Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
The following paragraphs are excerpts from "Rivers of History, Life on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba, and Alabama" by Harvey H. Jackson III
The Orline St. John
"It was delightful for me to stand on the bluff and see the grand old steamers of fifty years ago, sailing on the broad Alabama, or in the still hours of the night, hearing the puffing up to the landing, like some huge monster of the ocean. Little did I dream that a steamboat on the water would ever bring me to such sorrow."
ANGELINE ELIZABETH EILAND CAMMACK
August 18, 1884
On the first of March, 1850, the Orline St. John prepared for the upriver trip to Montgomery, a voyage that would depend heavily on passenger revenue, freight, and what merchant goods the stores of Claiborne, Cahawba, Selma, and Montgomery needed to replenish winter-depleted stocks. But the run promised to be profitable, for with some fifty to seventy passengers, including a number of women and children, the first-class cabins were filled, and the lower deck was crowded. When everyone was on board-passengers and crew-the total may have exceeded 120. Completing the cargo were crates of dry goods, boxes of hardware, travelers' trunks, and the "entire collection" of a French artist, Monsieur Annrien, who was painting a diorama of the main cities on the route between New Orleans and New York. Having already completed a painting of Mobile, Annrien had gone ahead to Montgomery to paint that city and to arrange an exhibit of the canvases when they arrived.5
Among the passengers on the Orline St. John was Joseph Addison Cammack of Perry County. Originally from Indiana, he had come to Alabama as a young man, married Angeline Eiland, a girl from one of the pioneer families in the region, and settled in the Cahaba Valley as a sawmill operator, artisan, merchant, and planter--professions that placed his family high in frontier society. But by the 1840s a combination of national depression and personal ambition convinced him that the time was right to move to greener pastures. His son had relocated earlier and owned a plantation on Biloxi Bay in southern Mississippi, so Cammack was naturally attracted to that region. In 1849 he visited there and liked what he saw. He bought land, built a house, and then announced that "he was going after old Mistress, [for] it was getting time she was there." Shortly he left for Mobile, where he would catch a steamer for home. Because Mobile was a busy port, many vessels awaited him, but Cammack knew how to select the best. As a young man on the Cahaba, he had "built a boat expressly for that stream," and now, in his middle age, he was a veteran river traveler. Joseph Cammack booked passage on the Orline St. John.6
On board with Cammack was George F. Lindsay, a Pennsylvania-born and educated lawyer who had come South in the 1830s. Arriving in the middle of the state's "flush times," he found central Alabama a land of opportunity and made the most of it. A man of "generous impulses" whom friends described as "true-hearted," "noble," and "chivalric," he was welcomed in the region and soon joined the office of one of Lowndes County's leading attorneys. In 1840 he married the daughter of a prominent Wilcox County family and secured his place in Black Belt society. But his talents could not be confined to rural Alabama. That same year he moved to Mobile, where he soon became one of the city's most respected jurists. Now he was on his way to Selma, "to attend to some matters connected with his wife's estate" and to see his many friends.7
At least seven women and maybe as many children were on board the Orline. Among these was Mrs. John Hall of Georgia, who was traveling with Miss Laura Hall of St. Louis, "a beautiful young girl in her teens," who was apparently Mrs. Hall's niece. In St. Louis they had been "placed in the care of a young man" who had business in Mobile. When they arrived at the Alabama port, the gentleman assured them that if they would stay with him in the city an extra day while he attended to his affairs, he would "see them safely landed at Selma" where Mrs. Hall's daughter waited. Mobile was pleasant in March, and the young man was a delightful companion, so they tarried. After all, what difference would a day make?8
There were others. Mrs. McCain and her young son were on their way to South Carolina. Mrs. Vaughan and her daughter were returning from a visit with friends in Mobile. Preston Noland and Edward Maul were traveling home from the goldfields of California, their sacks of gold dust safely stored in the boat's strongbox. With this treasure was $250,000 in government gold that was in the charge of Purser Price of the U.S. Navy. Also on board were F. H. Brooks, a Mobile bookseller; Dr. John Daniel Caldwell, a physician and one of the founders of Camden; a wealthy South Carolinian, Colonel J. W Preston; a printer, Thomas Stephens; and Thomas Carson and his young son, bound for their home in Dallas County. These men, women, and children, along with every other passenger on the boat, put their lives and their for-tunes in the hands of Capt. Tim Meaher, his brother and first mate, Burns Meaher, and the crew of the Orline St. John.9
The river was running high from spring rains when the boat moved away from the dock and steamed into the channel. Along most of the route the stream was out of its banks, and instead of a shoreline all passengers could see were the branches of trees, dipping into the current. Moving against the swift flow called for more steam, and the stacks of fat pine that fed the boilers went down fast. With the river up, stops at makeshift woodyard landings were difficult; so when the Orline could get to shore the captain loaded as much fuel as the deck would hold-stacking it right up to the mouth of the furnace that would consume it.10
Captain Meaher knew that if he reached Montgomery by Wednesday, March 6, his passengers and freight could meet the train scheduled to depart that day, so he "had been pushing the boat" since they left Mobile. Three days into the journey it appeared that he would make it. Early on the afternoon of March 5, the Orline St. John docked at Bridgeport, on the river north of Camden, where it took on "an unusually large quantity of wood-rich, light, wood." Then the pilot turned her bow back into the current, and the captain went up to his cabin to take a nap before they reached the next stop. By now "a very strong wind [was] blowing," and combined with the current, it made progress upriver even more difficult. Trying to get all the steam they could, firemen stoked the furnaces to their limits, and as the heat grew the "pitch pine" stacked nearby began to bleed resin. Soon seasoned travelers noticed that the upper decks of the boat were becoming "excessively hot." The Orline St. John was a floating tinderbox.11
Just before five in the evening about three miles above Bridgeport, sparks from the furnace blew into the stack of resin-soaked logs, and they burst into flames. Believing they could control the blaze, firemen did not immediately raise the alarm, but the fire advanced quickly and soon spread across the midsection of the boat. Fire was a steamboat-man's nightmare, and every pilot knew what to do if one broke out--run the boat ashore so passengers could escape across the bow. But this strategy would not work for the Orline St. John. Flames had engulfed the forward staircase, cutting off most passengers from the front of the vessel. Their only hope was the lifeboat, a small yawl tied to the stern.12
Unaware of conditions below the pilot, Benjamin Pearce, did as he had been taught and made every effort to reach land. But with the water high, overhanging trees blocked his way, and he had to continue upstream to find an opening. A century later William Harris still could see the charred trees that traced the path, five hundred feet long, where the burning boat skidded along the shore. Finally, Pearce found a large canebrake, but by then the wheel ropes were almost burned through, and he was losing control of the rudder. Immediately, the pilot ordered "the engineer to stop one engine and give all steam to the other." That threw the boat into a hard turn, and Orline St. John "rushed across the river with such force as to break down three large trees on the river bank." There it stuck fast.13
The first mate secured the bow while "the engineer, remaining at his post, turned loose the hot water cocks, let off steam, and kept the engine at work, pumping in cold water, so to prevent an explosion." He stayed on the job "until his clothes were literally burned off," and then he rushed to the front and with the fortunate few who were forward, leaped to safety. According to later reports, although under three minutes had elapsed since the alarm was raised, the midsection of the boat was aflame, and the pilot had lost all control of the vessel. With her bow stuck on shore the stern of the Orline St. John, where most of the passengers had crowded, swung out into the river, where the current ran "with as great rapidity as in any portion of its course." Immediately, those trapped in the rear rushed for the lifeboat, but it was not there. Later some survivors claimed that frightened crewmen took the yawl and left everyone else to their fate; others reported that deckhands launched the yawl only to discover it had no oars, and they drifted away before they could help with the rescue. What actually happened mattered little to those still on board. Either way, that avenue of escape was gone.14
All the women and children had been in the rear when the fire broke out, so they were among those trapped. Far from land, in the deepest and swiftest part of the river, the ladies dressed in the layered and hooped skirts that were the fashion had little hope of reaching shore even if they could swim. The flames continued to spread, and soon the boat was a "sheet of fire, and there was great danger of the cabins falling on them." Panic was everywhere. Survivors recounted how one woman climbed to the wheel house, hoping to escape the heat and smoke, and from there tried to leap to safety. She failed, some obstruction caught her dress, and she hung there until "flames released her," and she fell into the river and drowned. In another instance, a "mother placed her child on a mattress" and tried to float to shore, but despite the efforts of the first mate, "she and the object of her final struggles were soon buried beneath the waters." And in the confusion a deck passenger was first "seen on her knees enveloped in flames" and then seen "to cast herself from the burning wreck" into the river and disappear. Meanwhile, the air was filled with "crys for help" which, according to one survivor, "can never be erased from my memory."15
Similar fates awaited the rest of the women and children. The gentleman in whose care Mrs. Hall and her companion had been placed found his charges huddled at the stern with the others. Surveying the situation, he told them that he could not save both but offered to get one to shore. Neither "would desert the other and they died together while the young man swam to safety." Thomas Carson took his son and tried to make it to the bank, but the current was strong, and the chilling March water sapped his strength. Although he was "encouraged in his failing exertions by the heroic boy," both were drowned. Joseph Addison Cammack was also at the rear of the boat. Unable to help the remaining women, he and a friend decided that taking to the water was their only hope. Before he jumped, Cammack hesitated, murmured "what an awful scene," and stepped back for his saddlebags. No sooner had he turned than a box thrown from above by a deck hand "crushed his head." He fell into the Alabama and was gone.
The Orline St. John
"It was delightful for me to stand on the bluff and see the grand old steamers of fifty years ago, sailing on the broad Alabama, or in the still hours of the night, hearing the puffing up to the landing, like some huge monster of the ocean. Little did I dream that a steamboat on the water would ever bring me to such sorrow."
ANGELINE ELIZABETH EILAND CAMMACK
August 18, 1884
On the first of March, 1850, the Orline St. John prepared for the upriver trip to Montgomery, a voyage that would depend heavily on passenger revenue, freight, and what merchant goods the stores of Claiborne, Cahawba, Selma, and Montgomery needed to replenish winter-depleted stocks. But the run promised to be profitable, for with some fifty to seventy passengers, including a number of women and children, the first-class cabins were filled, and the lower deck was crowded. When everyone was on board-passengers and crew-the total may have exceeded 120. Completing the cargo were crates of dry goods, boxes of hardware, travelers' trunks, and the "entire collection" of a French artist, Monsieur Annrien, who was painting a diorama of the main cities on the route between New Orleans and New York. Having already completed a painting of Mobile, Annrien had gone ahead to Montgomery to paint that city and to arrange an exhibit of the canvases when they arrived.5
Among the passengers on the Orline St. John was Joseph Addison Cammack of Perry County. Originally from Indiana, he had come to Alabama as a young man, married Angeline Eiland, a girl from one of the pioneer families in the region, and settled in the Cahaba Valley as a sawmill operator, artisan, merchant, and planter--professions that placed his family high in frontier society. But by the 1840s a combination of national depression and personal ambition convinced him that the time was right to move to greener pastures. His son had relocated earlier and owned a plantation on Biloxi Bay in southern Mississippi, so Cammack was naturally attracted to that region. In 1849 he visited there and liked what he saw. He bought land, built a house, and then announced that "he was going after old Mistress, [for] it was getting time she was there." Shortly he left for Mobile, where he would catch a steamer for home. Because Mobile was a busy port, many vessels awaited him, but Cammack knew how to select the best. As a young man on the Cahaba, he had "built a boat expressly for that stream," and now, in his middle age, he was a veteran river traveler. Joseph Cammack booked passage on the Orline St. John.6
On board with Cammack was George F. Lindsay, a Pennsylvania-born and educated lawyer who had come South in the 1830s. Arriving in the middle of the state's "flush times," he found central Alabama a land of opportunity and made the most of it. A man of "generous impulses" whom friends described as "true-hearted," "noble," and "chivalric," he was welcomed in the region and soon joined the office of one of Lowndes County's leading attorneys. In 1840 he married the daughter of a prominent Wilcox County family and secured his place in Black Belt society. But his talents could not be confined to rural Alabama. That same year he moved to Mobile, where he soon became one of the city's most respected jurists. Now he was on his way to Selma, "to attend to some matters connected with his wife's estate" and to see his many friends.7
At least seven women and maybe as many children were on board the Orline. Among these was Mrs. John Hall of Georgia, who was traveling with Miss Laura Hall of St. Louis, "a beautiful young girl in her teens," who was apparently Mrs. Hall's niece. In St. Louis they had been "placed in the care of a young man" who had business in Mobile. When they arrived at the Alabama port, the gentleman assured them that if they would stay with him in the city an extra day while he attended to his affairs, he would "see them safely landed at Selma" where Mrs. Hall's daughter waited. Mobile was pleasant in March, and the young man was a delightful companion, so they tarried. After all, what difference would a day make?8
There were others. Mrs. McCain and her young son were on their way to South Carolina. Mrs. Vaughan and her daughter were returning from a visit with friends in Mobile. Preston Noland and Edward Maul were traveling home from the goldfields of California, their sacks of gold dust safely stored in the boat's strongbox. With this treasure was $250,000 in government gold that was in the charge of Purser Price of the U.S. Navy. Also on board were F. H. Brooks, a Mobile bookseller; Dr. John Daniel Caldwell, a physician and one of the founders of Camden; a wealthy South Carolinian, Colonel J. W Preston; a printer, Thomas Stephens; and Thomas Carson and his young son, bound for their home in Dallas County. These men, women, and children, along with every other passenger on the boat, put their lives and their for-tunes in the hands of Capt. Tim Meaher, his brother and first mate, Burns Meaher, and the crew of the Orline St. John.9
The river was running high from spring rains when the boat moved away from the dock and steamed into the channel. Along most of the route the stream was out of its banks, and instead of a shoreline all passengers could see were the branches of trees, dipping into the current. Moving against the swift flow called for more steam, and the stacks of fat pine that fed the boilers went down fast. With the river up, stops at makeshift woodyard landings were difficult; so when the Orline could get to shore the captain loaded as much fuel as the deck would hold-stacking it right up to the mouth of the furnace that would consume it.10
Captain Meaher knew that if he reached Montgomery by Wednesday, March 6, his passengers and freight could meet the train scheduled to depart that day, so he "had been pushing the boat" since they left Mobile. Three days into the journey it appeared that he would make it. Early on the afternoon of March 5, the Orline St. John docked at Bridgeport, on the river north of Camden, where it took on "an unusually large quantity of wood-rich, light, wood." Then the pilot turned her bow back into the current, and the captain went up to his cabin to take a nap before they reached the next stop. By now "a very strong wind [was] blowing," and combined with the current, it made progress upriver even more difficult. Trying to get all the steam they could, firemen stoked the furnaces to their limits, and as the heat grew the "pitch pine" stacked nearby began to bleed resin. Soon seasoned travelers noticed that the upper decks of the boat were becoming "excessively hot." The Orline St. John was a floating tinderbox.11
Just before five in the evening about three miles above Bridgeport, sparks from the furnace blew into the stack of resin-soaked logs, and they burst into flames. Believing they could control the blaze, firemen did not immediately raise the alarm, but the fire advanced quickly and soon spread across the midsection of the boat. Fire was a steamboat-man's nightmare, and every pilot knew what to do if one broke out--run the boat ashore so passengers could escape across the bow. But this strategy would not work for the Orline St. John. Flames had engulfed the forward staircase, cutting off most passengers from the front of the vessel. Their only hope was the lifeboat, a small yawl tied to the stern.12
Unaware of conditions below the pilot, Benjamin Pearce, did as he had been taught and made every effort to reach land. But with the water high, overhanging trees blocked his way, and he had to continue upstream to find an opening. A century later William Harris still could see the charred trees that traced the path, five hundred feet long, where the burning boat skidded along the shore. Finally, Pearce found a large canebrake, but by then the wheel ropes were almost burned through, and he was losing control of the rudder. Immediately, the pilot ordered "the engineer to stop one engine and give all steam to the other." That threw the boat into a hard turn, and Orline St. John "rushed across the river with such force as to break down three large trees on the river bank." There it stuck fast.13
The first mate secured the bow while "the engineer, remaining at his post, turned loose the hot water cocks, let off steam, and kept the engine at work, pumping in cold water, so to prevent an explosion." He stayed on the job "until his clothes were literally burned off," and then he rushed to the front and with the fortunate few who were forward, leaped to safety. According to later reports, although under three minutes had elapsed since the alarm was raised, the midsection of the boat was aflame, and the pilot had lost all control of the vessel. With her bow stuck on shore the stern of the Orline St. John, where most of the passengers had crowded, swung out into the river, where the current ran "with as great rapidity as in any portion of its course." Immediately, those trapped in the rear rushed for the lifeboat, but it was not there. Later some survivors claimed that frightened crewmen took the yawl and left everyone else to their fate; others reported that deckhands launched the yawl only to discover it had no oars, and they drifted away before they could help with the rescue. What actually happened mattered little to those still on board. Either way, that avenue of escape was gone.14
All the women and children had been in the rear when the fire broke out, so they were among those trapped. Far from land, in the deepest and swiftest part of the river, the ladies dressed in the layered and hooped skirts that were the fashion had little hope of reaching shore even if they could swim. The flames continued to spread, and soon the boat was a "sheet of fire, and there was great danger of the cabins falling on them." Panic was everywhere. Survivors recounted how one woman climbed to the wheel house, hoping to escape the heat and smoke, and from there tried to leap to safety. She failed, some obstruction caught her dress, and she hung there until "flames released her," and she fell into the river and drowned. In another instance, a "mother placed her child on a mattress" and tried to float to shore, but despite the efforts of the first mate, "she and the object of her final struggles were soon buried beneath the waters." And in the confusion a deck passenger was first "seen on her knees enveloped in flames" and then seen "to cast herself from the burning wreck" into the river and disappear. Meanwhile, the air was filled with "crys for help" which, according to one survivor, "can never be erased from my memory."15
Similar fates awaited the rest of the women and children. The gentleman in whose care Mrs. Hall and her companion had been placed found his charges huddled at the stern with the others. Surveying the situation, he told them that he could not save both but offered to get one to shore. Neither "would desert the other and they died together while the young man swam to safety." Thomas Carson took his son and tried to make it to the bank, but the current was strong, and the chilling March water sapped his strength. Although he was "encouraged in his failing exertions by the heroic boy," both were drowned. Joseph Addison Cammack was also at the rear of the boat. Unable to help the remaining women, he and a friend decided that taking to the water was their only hope. Before he jumped, Cammack hesitated, murmured "what an awful scene," and stepped back for his saddlebags. No sooner had he turned than a box thrown from above by a deck hand "crushed his head." He fell into the Alabama and was gone.
