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**alehouse** · Joined: 13 Apr 2008 Posts: 429

17 June 1850. A fire aboard the steamer Griffith on Lake Erie took the lives of all 300 aboard.

30 June 1900. A steamship and pier at Hoboken, New Jersey, caught fire, killing 326 persons and causing over $4 million in property damage.

15 June 1904. On the paddle wheel excursion steamer General Slocum a paint locker (or a stove in the galley; accounts differ) caught fire just 300 yards from a New York City pier. Yet Captain William van Schaick kept steaming up the East River into a strong northeast wind that fanned the flames and crashed the boat into North Brother Island. Of the 1,500 passengers, mostly parents, teachers, and children, 1,021 burned to death, drowned, or were caught in the churning paddle wheels. The inexperienced crew opened hatchways that allowed the fire to spread to the upper decks. Even worse, lifeboats were tied down with wire, fire hoses were full of holes, and the life preservers had been filled with sawdust and metal rods to bring them up to mandatory weight. Many of those who perished were drowned or caught in the paddle wheels in an attempt to leave the burning ship; more than half the dead were children. This was the worst harbor disaster in U.S. history. Van Schaick was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison, but President Theodore Roosevelt pardoned him after only two years, citing his age (sixty-three).

from www.answers disasters.

samsette · Joined: 07 Apr 2008 Posts: 241

Other marine tragedies of North America are nicely presented in these
CBC videos; the S.S. Noronic in 1949, the Empress of Ireland in 1914, and
the Laker Edmund Fitzgerald. Worth a shufti, if you have time.

http://archives.cbc.ca/science_technology/transportation/clips/12447/