Lexington (ship, 1835)
 Lexington Fire , artist's impression
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The Lexington was a side paddle steamer built in the United States in 1835 , which operated as a passenger and cargo ship from New York until 1840 along the coast. The Lexington became known through the severe fire disaster of 1840, in which the ship sank and 139 of the 143 people on board were killed.
history
The ship
The steamer Lexington in 1835 from the shipyard Bishop and Simonson Shipyards built in New York. It was a 63 meter long side wheel steamer with a water displacement of 495 (metric) tons . The ship was operated by Cornelius Vanderbilt , a well-known figure in the transport business.
The Lexington began operating in 1835 as a transport ship between New York and Providence , Rhode Island . In 1837 she went to Stonington , Connecticut . In December 1838, she was sold to the New Jersey Steamship Navigation and Transportation Company for approximately $ 60,000 . From 1835 to 1840, the Lexington was the fastest means of transport between New York and Boston .
The fire
On January 13, 1840 at 4:00 p.m., the Lexington cast off on the East River in Manhattan with the destination Stonington. It carried 143 passengers and crew as well as a load of 150 bales of cotton . The ship was due to arrive in Stonington the next morning, where there was a connection to Boston by train .
The actual captain of the ship, Jacob Vanderbilt , was unable to attend due to illness . He was represented by retired captain George Child .
At 7.30 p.m. the first officer noticed that wooden parts and panels on the chimney were on fire. The ship was four Miles from the North Shore of Long Iceland convenient Eaton's Neck . The crew tried to put out the flames with water using buckets and boxes and a small handheld fire syringe. The pilot Stephen Manchester turned the ship towards the shore in hopes of beaching it. The rudder's control rope blew and an engine stopped two miles from the bank. The ship was now drifting out of control northeast away from land.
When it was realized that the fire could not be extinguished, the three lifeboats were lowered into the water. One of the ship's paddlewheels was still turning at full speed because the crew could not reach the engine room to turn off the boiler . The first boat was sucked into the wheel, killing its crew. Captain Child had fallen into the lifeboat and was one of the first victims. The ropes that were supposed to lower the other two boats were wrongly cut, so that the boats stern first hit the water and sank immediately.
The ship's cotton cargo ignited, causing the fire to spread from the funnel to the entire superstructure. Passengers and crew threw empty luggage boxes and cotton balls into the water to use as a raft. The center of the main deck collapsed shortly after 8 p.m.
The fire spread so quickly that by midnight most passengers and crew were forced to jump into the sub-zero water. Those who couldn't find anything to climb died of hypothermia . The German-American scholar and writer Karl Follen was also one of the victims . The ship was still on fire when it sank at 3:00 a.m.
Survivors
Of the 143 people aboard the Lexington , only four survived:
- Chester Hilliard
- 24, the only surviving passenger, helped the crew toss balls of cotton to the people in the water. He climbed the last bale at 8:00 p.m. with the stoker Benjamin Cox. About eight hours later, Cox, weakened by hypothermia, fell from his heel and drowned. Hilliard was rescued by the Slup Merchant at 11 a.m.
- Stephen Manchester
- the pilot was one of the last to leave Lexington . He and about 30 others crouched at the bow of the ship until about midnight when the flames reached them. Shortly after he got on an improvised raft with several passengers , it sank. He then climbed a bale of cotton with a passenger named Peter McKenna. McKenna died of hypothermia three hours later. Manchester was rescued by the Merchant the following noon .
- Charles Smith
- one of the stokers climbed down the stern of the ship and clung to the rudder blade with four other people. The five jumped into the sea just before the ship sank and climbed onto a floating piece of a paddle wheel. The four other men died of hypothermia during the night, and Smith was rescued by the Merchant at 2:00 p.m. the following afternoon.
- David Crowley
- the second officer , drifted on a bale of cotton for 43 hours and came ashore 50 miles east at Baiting Hollow , Long Island. Exhausted, dehydrated, and hypothermic, he stumbled a mile to Matthias and Mary Hutchinson's home and collapsed after knocking on the door. A doctor was called in immediately and when Crowley was well enough he was taken to Riverhead where he recovered.
causes
A commission of inquiry found a serious flaw in the design of the ship as the main cause of the fire. The ship's steam boilers were originally designed to burn wood, but were converted to burn coal in 1839 . The changeover had not been completed properly. On the one hand, coal burns at a higher temperature than wood, and on the other, more coal than usual was burned on the night of the fire due to rough seas. A spark from the overheated chimney ignited the lining of the chimney on the cargo deck. The fire then quickly spread to the cotton balls that were improperly stored near the chimney.
Previous smaller fires, which broke out because of the design flaw, had been extinguished; however, nothing was done to remedy the cause.
The commission also accused the crew of errors and violations of safety regulations. Hilliard testified that after noticing the fire, members of the crew immediately went below deck to check the engines before attempting to extinguish the flames. The commission believed the fire could have been extinguished if the crew had acted immediately. Also, not all of the ship's extinguishing buckets could be found during the fire. Only about 20 of the passengers were able to find life-saving equipment . The crew was also negligent in lowering the lifeboats, which all sank.
The sloop Improvement , less than five miles from the burning ship, did not help the Lexington . The Improvement's captain , William Tirrell, stated that he was driving to a timetable and had not attempted a rescue because he did not want to miss the high tide . The public was enraged by this excuse and Tirrell was subject to press attacks in the days that followed.
Ultimately, no legal action was taken by the US government as a consequence of the tragedy. It wasn't until the Henry Clay steamer caught fire on the Hudson River twelve years later that new safety regulations were enacted.
The Lexington fire remained the worst steamship disaster in the Long Island Sound . 139 of the 143 people on board were killed.
Recovery attempts
An attempt to raise the Lexington was made in 1842. The ship was briefly brought to the surface and 30 pounds (14 kilograms) of melted silver were recovered from the hull . The chains that held the hull broke, however, and the ship broke apart and sank back to the bottom of the sound.
Today the Lexington lies broken into three segments at a depth of 43 m. Allegedly there is still gold and unrecovered silver on board. Adolphus S. Harnden of the Boston and New York Express Package Car Office allegedly had carried $ 18,000 in gold and silver coins and $ 80,000 in paper money . The silver recovered in 1842 is all that has been found so far.
See also
Web links
Coordinates: 41 ° 1 ′ 56 ″ N , 73 ° 7 ′ 21 ″ W.