Portsmouth, OH Steamer ANNIE ROBERTS Explosion, Jan 1891

THE FLUE HAD COLLAPSED.

MATE CABLE TELLS THE STORY OF THE EXPLOSION ON THE ANNIE ROBERTS.

Pittsburg, Jan. 4. -- CARLTON CABLE, mate of the Pittsburg steamer Annie Roberts, on which five men were killed and mangled by an explosion at Portsmouth, Ohio, on Friday returned to the city yesterday and gave an account of the affair. He said: "I was in the pilot house and watches had just been changed. The furnaces had been cleared out of clinkers. The boat was on the Kentucky side, just about the mouth of the Scioto River, when there was a tremendous report and a moment later the air was filled with steam. I thought that a steam pipe had burst and then a moment later had an idea that the boat was going to sink, but the stacks remained upright. We drifted ashore, althought a ferryboat tried to come up and assist us, but she became mixed up with her tow line."
"The moment we grounded I went below, and a terrible sight met my gaze. Four men lay there covered with coal and cinders. A glance showed what had happened. A flue had collapsed in the middle boiler on the larboard side and blown both ends out of the boiler, spreading fore and aft through the boat. The steam and scalding water from four boilers had spent their fury on the men gathered about. A doctor was secured from a little town on the Kentucky side, but all were past human skill, except the second engineer, JIM RENO, who was badly scalded on the hands and face, the skin peeling off his nose and cheeks. One colored man, BENNIE LAWSON, was missing, and it was plain that he had been blown into the water."

The New York Times New York 1891-01-05
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!