Block Island, RI Steamer Larchmont Disaster, Feb 1907 - Died in Icy Waters

DIE IN ICY WATERS.

Hundred and Forty Believed Lost In Sound Disaster.

EXPOSURE BRINGS DEATH.

Survivors of Collision Unable to Withstand Zero Weather – Coal Laden Schooner Rams Steamer Larchmont, Charges Against Captain.

Block Island, R. I., Feb. 19. -- A marine disaster with an appalling loss of life and entailing suffering beyond the limit of human endurance came to light when a lifeboat of the Joy line steamer Larchmont, sunk in collision with the schooner Harry Knowlton, drifted into Block Island harbor. The Larchmont was bound from Boston to New York. The collision occurred at 11 p. m.
In the boat were several bodies of men who had died from the effects of long hours of exposure to a death dealing temperature. In the boat also were eleven men whose suffering was so intense that they seemed oblivious to the fact that death was in their midst.

At Least 140 Dead.
The boat brought a tale of disaster that has rarely been equaled in New England waters. It is believed that when the final count is made it will be found that not less than 140 lives were lost. Following closely in the wake of the solitary lifeboat came bodies cast upon the beach by angry waves. Then came lifeboats and rafts. Each of them bore its burden of grim death.
Owing to the condition of the survivors of the tragedy it was impossible to get from them an estimate of the loss of life. Anywhere from seventy-five to 150 persons went to their death. It is believed that the latter figures are more nearly correct than the former.
The cause of the accident has not been satisfactorily explained. It occurred just off Watch hill, when the three masted schooner Harry Knowlton, bound from South Amboy for Boston with a cargo of coal, crashed into the steamer's port side amidships.

Cause of Disaster Unknown.
The steamer, with a huge hole torn in her side, was so seriously damaged that no attempt was made to run for shore, and she sank to the bottom in less than half an hour. The Knowlton, after she had backed away from the wreck, began to fill rapidly, but her crew manned the pumps and kept her afloat until she reached a point off Quonochoutang, where they put out in the lifeboat and rowed ashore. There were no fatalities on the schooner, but the men suffered greatly from the extreme cold.
After the shock the passengers hurried on to the decks. Few of them had waited to clothe themselves. Their fear was so great that the first penetrating blast of the zero temperature was disregarded, but the suffering from the elements soon became so intense that personal safety was forgotten in a general effort to keep the blood in circulation. Those who had not stopped to clothe themselves now found it impossible to return below and do so. Many were drowned.

Victims Freezing and Frantic.
While some of the seamen held back the frantic, freezing passengers by brute strength, others were preparing to lower the lifeboats and rafts. There was not time to think of the comfort of any one. Even before the boats were cut away CAPTAIN McVEY knew that the list of victims would be greater than those who survived.
It was a physical impossibility for any but the most hardened to withstand the cold, which turned ears and noses white with the frost and which so benumbed feet that both the passengers and members of the crew stumbled rather than walked to the small craft in which they were to leave the sinking ship.
Some of the survivors, of whom there are seventeen, accuse CAPTAIN McVEY and his crew of cowardice in leaving the Larchmont before all the passengers were taken off.
Taking into reckoning the fact that only two women of all those on the boat are among the living, additional color is lent to the accounts of the horror given by the few surviving passengers and the charges of cowardice on the part of the crew. Add to this the significant fact that not a single child got off the sinking ship, and the case against CAPTAIN McVEY and his men is declared to be even more convincing.
It is declared that the crew pushed and kicked perishing women about with great brutality as they scrambled for the boats.
In contradiction of the statement of the survivors, CAPTAIN McVEY asserts that he had called to the passengers to enter his boat. He admitted it was the first to leave the ship and that it had only six of its twenty-two seats filled. His crew corroborate his story.

Ogdensburg Advance & St. Lawrence Weekly Democrat New York 1907-02-19
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!