Mobile, AL Steamboat BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Explosion, Mar 1836

ANOTHER STEAMBOAT EXPLOSION.

The Mobile Journal of the 14th March, gives the particulars of another steamboat explosion, and its attendant havoc upon human life:
We learn from that paper, that the Steamboat Benjamin Franklin, burst her boiler, on the morning of the 12th inst. as she was leaving the wharf, for Montgomery, by which the whole boiler deck, pilot house engine & chimneys of the boat were blown high into the air, with many of the passengers, some of whom fell to the water alive and not materially injured. But the explosion was nevertheless attended with an unusual destruction of human beings. This fatal accident appears to have resulted from undue detention of the boat near the wharf, after having put off, to accommodate a lagging passenger. The water in the boiler had also got too low. The Mobile paper says it is supposed by those who witnessed the explosion that from forty to fifty persons must have perished. Is it just under the circumstances mentioned, to call this waste of human life the result of accident ? Surely it is time to interpose the safeguard of legislative enactments in regard to steam navigation.

The Hagerstown Mail Maryland 1836-04-01

Killed:
ROBERT BRINKLEY, pilot.
ISAAC WILLIAMS, of Wilcox County, Kentucky.
JAMES PURNELL, fireman.
WILLIAM JONES, fireman.
JACOB PATTY, fireman.
JAMES ILULSON, deck hand.
ISAAC FLANNEGIN, deck hand.
MR. MARTIN, of North Carolina.
S. G. SIMPSON, carpenter.
THOMAS CRAVIN, cabin boy.
Three colored men, names unknown.
Two slaves of Mr. S. B. Reade, and one of Mrs. Terry.
Badly Wounded:
Captain H. A. LEADE.
R. G. GORDON, of Mobile.
Colonel R. SINGLETON, of Baldwin County, Alabama.
Capt. SCUDDY.
JAMES FLOMMEN, Clark County, Indiana.
E. R. DICKERSON, Montgomery.
MR. GODFREY, Washington.
JOSEPH THOMPSON, first engineer.
WILLIAM JACOBSON, second engineer.
MR. THOMPSON, of Columbus, Ohio.
MISS NORRIS and slave, of Mobile.
Slightly Wounded:
SAMUEL MURPHY, bar-keeper.
DR. TUNSTALL, Mount Vernon.
THOMAS TONY, deck hand.
WILLIAM HYDE, Baldwin County, Alabama.
J. A. WIGGINS, Claiborne.
__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!