Jim Bradshaw: The trouble with steamboats was they exploded sometimes

Steamboats revolutionized travel on the waterways of south Louisiana and did wonders for the economies of the places they visited. Unfortunately, one of their biggest drawbacks was that they had a marked tendency to blow up.
Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory, and "Disasters on the Western Waters," written in 1856 (Cincinnati: James T, Lloyd & Co.), lists more than 200 steamboat disasters in the early 1800s, mostly on the Mississippi, but the boats that plied the bayous of south Louisiana were no exception.
A particularly unfortunate year for boats steaming on Bayou Courtableau to or from the St. Landry port of Washington seemed to be 1845.
There was some sort of accident to the steamer Panola in January of that year. Eleven passengers put their names on a notice that appeared in the St. Landry Whig: “An accident having happened to the Panola, on her trip … to New Orleans … we the passengers on board said boat, take great pleasure in certifying to the prompt and efficient manner in which the Captain and officers discharged their respective duties. We believe the accident to have been unavoidable; and [testify] to the fidelity of the officers.”
The accident must not have been too serious. A month later the Panola made a trip from New Orleans “in about 50 hours, against a tremendous head wind up the Mississippi, and laying up one night,” according to another Whig report.
The explosion aboard the Elizabeth in April was much more tragic. The Whig reported on April 10 that the boat was at the junction of the Courtableau and the Atchafalaya at about three o’clock in the morning, when “her boilers collapsed, and completely tore her upper works to atoms.”
First mate Daniel York was killed by the explosion. Three other crewmen were never found, presumably blown overboard. Captain J. H. Gordon and first engineer James Marquise were “very badly scalded and bruised.”
The passengers, all of whom were in rooms well away from the explosion at that early hour, were “uninjured, except a few, who were slightly bruised.”
The clerk and barkeeper were also blown overboard but were able to swim to shore. “Their escape is miraculous,” the Whig claimed.
“As soon as Wilson, the clerk, gained the shore, he called for a rope and made the boat fast. … The boat was discovered to be on fire in three or four different places. The groans of the wounded, and the fearful escape just made, had unmanned almost every soul on board. There was a Lady, however, who discovered how things stood; and calling on the men to exert themselves and save their lives, seized a bucket herself, and was the first to commence the work of extinguishing the flames!” according to the Whig account.
The boat and cargo were not insured, but all was not completely lost. The captain’s desk was found floating in the bayou the next morning with about $3,000 still safe in one of its drawers.
As with the Panola, “all of the gentleman passengers” signed a newspaper notice to “testify that the accident was one of those unforeseen calamities which no human prudence could prevent, as the captain and officers were doing their duty when the explosion took place.”
Whig editor Joseph Etter joined in the absolution of Captain Gordon: “We had, a few days before, congratulated our readers that Capt. Gordon had again brought the Elizabeth into our bayou — believing her to be good in every particular, and knowing our unfortunate friend Gordon to be one of the most faithful and watchful officers ever in command of a boat. … The Captain was at his duty at the time of the explosion — though it took place between 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning — and had just given some orders in relation to the safety of the boat.
"The next thing he knew, he was rising into the air, and then fell among the ruins upon the deck, when the hot chimney fell on him, breaking two ribs and burning him dreadfully.”
The Whig editor claimed to have seen “two or three boats which have blown up,” but said he “never before saw one so completely wrecked in her upper works.”
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, “Cajuns and Other Characters,” is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.