General Slocum Totally Explained

The General Slocum was a steamship launched in 1891. She caught fire and burned to the water line in New York's East River on June 15, 1904. More than 1,000 people died in the accident, making it New York City's worst loss-of-life disaster until the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The ship

The ship was named for Civil War officer and New York Congressman Henry Warner Slocum. She was built by Divine Burtis, Jr., a Brooklyn boatbuilder. Her keel was 235 feet long and the hull was 37.5 feet wide. The ship was built mostly of white oak and yellow pine. She displaced about 1,200 tons. She had three engines, built by W. & A. Fletcher Company of Hoboken, New Jersey. She was a sidewheel boat. Each wheel had 26 paddles and was 31 feet in diameter. Her maximum speed was about 18 miles per hour. The ship had three decks. She usually had a crew of 22, including Captain William H. Van Schaick and two pilots.

Past problems

The General Slocum had seen a series of mishaps since its launch in 1891.

Four months after launch, she ran aground off Rockaway. Tugs had to pull her free.
On July 29, 1894, when returning from Rockaway one night with some 4,700 passengers, she struck a sand bar so forcefully her electrical generator went out. The passengers panicked; hundreds were injured.
In August 1894, she ran aground off Coney Island during a storm. The passengers had to be transferred to another ship.
In September, she collided with the tug R. T. Sayre in the East River. She sustained substantial damage and lost her ability to be steered.
In July 1898 she collided with the Amelia near The Battery.
On August 17, 1901 she was carrying what was described as 900 intoxicated Paterson Anarchists. Some of the passengers started a riot and attempted to take control of the vessel from the captain. The crew fought back. The captain docked at the police pier and 17 men were taken by the police.
In June 1902, she ran aground with 400 passengers aboard. The passengers had to camp out, as she remained stuck throughout the night.

The disaster

The General Slocum worked as a passenger ship, taking people on excursions around New York City. On June 15, 1904, the ship had been chartered for $350 by the St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church in the German district Little Germany, Manhattan. This was an annual rite for the group, which had made the trip for 17 consecutive years. Over 1,300 passengers, mostly women and children, boarded the General Slocum. She was to sail up the East River and then eastward across Long Island Sound to Locust Grove, a picnic site in Eatons Neck, Long Island.
   The ship got underway at 9:30am. As she was passing East 90th Street, a fire started in a storage compartment in the forward section, possibly caused by a discarded cigarette or match. The first notice of a fire was at 10am - eyewitnesses locate the initial blaze at several locations, including a paint locker filled with flammable liquids or a cabin filled with gasoline. Captain Van Schiack was only notified ten minutes after the fire was discovered - a twelve year old boy had tried to warn him earlier, but wasn't believed.
   On board the Slocum, where the Captain has ultimate safety authority, he didn't demand that hoses and faulty lifejackets be replaced. The fire hoses fell apart when the crew attempted to put out the fire. Also, the crew had never had a fire drill. Although the ship had lifeboats and life preservers, they were useless. Survivors reported that the life preservers were rotten and fell apart in their hands. The lifeboats were tied up and inaccessible. Desperate mothers placed life jackets on their children and tossed them into the water, only to watch in horror as their children sank instead of floated, due to the condition of the jackets. Also, the population of the boat consisted mainly of women and children, most of whom couldn't swim.
   It has been suggested that the manager of the life preserver manufacturer actually placed iron bars inside the Cork preservers to meet minimum weight requirements at the time. Managers of the company (Nonpareil Cork Works) were indicted, but not convicted. Many of the life preservers had been filled with cheap and less effective granulated cork and brought up to proper weight by the inclusion of the iron weights. Canvas covers, rotten with age, split and scattered the powdered cork.
   Captain Van Schaick badly mishandled the situation. He decided to continue his course rather than run the ship aground or stop at a nearby landing. (Van Schaick would later argue he was attempting to prevent the fire from spreading to riverside buildings and oil tanks.) By going into headwinds and failing to immediately ground the vessel, he actually fanned the fire. Highly flammable paint also helped the fire to spread out of control.
   Some passengers attempted to jump into the river, but the clothing of the day made swimming almost impossible. Many died instantly when the 3-level floors of the overloaded boat collapsed; others were mauled by the still turning paddles.
   By the time the General Slocum was beached at North Brother Island, just off the Bronx shore, an estimated 1,021 people had been killed by fire or drowning, with 321 survivors. Two of the 30 crewmembers died. The Captain lost sight in one eye due to the fire. Reports indicate that Van Schaick deserted the Slocum as soon as she ran aground, jumping into a nearby tug, along with several crew. Some say his jacket was hardly rumpled. He was hospitalized at Lebanon Hospital.
   There were many acts of heroism among the passengers, witnesses, and emergency personnel. Staff and patients from the hospital on North Brother Island participated in the rescue efforts, forming human chains and pulling victims from the water.

Aftermath

Seven people were indicted by a Federal grand jury after the disaster: the Captain; two inspectors; and the president, secretary, treasurer and commodore of the Knickerbocker Steamship Company. Only Captain Van Schaick was convicted. He was found guilty on one of three charges: criminal negligence, failing to maintain proper fire drills and fire extinguishers. The jury couldn't reach a verdict on the other two counts of manslaughter. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. He spent three years and six months at Sing Sing prison before he was paroled. President Theodore Roosevelt declined to pardon Captain Van Schaick, and he wasn't released until the federal parole board, under the William Howard Taft administration, voted to free him on August 26, 1911. He was pardoned by President Taft on December 19, 1912, and died in 1927 ^{(External Link)}.
   The Knickerbocker Steamship Company, which owned the ship, paid a relatively light fine despite evidence they may have falsified inspection records.
   The remains of the General Slocum were recovered and converted into a barge, which sank in a storm in 1911.
   The disaster motivated federal and state regulation to improve the emergency equipment on passenger ships.
   The neighborhood of Little Germany declined following the disaster - many socially prominent people had been lost, and with the trauma and arguments that followed the tragedy, most of the German settlers eventually moved uptown.

Survivors

On January 26, 2004, Adella Wotherspoon died at the age of 100. Mrs. Wotherspoon had been the last surviving passenger from the General Slocum's disastrous voyage. Mrs. Wotherspoon, then a six-month old named Adella Liebenow, lost two older sisters in the fire. Mrs. Wotherspoon also had the distinction of being the youngest survivor of the disaster. Though still a one year child, Mrs. Wotherspoon was given the honor of unveiling the Steamboat Fire Mass Memorial on June 15, 1905 at the Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery, Middle Village, Queens. The previous oldest surviving member was Catherine Uhlmyer (1893-2002).

Popular culture

There is a reference to the disaster in James Joyce's Ulysses, the events of which take place on the following day (June 16, 1904).

The first scenes of the film Manhattan Melodrama recreate the disaster.

The 2005 Hugo award nominated novella "Time Ablaze" by Michael A. Burstein (Analog, June 2004) concerns a time traveler who comes to record the disaster. The story was published to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the disaster.

The General Slocum disaster was featured in the documentary My Father's Gun.

The General Slocum disaster is at the center of the novel The Unresolved, by T.K. Welsh.

The disaster is also mentioned in Kevin Baker's novel "Dreamland."

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