. 2. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=10735944 New York Times. “Terrible Disaster. The Steamer Stonewall Burned…” 10-29-1869, p. 1. Accessed 10-30-2020 at: https://www.nytimes.com/1869/10/29/archives/terrible-disaster-the-steamer-stonewall-burned-on-the-mississippi.html Nickell, Frank. “Almost Yesterday: The Sinking of the Stonewall.” KRCU, Cape Girardeau, 7-21-2020. Accessed 10-30-2020 at: https://www.krcu.org/post/almost-yesterday-sinking-stonewall Nussbaum, Rose Lee. “Wreck of the Stonewall.” Capegenealogy.org. Accessed 10-30-2020 at: https://www.capegenealogy.org/resources/resource21_wreckofthestonewall.html Simonds, W. E. (Editor). The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, 211 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-8-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JuiSjvd5owAC Waterloo Courier, IA. “Another Steamboat Horror on the Mississippi [Stonewall].” 11-4-1869, 2. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=87935222 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.