1871—EXPLOSION OF THE “OCEAN WAVE”

WHILE hundreds of excursionists clambered aboard the 27-ton ferry boat Ocean Wave, as she prepared to sail from the Point Clear pier on the afternoon of August 27, 1871, a terrific explosion wrecked the boat, killed more than a score of her passengers and injured many others.

The following is part of an eye-witness account of the tragedy as given The Mobile Register by Ben Lane, who happened to be sitting on the porch of the Point Clear Hotel at the time of the explosion.

“It was my ill fortune yesterday to witness the saddest scenes I ever beheld. I have seen many battle fields strewn with hecatombs of gory dead and wounded, but there the victims were strong men, and such scenes were normal, usual and anticipated. But yesterday I witnessed a catastrophe in which helpless women and children were the chief victims. I saw bodies frightfully mutilated, torn, scalded; some struggling in a last vain effort to escape from the overwhelming waters; some rescued only to prolong their sufferings for a few hours. The boat gave out a queer hissing sound before the explosion. Then came the report, followed by a rumbling, hissing sound. Fragments of timber and metals flew in all directions. The fore part of the boat and cabin was completely carried away.... The guests of the hotel and the residents turned out in a body and rendered every possible assistance. Large numbers of boats were hurried to the scene, but they arrived too late to save the drowning. All was over with them in less than five minutes. But many of these were so badly wounded that they would have died, if rescued.

The number of passengers on the Wave is only conjectural, and so is the number of the lost. But the boat was certainly crowded, and it is safe to estimate the number aboard at over two hundred. Very many of these were children, and many little hats and bonnets came ashore to tell the tale of the little victims beneath the waves. How many were lost, it is impossible to know. The number will probably never be accurately known... . The boiler was torn open, with a long seam. It was so rotten as literally to tear open. If it had been stronger, so as to explode with greater violence, the destruction would probably have been greater.”

“The Ocean Wave has for some time been considered an unsafe boat. A criminal responsibility rests somewhere, and it ought to be visited upon those to whom the recklessness and incapacity are attributable.

The system of inspections everywhere is loose, careless and reckless, and officers who give an official safety certificate to such old shells of boilers ought to lose their official heads, if not their necks”.

Highlights of 75 years in Mobile, Mobile, Ala.: First National Bank of Mobile, 1940, pages 19-20