Terrible steamboat explosion.

POUGHKEEPSIE, March 23. -- The steamer Magenta blew up opposite Scarborough this morning.

The Magenta left Haverstraw at twenty minutes of seven, landed at Sing Sing and took aboard a large number of passengers and started on the way to New York at ten minutes past seven. She had steamed out in the stream a distance of two miles, when the passengers were startled by a terrible explosion. A scene of the wildest terror followed, and when the steam cleared away there was seen lying in the forward cabin, near the store, directly in front of the engine room, the bodies of a dozen men. The steam on the floor still created a light vapor, and the surrounding woodwork was still dripping from its nearness to the exploded pipe. Two were dead, and eight were badly – two fatally – scalded.

The Alexis was lying at Rockland Lake and seeing the Magenta enveloped in smoke started off at once, and in a short time had come up to her. The wounded were at once transferred to her and the dead to the Thomas P. Way, which had just come up, and by the latter were conveyed to Sing Sing.

Exactly how the accident occurrred is not yet known. The spot where it happened was between the main and upper decks, well forward. The steam chimney, which was the cause of the accident, was forward of the engine and measured about twelve feet in circumference. It is surmised that the bolt started and was blown out. It is also said that the Magenta was running at a great speed across the flats to get ahead of an opposition boat. ALBERT RUHIS and MR. WRIGHT, of Sing Sing, were killed outright; MR. LAW, of Sing Sing, is not expected to recover; F. M. TAYLOR, watchman, is severely scalded. A party of five from Pleasantville were all scalded more or less, and one boy of twelve is supposed to have been blown overboard.

Denver Daily Tribune Colorado 1878-03-24
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!