Photo courtesy of the Warren County Historical Society One source indicates that this steamboat was the Shirley Bell that sustained a fatal boiler explosion on the Allegheny River in downtown Warren in Sept. 1878.

“The town was thrown into a great excitement.”

Yes, I assume a ship sinking in a fatal accident in Warren would do that.

Such was the feeling in Warren on Sept. 17, 1878 when the boiler on what The Pittsburgh Post described as a “pleasure boat,” the Shirley Bell, exploded in downtown Warren.

“On Tuesday afternoon at about four o’clock while the steamer Shirley Bell was on her upward passage from Irvineton, and about one-half miles below this town, exploded her boiler, instantly killing Captain Hiram Shirley, of Glade, and severely injuring the engineer, Mr. Thomas Bell of Warren, and the fireman, Moses Shirley of Glade,” the Warren Ledger reported in the following Saturday’s weekly edition.

“Captain Shirley was at the wheel which was immediately over the boiler, and was without doubt instantly killed.”

Photo from the Warren Ledger An all-caps headline to describe the boiler explosion aboard the Shirley Bell in Sept. 1878.

Shirley was 49 when the accident occurred. He left behind a wife and eight children.

A “Hiram Shirley” served in Capt. William Alexander’s Company D., 111th Pennsylvania, but is listed on the muster rolls as a deserter.

According to information from the Warren County Historical Society, Shirley had invented a reverse gear for a steam engine,

The Ledger reported that Shirley was found “in a horrible mutilated condition.”

The other injuries sustained in the explosion were serious but did not appear life-threatening.

“The fireman (Moses Shirley) was standing in the forward part of the boat and was blown into the river,” the Ledger reported. “He is badly scalded about the face and neck and though not dangerously injured he suffers great pain.

“Mr. Bell the engineer was in the cabin. He is scalded on the back and legs but not dangerously hurt.”

There was only one passenger on the boat at the time of the accident – a “Capt. A. Dingey” of Brooklyn, NY.

The Ledger said “his escape was truly remarkable as the boiler came up through the upper deck near where he was sitting and passed directly over his head, dropping into the river about one hundred feet behind the boat.”

“The boat sank immediately after the explosion and what remains of it now lies in about five feet depth of water, near the residence of N. Sill, Esq.”

Bell was able to discuss the accident and is quoted in the story as saying that there was “80 pounds of steam on at the time of the accident and plenty of water in the boiler.”

The paper said that the boiler “was an old one, purchased in Tidioute” and then claimed it was “undoubtedly defective.”

“The owners of the boat undoubtedly believed the boiler was safe, but for some reason the public did not think so and hence but one passenger on board.”

For Bell and Moses Shirley, the steam inflicted the majority of their injuries.

“Mr. Bell’s injuries are severe,” the Ledger said. “His head, neck, arms, shoulders, back and ankles scalded. He suffers greatly, but is not in a dangerous condition. His coat and hat were blown away.”

I’ve tried to learn what the size of a boiler in a steamboat may have been and the various schematics portend a boiler, on the smallest end, the size of a refrigerator. Many are much, much larger.

The Ledger followed up on the accident in the following week’s edition.

They said that Moses SHirley and Bell “are in as comfortable a condition as might be expected” but sustained “burns (that) are more severe than we announced.”

Shirley was “was burned on the whole of one side and bank, beside being burned on the head and one arm nearly broken.

“He is recovering from all his injuries, but suffers as one scalded must. He is in good heart and is not obliged to keep his bed all the time.”

Bell’s injuries were more severe than Shirley’s. The paper described it as “the scalds being deeper in the flesh.

But while he suffers he is fast gaining, and in a short time will be about. For some days he suffered from the concussion and is yet perhaps, with numbness about the head.

The captain? The Ledger reported that the power of the explosion blew his body “into the air above the tree-tops”

“He was at the wheel directly over the boiler, in the act of steering the boat, bending over the wheel, which struck him in the forehead, carrying off the upper part of his head, and was killed instantly,” the Ledger said.

By the 1870s, the steamboat age was coming to an end. Railroads proved much more reliable than the Allegheny River – with its fluctuations – as a means of transportation of both people and goods.

“The affair has put an end to steamboating on the river at this point for a considerable time, no doubt, as few if any will be found with sufficient public spirit to build a steamer to run for the pleasure of it,” the Ledger concluded.

“Struthers Wells raised the boat and used the gear as a model for their own gear,” according to the WCHS. “A lawsuit resulted in Corry.”

Shirley is buried at Oakland Cemetery. It appears, though, that Bell and Moses Shirley lived for many years after the accident. There’s a “Thomas Bell” who is buried at Oakland that died in 1895 in his mid-60s as well as a “Moses Shirley” at Lake View Cemetery in Jamestown who lived until 1929.

As traumatic and shocking as this event may have been, it wasn’t the first of its kind.

A historical marker in Ohio marks the scene of the explosion of the Buckeye Belle’s boilers “with a terrifying roar” while traversing the Muskingum River.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the “explosion wrought carnage. Scattered fragments of wood and metal were found a half-mile from the blast.”

A total of 24 people were killed in that accident.

The deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history was also a steamboat accident – the Sultana, which was transporting Union prisoners back up the Mississippi from southern prison camps in the days after the end of the Civil War.

“Although it was designed to only hold 376 persons, more than 2,000 Union troops were crowded onto the steamboat – more than five times its legal carrying capacity,” according to the American Battlefield Trust.

A leaky boiler had been patched.

“The Sultana steamed north up the Mississippi, but the severe overcrowding and faster river current caused by the spring thaw put increased pressure on its newly patched boilers,” according to the Trust. “Shortly after leaving Memphis, Tennessee on April 27th, the overstrained boilers exploded, blowing apart the center of the boat and starting an uncontrollable fire.”

It was determined that 1,195 of the 2,200 passengers and crew died as a result.