Passenger steamboat; sank in New York City in 1904
History
Name
General Slocum
Namesake
Henry Warner Slocum
Owner
Knickerbocker Steamship Company
Port of registry
United States
Builder
Divine Burtis, Jr., of Brooklyn, New York
Laid down
December 23, 1890
Launched
April 18, 1891
Maiden voyage
June 25, 1891
Fate
Burned and sank June 15, 1904
Salvaged and converted into barge Maryland
Foundered December 4, 1911
General characteristics
Class and type
Sidewheeler passenger ship
Tonnage
1,284 grt
Length
264 ft (80 m)
Beam
37.5 ft (11.4 m)
Draft
7.5 ft (2.3 m) unloaded; 8 ft (2.4 m) - 8.5 ft (2.6 m) loaded
Depth
12.3 ft (3.7 m)
Decks
three decks
Installed power
1 × 53 in bore, 12 ft stroke single cylinder vertical beam steam engine
Propulsion
Sidewheel boat; each wheel had 26 paddles and was 31 ft (9.4 m) in diameter.
Speed
16 knots (30 km/h)
Crew
22
The PS General Slocum[note 1] was a sidewheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. During her service history, she was involved in a number of mishaps, including multiple groundings and collisions.
On June 15, 1904, General Slocum caught fire and sank in the East River of New York City.[1] At the time of the accident, she was on a chartered run carrying members of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church (German Americans from Little Germany, Manhattan) to a church picnic. An estimated 1,021 out of the 1,342 people on board died.[2]
The General Slocum disaster was the worst maritime disaster of the 20th century until the Titanic surpassed it eight years later in 1912. It remains the worst maritime disaster in New York City history, and the second-worst on United States waterways, after the explosion and sinking of the steamboat Sultana, and until the September 11 attacks in 2001 was the deadliest manmade disaster of any sort in the New York area.[3]
The events surrounding the General Slocum fire have been explored in a number of books, plays, and movies.
Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).
^"The General Slocum An Unlucky Craft. Has Had Collisions And Accidents by the Score. Has Run Ashore Many Times. She Was a Crack Harbor Boat Thirteen Years Ago. Capt. Van Schaick's Good Record". The New York Times. June 16, 1904. Retrieved February 28, 2010. The General Slocum was one of the best known vessels about New York Harbor. Since the time of her launching, in 1891, she has been employed in so many different capacities, and on so many different runs, that possibly five out of every ten people in New York City have at some time been aboard of her, or have seen her at close range.
^Sante, Luc (2003). Low life: lures and snares of old New York (1st Farrar, Straus Giroux pbk. ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux. p. 16. ISBN 0374528993. OCLC 53464289.
^Kleinfield, N. R. (September 2, 2007). "A Debate Rises: How Much 9/11 Tribute Is Enough?". The New York Times. Retrieved July 26, 2022. Few are alive anymore who can recall June 15, 1904, when 1,021 people died in the burning and sinking of the steamer 'General Slocum,' the deadliest New York disaster until Sept. 11, 2001.
The PSGeneralSlocum was a sidewheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. During her service history, she was involved in a number...
(1901–1904) and Helen Liebenow (1898–1904) died in the fire on the PSGeneralSlocum. Helen's body was never identified and is presumed buried in a mass...
Slocum may refer to: Bill Slocum, American politician Craig Slocum, American actor Frances Slocum, adopted member of the Miami tribe Frederick Slocum...
2002) was the second-to-last, and the longest-lived survivor of the GeneralSlocum fire of June 15, 1904. She was born as Catherine Uhlmyer in Manhattan...
rescuing passengers, including up to nine children, from the 1904 PSGeneralSlocum steamboat fire in New York City. Mary McCann immigrated to the United...
Ziegler, she was seventeen years old, and she died in a fire on the PSGeneralSlocum steamboat on June 15, 1904.: 7, 8 The woman's brother denied that...
clearing of the channel, the building of Hell Gate Bridge, and the PSGeneralSlocum steamship disaster. Under Hellgate Bridge (1999), directed by Michael...
2022, the case was still making its way through the legal process. PSGeneralSlocum steamboat fire mass memorial – commemorates the 1,021 victims of a...
on the disaster entitled Switchboard. List of maritime disasters PSGeneralSlocum Sea Wing disaster "The Eastland". Eastland Memorial Society. Archived...
floating command post at the 1904 sinking of the passenger ferry PSGeneralSlocum, a disaster that killed more than a thousand people. The site is hard...
CSS Florida CSS Fredericksburg CSS Gaines CSS General Beauregard CSS General Lovell PSGeneralSlocum CSS General Thompson CSS Governor Moore Stone Fleet Greyhound...
hdl:2027.42/34139. PMID 5032925. Wingfield, Valerie (June 13, 2011). "The GeneralSlocum Disaster of June 15, 1904". New York Public Library. Retrieved May 3...
Mary McCann, a 14 year old Irish girl who rescued survivors of the PSGeneralSlocum disaster in 1904. Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, USN - Medal of...
Jar Torre, Luis (November 2009). "Un Desastre a la Española". Revista General de Marina (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved...
disasters in the history of New York City when, in June 1904, the PSGeneralSlocum sank near North Brother Island due to a fire. It was carrying 1,400...
history since the sinking of the PSGeneralSlocum in 1904. "TOLL THIRD WORST IN HARBOR HISTORY; 1,021 Lost on the General Sio-cum in 1904 and 51 to 58 on...
in the one-man play "The Hero of the Slocum", based on Eric Blau's account of the fire aboard the PSGeneralSlocum in 1904, one of the greatest U.S. maritime...
(Similar cases were noted earlier in some other shipwrecks, such as the PSGeneralSlocum or TSMS Lakonia cases.) From the forecastle on the port side, it was...
painter, died of poisoning from paint vapors. A fire aboard the steamboat GeneralSlocum in New York City's East River killed 1,021 people, in New York's deadliest...
were injured or killed in the accident. List of shipwrecks in 1976 PSGeneralSlocum Sea Wing disaster SS Eastland "George Prince Ferry Disaster". stcharlesparish-la...
shortly after 20 of his parishioners were killed in the sinking of the PSGeneralSlocum. In 1865 he was editor of the Gemeindeblatt at Watertown, Wisconsin...
"Alexander McDowell McCook". Civil War.org. Retrieved 2010-03-15. "Henry Warner Slocum". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 2010-03-19...