Steamer Josephine Boiler Explosion Remembered a Year Later
A haunting one-year retrospective on a boiler explosion that devastated a local crew and passengers near Port Hadlock.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As a sort of word of warning to steamboat men, it will not be out of place to call to mind some of the incidents of the fearful accident which occurred one year ago yesterday. The steamer Josephine left Yesler's wharf, bound for the Skagit river, at half an hour earlier than her regular time, and some ten or fifteen persons were on board. A young man who escaped uninjured gave the following account: 'We had just started for dinner. The engineer had been relieved by Capt. Thomas. We were about a mile out, just opposite the potlatch house at Port Hadlock, when all of a sudden a terrible explosion occurred, sounding like a thousand cannons. The crown sheet of the boiler passed directly up through the pilot house, and the boat was split in two. The scene was terrible beyond description. The wounded women and men tangled in the wreck were screaming and crying, and the uninjured were rushing about in the greatest confusion. Finally, one of the steamer's boats was successfully launched, and with this and some Indian canoes, the wounded were taken to shore and treated in the potlatch house.' The killed included John Turner, mate; Robt. Bailey, assistant mate; Amor Boling, steward; David Sparks, waiter; Johnson, a deckhand; Samuel Cavanaugh, fireman; a traveler; and a child.
“The scene was terrible beyond description. The wounded women and men tangled in the wreck were screaming and crying.”
Steamboat accidents were a terrifyingly common feature of 19th-century Puget Sound life, reflecting the dangers of an era before modern maritime safety standards. Today, while we have replaced steam boilers with internal combustion and electric motors, the unpredictable nature of the Salish Sea remains a central, if more managed, part of our regional identity.
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