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Turning on his heel to glance from the window, Van Schaick felt a softness in the deck that signified rot. He turned back and noted this in the log.
Reverend George Haas stood on the Third Street pier and stared up at the ship. The graceful twin-decked excursion boat was finished in white both above and below and seemed easily capable of carrying the thousand plus passengers that had signed up for the trip. As pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Haas presided over a congregation of mainly German immigrants that numbered nearly two thousand. Today was to be an outing for the Sunday school students and whatever parents could attend. The trip was scheduled to take them from the Third Street pier to Locust Grove on Long Island for a day of picnicking and fun. Haas smiled as the band began to play Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
Haas had no way to know the horror he would soon experience.
Thirteen-year-old John Tischner stared at the coins in his hand as he stood in the line at the refreshment stand aboard ship. The fried clams smelled good, but Tischner’s mother had packed him a tin pail with a pair of liverwurst-and-onion sandwiches for the noon meal along with a slice of chocolate cake for dessert. The pulled taffy held his interest for a time, but by the time he reached the head of the line, he had settled on a scoop of strawberry ice cream. It was a strange choice at 9:25 in the morning, but it was a day of celebration. He handed the man at the counter a few coins, then received his change and the ice cream. Enough for another scoop on the return trip.
Things were looking up.
Van Schaick ordered the whistle to blow, signaling five minutes until they shoved off, then called down to the engine room to order steam. General Slocum was built in Brooklyn in 1891 and measured 263 feet with a 38-foot beam.
Powered by a single vertical-beam engine constructed by W. A. Fletcher Company, she was supplied steam by a pair of boilers fueled with coal. A pair of sidewheel paddles with the name of the vessel in ornamental letters on the outside propelled her. Twin stacks vented the smoke into the air. Strung along the upper deck on each side were a half-dozen lifeboats on davits. The paint on the lifeboats was chipped and flaking. Originally finished with a white hull and a hardwood finish on the upper decks, the ship had been repainted with a white-on-white motif that was now showing stains from hard use. Still, all in all, she was a graceful vessel.
“Hurry,” Henry Ida said to his sweetheart, Amelia Swartz, “they’re leaving.”
Swartz increased her pace along the pier, but it was difficult-her dress boots were laced tight, and the boned corset pinching her waist made deep breaths almost impossible. Twirling her parasol, she made her way to the gangplank. Ida was overdressed for summer, but he had little choice — he owned only two suits, both wool. His only concession to the heat had been to leave the vest at home. Pushing‘the straw boater back on his forehead, he switched the wicker lunch hamper to his other hand and started up the ramp. In three minutes, General Slocum would pull from the pier. Forging through the crowd, he found a spot for them on deck.
Darrell Millet pried the top off a wooden barrel containing glasses packed in straw. The head steward needed the glassware at the aft refreshment stand immediately. Filling his fingers with the glasses, he made his way aft. Six trips later, the barrel was empty, and he dragged it to the forward storeroom. Finding a spot amid the paint pots and oil lamps, he balanced it on a couple of overturned pails, then shut the door. The straw was dry and smelled of the prairie.
Captain Van Schaick blew the whistle one last time, then ordered the gangplank retracted. Calling down to the engine room for steam, he placed the drives in forward and steered General Slocum from the pier. More than one thousand passengers were now under his care. The band began to play “Nearer My God to Thee.”
PORTER WALTER PAYNE entered the crowded storeroom. Making his way to a workbench, he began to fill a pair of oil lamps. Suddenly the ship rolled from side to side from the wake of a passing barge. Payne spilled some of the fuel onto the floor. After finishing the fueling, he twisted the metal caps back on the lamps. Carrying them over near the door, he paused to light a match out of the wind. Touching the match to the wicks, he tossed the match over his shoulder, then adjusted the flames. With a lit lamp in each hand, he walked onto the deck, then aft.
Paint fumes and spilled fuel were the recipe for disaster. The burning ember from the tossed match was little more than the size of a pencil lead, but it was enough. The fumes from the paint hung low over the floor, mixing with the smell from the spilled fuel. The gas ignited with a fuzzy blue flame. At just that instant, General Slocum hit the second set of wakes from the barge. As the ship rocked from side to side, the precariously placed barrel tipped forward and spilled the straw into the almost extinguished fire. Red and yellow points of fire streaked skyward.
Captain Van Schaick was staring forward when he saw a puff of smoke from a porthole in the forward storeroom.
“Fire,” he shouted.
Then he ordered his second in command, Marcus Anthony, to round up a few sailors to man the hoses. They were five minutes from Hell’s Gate.
Reverend Haas was ladling clam chowder into bowls for his young parishioners when a sailor ran past, tugging a rubber fire hose. He prayed the man was just going forward to wash the deck, but deep in his heart he knew different. Turning his head from side to side, he tried to locate where the life jackets were stored.
“My command for an experienced sailor,” Van Schaick shouted.
His employer had saddled him with a crew consisting of untrained day laborers and general miscreants, and it was little wonder. The economy was in high gear, and unemployment was at its lowest level in twenty years. To compound the problem, just two months before, the United States had taken possession of Panama, and many able-bodied seamen had headed south for the higher wages. Workers were hard to come by, and the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company was not noted for paying high wages. Van Schaick looked down to the deck — it was chaos. He watched as one of his deckhands strapped on a life vest and jumped over the side.
“Turn on the water,” Anthony yelled back.
The forward storeroom was completely ablaze. At that precise instant, the cans of paint exploded and blew the door to splinters. Deckhand Brad Creighton twisted the brass knob that fed water from the pumps in the lower hold to the fire hoses. He watched as the rubber hose expanded and filled. Halfway down the deck, along the outer walkway, the aged rubber burst. The broken end of the hose began to flail around the deck like the body of a severed snake.
Henry Ida broke the rusted lock off the locker containing the life jackets and began to hand them but to the passengers. The canvas on the vests was old and moth-eaten, and several of the jackets burst open as soon as he grabbed them. Rotted cork littered the floor. Helping Amelia into a jacket, Ida tried to tie the straps to hold it tight. The straps broke off in his hands.
“If we have to go into the water,” Ida shouted amid the growing pandemonium, “you will have to hold the vest on.”
Amelia Swartz nodded. Her face plainly showed the fear she was feeling.
“If we become separated,” Ida said, “just swim for shore. I’ll meet you there.”
“Form a bucket brigade,” Marcus Anthony shouted, “and hook another hose to the spigot.”