1861 — Aug 25, steamboat J. A. McClelland boiler explosion ~Knight’s Landing, Sacramento Riv., CA–15
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 9-18-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
—>15 Daily National Democrat, Marysville, CA. “Terrible Steamboat Explosion…” 8-27-1861, 3.
— 15 MacMullen, Jerry. Paddle-Wheel Days in California. 1944, p. 28.
—>15 Weekly Butte Record, Oroville, CA. “Steamboat Explosion.” 8-31-1861, p. 3.
Narrative Information
MacMullen, Jerry. Paddle-Wheel Days in California. 1944, p. 28: “On the morning of August 25, 1861, a small ad in the Alta announced that the J. A. McClelland, an ‘independent’ owned by Captain C. Mills, was resuming service to Red Bluff. At one o’clock the same afternoon, while she was bound for that city and had reached a point a mile below Knight’s Landing, one of her boiler let go. So powerful was the blast that her pilothouse – complete with Pilot Baldwin – rose to some altitude and dropped back into the texas deck, near the smokestack, with the startled Baldwin still intact. Fifteen people died in the blast, and eight others were more or less badly hurt. As the vessel was only eight months old at the time, some cause other than age of material must have been responsible for the blast. Her hull, which sank in fifteen minutes, appears to have been susceptible of salvage, for it lived to ply the river again, as the Rainbow.”
Newspaper
Aug 27, Marysville Daily National Democrat: “The Union of yesterday gives the following account of one of the most fearful calamities that ever occurred in our State:
“About half past nine o’clock last evening the steamer Gem, Captain Foster, arrived at the levee from Red Bluff, bringing the painful intelligence that the boilers of the steamer J. A. McClelland, Capt. Mills, had exploded, resulting in the loss of at least fifteen lives, and injury of eleven persons. The McClelland left the levee at eleven o’clock yesterday morning from Red Bluff. As the clerk was killed and the passenger list lost, we are unable to ascertain the number or names of the passengers on board. At half-past one o’clock p.m., three miles this side of Knight’s Landing, the explosion took place. Areega’s steamer Henrietta, then at landing, came at once to the scene of the disaster, and extended all relief practicable under the circumstance. Soon after the Gem arrived on her downward trip, and took from the Henrietta the wounded, and brought them to the city. The list of killed, so far as ascertained, is as follows: [We place names into separate lines.]
Captain Webster, Mate;
- Gardiner, lumber dealer on Front and O streets;
Joseph Areega, wood dealer, First street;
Noel Aubert, Knight’s Landing;
Aaron Leland, Knight’s Landing;
two firemen, names unknown;
one passenger, name unknown;
two bodies found on the bank, two hundred yards distant, names unknown;
Charles Bowell, clerk of the boat;
Jack_____ bar keeper;
two cooks, names unknown;
Isaac Keal, alias Hewey, Knight’s Landing.
[Goes on to list 11 injured people, one of whom, James Morrow of Marysville, was noted as “badly scalded.]
“It is supposed that a large number were killed whose names have not been ascertained. None of the bodies which fell in the water had been recovered when the Gem left. The hull of the McClelland remained afloat for about fifteen or twenty minutes after the explosion, and then sunk.
“….The McClelland was an independent boat, owned chiefly by the Captain, and was built about eight months ago.”
Sources
Daily National Democrat, Marysville, CA. “Terrible Steamboat Explosion – Great Loss of Life.” 8-27-1861, p.3. Accessed 9-18-2024 at:
https://newspaperarchive.com/marysville-daily-national-democrat-aug-27-1861-p-3/
MacMullen, Jerry. Paddle-Wheel Days in California. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1944. Google preview at: http://books.google.com/books?id=E-ieAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Weekly Butte Record, Oroville, CA. “Steamboat Explosion.” 8-31-1861, p. 3. Accessed 9-18-2024 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oroville-weekly-butte-record-aug-31-1861-p-3/