La Crosse, Wis. June 27.
---Special---
The immense excursion steamer J. S. was destroyed by
fire shortly after 9:30 Saturday night at the head of
Bad Axe Island, near Victory, Wis. There were 1,500
excursionists on board, of whom one was drowned and
two are missing. A score or more were more or less
seriously injured.
The known dead:
MRS. EMMA RANDALL, New Albin
The missing:
JOHN PLEEN, Lansing
NORMAN FOX, Victory
There is a pointed dispute as to the
fate of Pleen and Fox, passengers declaring that they
were imprisoned in the hold for disorderly conduct
and burned; a statement emphatically denied by
officials who claim that there was nobody in the hold
when the fire broke out.
THE ALARM OF FIREThe channel is
narrow at this point, and accounts generally agree
that the J. S. was proceeding slowly in order to
permit the raft boat, North Star and bowboat,
Harriet, to clear the way with a raft. A man had just
came aboard with a skiff from the Nort Star to give
the pilot of the J. S. a report of up-river channel
conditions, a customary proceeding, when the alarm
was given.
"Fire!"
The warning came from the stokers' room, where it is
said flames had burst from the hold below and flashed
up on each of the firemen. This man, one of the
heroes of the incident, sent word to the captain that
he would hold his post until the boat was landed. The
next instant the big fireball on th upper deck boomed
forth. Pilot Nichols began to execute a quick turn to
put her bow up stream, making for Bad Axe Island,
anticipating the orders that came from Captain
Streckfus a moment later. The maneuver was executed
with swiftness and precision, and two minutes after
the sounding of the alarm the big steamer was
alongside the bank with the gangplank stretching away
to safety.
EXCITEMENT BECOMES MADNESS
Meanwhile scenes of intense excitement were being
enacted. There was the word of command from officers
and level-headed passengers whose vigorous efforts to
calm the frightened and doubtless saved many lives;
there was the cry of frightened people the screams of
babies; there were fainting women and an occasional
maddened, rioting man of whom terror had made a
nuisance and a menace. The disembarkment, which came
in a mad rush was ober so quickly that descriptions
of it are conflicting and confusing.
Sifted down, the fact seems to be
that one-third of the 1,500 passengers hurled
themselves from the boat from whatever dock they
happened to be on, and all the injuries were
sustained by those who jumped or were pushed
overboard. Meanwhile the gang plank was doing its
work, the first cargo of frightened refugees being
made up of scared men, who, taking no thought of the
weaker ones had hurled themselves upon it.
MOTHERS HURL BABIES OVERBOARD
"Save the passengers, never mind the boat,"
was the clarion order of Capt. Streckfus to his crew,
and the men acquitted themselves splendidly. The
minute the boat touched and the gangplank was thrown
out, all but the engineers and firemen plunged into
the water and dragged from the river the victims
precipitated into the rushing torrent from the doomed
boat. The waters at the side of the J. S. was ten
foot deep, sloping rapidly upwards to the shore, and
from this dangerous current, hundreds of women and
children were snatched by the alert employee to whose
assistance came a score or more of cool-headed
courageous men passengers.
At least a score of babies were
thrown into the river by their parents from the
various decks. "Jack" Page, the ships
policeman, alone caught six, and asserted positively
that he saw others catch twice as many more at the
brink of the flood.
So rapidly did the landing proceed,
that in twelve minutes all but the three dead and
missing had reached a place of safety.
LANDED ON UNINHABITED ISLAND
To what extent life-preservers played a part in the
rescue cannot be said but despite the fact that many
frightened passengers had seized tow or three, there
were enough for all who had presence of mind to take
them and so many were dropped upon the decks that
they amounted to an obstacle. The boat was provided
with 3, 048, and hundreds were taken away Sunday as
souvenirs by people visiting the scene of the wreck.
But the troubles of the refugees were
not over when land was reached. Thgey were on an
uninhabited Island, far from theri homes and with
meager means of getting away. The North Star could
accommodate but 100 at a time, and the Harriet less
than half that number. Their best assistance was
offered by numerous launches from De Soto, Genoa, and
Victory, and in a short time others appeared from
Lansing. from which place the crowd awaiting the
return of the steamer had seen the flames and divined
their meaning. With all these as transports it was
still a huge task, and it was not until three o'clock
Sunday morning that the last load of refugees had
left the island.
THIEVES AT WORK
There is much resentment along the river of the
ghoulish conduct of unknown persons who indulged in
wholesale robbery at the expense of the stranded
excursionists. Sunday morning six valises were found
upon the shore, many of them cut to ribbons and all
looted of their contents. The purse of Mrs. C. S.
Meyers, of Victory, who suffered a fractured limb and
other injuries was found hanging in a tree minus $20
which it had contained, and other ourtrages of a
similar nature were reported.
While the rescue of the passengers
was in progress, the engineers and firemen had cut
two holes in the floor and succeeded in projecting
two lines of hose into the hold where the fire was
raging. A hose had been trurned onto the place in th
stokers' room where the fire had broken through and
this had been held in subjection so that no flames
were seen above decks until all the excursionists
were ashore. The steamer's pumps had been pouring
water into the hold in an attempt to conquer the
fire.
PASSENGERS UNLOADED; STEAMER ADRIFT
As soon as the landing had been completed, the J. S.
was cut loose from her moorings and she was headed
into the channel while an effort was made to sink her
and quench the flames. An anchor was thrown out on a
bar some hundred yards above the landing place the
anchor line permitting the boat to hang in the
channel. By this time the fire had so warped the pipe
through which the pump was forcing water into the
hold that it became useless. Then the North Star and
the Harriet came alongside and their engines were
utilized in forcing water into the hold through lines
of hose. The fight was continued stubbornly, thu ,
but the inflammable material forward fed the fire and
finally the flames reached the anchor Hawser and the
boat let go.
MOST SPECTACULAR OF RIVER SCENES
Then was witnessed what rimermen present declare to
have been one of the most spectacular scenes in the
history of navigation. The great white ship with its
snowy palisades, and its gleaming decks mounting one
upon the other, had become a veritable tinderbox and
as the hawser parted with the fiery touch of the
flames and swept down stream under the impulse of a
gust from the northeast, the fire shot upward over
her whole massive frame as if illuminated by the
touch of the electric button; and wreathed in an
immense sheet of flame she stood out against the
blackness of a background of the hills, a pyrotechnic
pyramid in whose glory was outlined five immense
American flags that streamed shimmering in the breeze
from the tops of as many gilded flagstaffs.
The wind swept the burning craft back
to Bad Axe Island. She struck stern first at a point
about a hundred yards below her former landing place.
At this time the fight to save her had comsumed
three-quarters of an hour, but the end was at hand.
No more could be done and within a few moments the
big ship had burned to the water line and went down
in about twenty feet of water, leaving exposed upon
the surface the countour of shattered boilers, the
edge of a charred waterwheel and not enough of
material value to suggest the word
"salvage".
ONE KNOWN VICTIM
The one known victim of the wreck, Mrs. Emma Randall,
of New Albin, Iowa, sacrificed her life in a a frenzy
of fear. When the alarm was given she attempted to
plunge over the railing of the upper deck. Her
husband attempted to quiet her fears, and thought he
had succeeded in doing so. A moment after he had
released her she had gone to her death. With a wild
cry she sprang over the boat's side, in her hand a
heavily laden handbag which no doubt was the handicap
that made futile the attempt of her young husband to
save her. Both were young people, having been married
last winter. Randall says that in leaping after his
wife he was handicapped by a satchel which in his
excitement he had neglected to drop until he had
struck the water. No sign of her was visible and he
was obliged to seek the shore alone.
THE MISSING MEN
A conflict of statements obscures that facts about
the two missing men. The story was current all day
that three passengers who had become boisterous had
been locked in the hold, and were burned to death
there. The names given were John Pleen, of Lansing,
and Norman Fox and Jonah Evenson, of Victory. One
version said the men had been handcuffed.
Officials of the boat unite in
denying this story positively asserting that there
was no one imprisoned in the hold at the time the
fire broke out. They corroborate the story of Jack
Page, the boat's policeman, who asserts that but one
man, whose name he does not know, had been placed
under arrest and lodged in the hold during the trip,
and that this man had been released before the boat
reached Genoa.
STORIES CONFLICT
In contradiction to this are the statements of
passengers that they saw men placed under arrest for
riotous conduct, and one young lady, a Miss
Wilkinson, of Lycurgus, was heard to declare that she
saw a man liberated from the hold just before the
fire. Another story was to the effect that a Lansing
man named Mulholland was placed under arrest and was
already on his way to the hold in charge of an
officer at the time the fire was discovered, but was
released when the alarm was sounded. As the boat
neared the shore Mulholland was seen by a number of
people to jump from the upper deck and it is known
that he made good his escape.
The story that Jonah Evenson was
arrested was exploded at noon today. He lives on a
farm near Victory. He came to Lansing Saturday on
horseback, leaving his horse in a livery stable and
taking the excursion steamer for La Crosse. He is one
of the men reported to have been placed in the hold
for disorderly conduct, and the fact that his horse
remained uncalled for in the stable all Sunday
morning strengthened the belief that he had been
killed.
MISSING MAN FOUND LATER
About noon, however, he was found asleep in a corner
of the stable weher he had fallen exhausted after his
escape from the wreck. Up to ten o'clock Sunday night
advices from Victory were to the effect that Norman
Fox, a farm hand, the other Victory man among the
missing had not been seen.
There seems to be strong conviction
on the part of excursionists that the third man, John
Pleen of Lansing was actually in the hold and that
his life was forfeited. The fact that Fox, an obscure
farmhand had not been seen was not taken as
conclusion of his death, as he might easily have
stepped through the crowd in the excitement and gone
into the country. But Pleen is a well known man and
was in a crowd of Lansing people, any one of whom
would have recognized him, and Mayor Dunlevy, of
Lansing, who was on the scene of the wreck at Bad Axe
Island all day Sunday, accompanied by Pleen's two
brothers, Peter and Anton, was so positive of the
man's destruction that he sent word to Capt. Thompson
by a staff correspondent of the La Cross Tribune
asking for instructions as tot the proper procedure
to secure an investigation. It is deemed by Pleen's
relatives that while the authority of Capt. Streckfus
to maintain order was absolute, he had no right to
confine an intoxicated man in a dungeon filled with
inflammible material wher the stricking of a match
would jeopardize not only his own life but that of
every passenger aboard.
INSPECTOR KNAPP TO INVESTIGATE
Authorized by Capt. Thornson, the correspondent wired
Mayor Dunlevy to appeal to J. S. Steamboat Inspector
Knapp of Dubuque. The captain said that while the
matter was not within the authority of his department
he presumed Inspector Knapp would proceed to the
scene of the wreck with a federal team from Rock
Island and would thoroughly investigate the matter.
If the story of the officials that
there was no one in the hold is accepted, mystery is
added to the question of how the fire started, as it
was ignited in the hold and was presumed to have been
precipitated by the lighting of a match by one of the
alleged prisoners. The theory that in the excitement
the officers forgot to liberate their prisoners is
not regarded as important, as men imprisoned in the
hold would undoubtedly have succumbed to smoke and
flames before the alarm was given, and rescue would
have been impossible
CAPTAIN NICHOLS' STORY - WAS AT PILOT
WHEEL WHEN ALARM OF FIRE WAS SOUNDED
La Crosse, Wis, June 27 - Special -
Capt. George S. Nichols of this city was the pilot in
charge of the boat at the time of the accident, and,
in an interview, gave an interesting account of the
affair as witnessed by him while in the pilot house.
"I am unable to say anything as
to how the fire started," said the captain,
"because I was not in a position to see anything
when the alarm was given. We had just made a landing
at Genoa and left off the people from that town and
started down stream. It was just about dusk when we
were at the head of Bad Axe bend. The rafter North
Star was a little ahead of us with a raft and, being
unable to pass it, I slowed down and floated for a
distance of about a mile. The J. S. was close to the
Minnesota shore, the wind having drifted her in that
direction. I had full control of the boat, however,
but was floating.
HEADS BOAT FOR SHORE
"While at that point the mate came up into the
pilot house with a report regarding the condition of
the river north of here, which had been sent to our
boat by the captain of the North Star. I told the
mate to lay the report on the table, because it was
getting dark and I had no time to read it. A few
moments later someone rang the big bell on the roof,
giving an alarm of fire.
About the same time I heard someone
cry 'fire' and I told the mate to hurry down and see
what was the matter. John Laycock, assistant pilot,
was asleep in the pilot house and I immediately woke
him and told him to go down and see what was the
trouble,. Although at that time I could not see any
smoke. I thought the boat must be afire and I
immediately started for shore. About the same time
Captain Streckfuss, who was on the deck, gave me
orders to land."
LANDS IN TWO MINUTES
"The boat was headed just right to make the
landing, pointing toward the shore and in two minutes
from the time the fire alarm was sounded I had made a
landing in the regular way. The boat was about 200
feet from shore and no time was lost in making the
landing, which was about 40 to 60 rods above Bad Axe
island on the main Minnesota shore. The stage was
lowered in regular style and the boat was tied up,
giving all the passengers ample time to get off in
the usual manner.
Of course the smoke was pouring from
the forward hatch and this frightened the passengers
who became panic stricken. Women and children cried
and the men rushed for shore. Some slid down the side
of the boat and a mad rush ensued for the stage. I
did not see anyone jump overboard. After the boat had
landed and the passengers got ashore I turned on the
electric light and lighted up the woods. Everyone was
excited and a search immediately bagan to ascertain
if anyone was missing. An elderly woman was heard to
say that her daughter-in-law was missing and I was
informed that the woman was from New Albin, but I did
not learn her name."
RETURNS TO THE BOAT
"After the people were all ashore I went back on
the boat and gathered up my clothes, went to the
pilot house and placed them in my grip. Captain
Streckfuss was on the boat all the time and the fire
apparatus had been placed into service. I blew the
distress whistle and then carried my clothes off the
boat. The North Star, hearing the alarm, landed her
raft and came to the rescue. The smoke was pouring
from the bottom of the boat but there was no sight of
flames. The fire equipment on the North Star was then
put into use and an effort was being made to locate
the fire, but the smoke was so dense that it could
not be found.
I returned to the boat and assisted
three children ashore and carried some of the
instruments belonging to the members of the band to a
place of safety. All this time the boat was tied up
and everybody was ashore."
TOW BOAT TO BAR
"The suggestion was made to tow the burning boat
to a bay and sink her, it being thought that by
filling the hull with water the fire could be
extinguished, thus saving the upper part of the boat.
The North Start then towed her out and when the
middle of the river was reached the flames broke out
and a moment later the entire boat was in flames. It
spread like gun powder and I should judge that
fifteen or twenty minutes after the flames were first
seen, the boat was burned to the water's edge.
It was nearly an hour, however, from
the time the alarm was first sounded until the boat
started to burn. The passengers were all standing on
shore all this time wathching the crew in an attempt
to put out the fire which could not be seen."
HAD NO FEAR
"I never dreamed that the boat was going to be
burned, because I had the utmost confidence in the
equipment and knew that everything possible was on
board to extinguish the flames. The fact that I
returned to the boat a couple of times after the
landing had been made shows that there was no fire
only in the hull and I had no idea that the fire
could not be put out. I was perfectly cool through
the whole affair and was fortunate in landing as
quickly as I did, because the boat was headed toward
the shore when the alarm was given.
Although I never had an experience of
this kind before, I have often been caught in wind
storms with large crowds aboard and I always made a
landing as quickly as possible and lowered the stage
the same as in this case. It is customary to make
landings when we think there is danger of any kind,
so you see it was nothing out of the ordinary to have
orders to land."
J.S. A PERFECT BOAT
"The steamer J.S. was one of the best, if not
the best equipped steamer in the world for carrying
passengers and excursions. She complied with the law
in every respect and ever since she has been in the
excursion business no serious accidents were
experienced. This is my sixth season as pilot on the
J. S., on the Mississippi river north of St. Louis. I
started my steamboat career in September 1889 and
during that time I was never in any serious
accidents. The J.S. was started out in 1902 running
excursions from New Orleans to St. Paul on the
Mississippi river and also on the Columbia, Ohio,
Tennessee and Illinois river."
PASSENGERS TAKEN HOME
"After the boat was burned the passengers were
taken to their homes the North Star and the bow boat,
Harriet, making several trips to Lansing while
launches and skiffs were used in conveying people to
Victory and De Soto. It was not until morning that
all the passengers had been take home.
Captain Streckfuss, who had his wife,
two sons and two daughters on the boat, made
arrangements to quarter his family in a houseboat at
the scene of the accident. They lost practically
everthing they had on the boat."
CAPTAIN STRECFUS' FAMILY TALKS - LOST
EVERYTHING THEY HAD IN THE FIRE OF J.S.
Mrs. John Streckfus, wife of the captain of the
ill-starred excursion which burned to the water's
edge Saturday night, together with her son and two
daughters, passed through East Dubuque Sunday
afternoon on their way to Rock Island.
They were met at East Dubuque by
friends, with whom they discussed the ordeal through
which they had just passed. Captina Streckfus stayed
behind, at the scene of the disaster, but is to
follow them shortly.
LOST EVERYTHING
"We have lost practically all of our personal
possessions." said Mrs. Streckfus, who is deeply
affected by the misfortune which has befallen them.
"We have made our home on the
boat for a number of seasons, you know, and naturally
we had most of our things right with us. Why look at
these dresses we have on! they're the only things in
the way of apparel that we've saved. We had them on,
so of course got out with them. Why we haven't even
got hats.
Besides our clothes, we lost many
little belongings and keepsakes which we can never
replace, so that our loss is not summed up purely in
figures of money."
The Misses Streckfus have many
personal friends in Dubuque who sympathize with them
in the severe loss which has come to their father and
to them.
DENY STORIES
In the course of a discussion of the fire, the
Streckfus party denied in full several of the
harrowing stories which have been circulated in
connection with the disaster and which are claimed to
have been born of the distorted imaginations of
persons who probably were hysterical with fright.
They state that the boat was
practcially devoid of passengers before there was any
trace of flame visible and they say that the stories
about people sliding down burning posts etc, are
wholly untrue. The people were all on land, they
claim, when the fury of the fire burst forth against
the blackness of the night.
Mrs. Streckfus was unable to state
what her husband's future plans are.
ASSISSTANT PILOT IN DUBUQUE - JOHN H.
LAYCOCK TELLS OF BURNING OF THE J.S.
John H. Laycock of Rock Island, assistant pilot on
the ill-fated J.S. was in Dubuque Sunday enroute to
his home. He denied any knowledge of any death on the
J.S. by burning. He declared that there was ample
time before the super-structure took fire for
everyone to get off. In fact, he declared, before the
flames enveloped the craft, the passengers were
ashore and on the island at Bad Axe bend and several
camp fires had been started. As for himself he states
he cautioned the passengers against panic. He heard a
number of women threatening to jump overboard and he
warned them against such move assuring them no
rushing would be necessary for a safe landing of all
the excursionists. However, he cautioned them if any
of the people insisted on jumping over, they should
by all means provide themselves with life preservers
of which there were twenty five hundred on board.
"I told them", he said,
"that I had no intention of jumping into the
water and assured them my life was just as precious
to me as their's were to them." As an evidence
of the ample time that was at hand for all to land.
Mr. Laycock states he was one of the last to land and
after landing he returned to the boat and packed up
his belongings taking them safely from the burning
boat.
WRECK COMPLETELY SUBMERGED
C.O. Walsinghan, manager and owner of the Steamers
Lorene and Minnesota, of the port of St. Paul,
arriveed in Dubuque Monday morning. He passed the
wreck of the J.S. Sunday morning at 8 o'clock and
brought from Victory seven of the survivors of the
J.S. to Lansing. These had been left at the small
Wisconsin town owing to the inability of the launches
from the various cities along the river to transport
all of the excursionists to their homes earlier. He
states the only portinon of the J.S. that is visible
is the gang-plank which rests on the shore of the
island and the top of one of the boflers. The craft
burned clean to the water's edge and the hull is now
rusting in fifteen feet of water.
