Sunday, February 1, 2015

The Ill Starred Granite State (or Burning of...) (May 18, 1883 )



*


‘Twas on the fair Connecticut
     One early summer morn;
And scudding clouds of fog swept past
     Pursued by coming dawn.

The staunch old steamer Granite State
     Moved slowly up the tide;
And anxious eyes searched carefully
     The hills on either side.

And skillfully they guided her
     Around each curve and bend.
To run ashore and sink that morn,
     Was not to be her end.

Ah, no; a fate awaited her
     Which seamen, landsmen dread.
“The ship’s afire! A house afire!”
     Are cries too often spread.

East Haddam dock was slowly reached,
     The fog rose thin and higher;
And then a watchful officer
     Discovered her on fire.

And mid the trumpet shouts of me,
     And hiss of lively steam,
And rattling o the clanking pumps
     She swung across the stream.

“The passengers! The sleeping ones!
     Must first be got ashore.”
And officers and willing crew,
     Amid that awful roar

Of seething flames and frantic shouts
     Of frantic human souls,
Did all within their given power
     To bear them to the shoals.

And yet, as if it needs must be,
     As if by heaven planned,
Three of that number were destined
     To never reach the land.

And then as if some magic hand
     Swept down the hills between,
The fog was lifted and the sun
     Shone brightly o’er the scene.

A scene appalling tho’ ‘twas grand,
     With rolling smoke and steam;
A leaping, dancing line of flame
     Adrift upon the stream.

The officers were last to leave,
     They safely reached the bank;
And she, the ill-starred steamer struck
     Lord’s Island, then she sank.

Feb. 1, 1892
Pub. in Conn. Valley Ad.
(*Not sure if the same ship = more likely the State of New York, as the Granite State was burned to the water line.)
see:



New York Times on May 18, 1883:
THE GRANITE STATE BURNED TO THE WATER’S EDGE.
PASSENGERS AND CREW FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES—DEATH BY FIRE AND DROWNING—GALLANT RESCUES AND NARROW ESCAPES—TWO LIVES CERTAINLY LOST.
HARTFORD, May 18.—-The steamer Granite State was burned at Goodspeed Landing this morning. The steamer went up to the dock apparently all right at 4:30 o’clock in broad daylight. The Dock-master took the head and midship hawsers and fastened them to piles as usual and noticed nothing wrong. Even the clerk of the boat at that moment had discovered nothing, but three minutes later the boat was full of smoke and soon the flames were under way. A fireman first discovered the fire at the head of the boiler and tried to put it out by bringing a hose to bear upon it, but there was too much heat and flame for him to remain and he ran for his life. The clerk, Mr. Silloway, as soon as he saw the danger, rushed to the state-room hall and aroused the passengers, who speedily sought the lower deck. The boat meanwhile had not reached the pier, but was a few feet away, with both lines still fast.
The engineer had been compelled to flee, and the bell-cords connecting with the pilot-house were burned. There was no control of the machinety[sic], and a stiff northerly wind was blowing and the tide was strong ebb. The steamer was too far away from the wharf to make the gang-planks of service, and 20 men on board seized the midship hawser and by superhuman efforts pulled the boat near enough to get the plank out, but in doing this the forward hawser broke and the vessel swung off. There was time, however, for a major part of those on board to go ashore, but some were in, the bow of the boat and could not get below. These jumped into the river, and from 15 to 20 men and women were struggling in the waves. Small boats were swamped. Then a ferry-boat was brought up and all then in the water were saved….
Clifford L. Main, a young man living in New-Haven, was married in that city Wednesday evening, and went to New-York that night by boat on his wedding trip. He took the Granite State last night to come to Hartford to visit his brothers. He and his wife succeeded in partially dressing and went into the hall from their state-room, encountering a good deal of smoke, but they got to the forward part of the vessel and there watched the chances of escape. Mr. Main could not swim, but as the boat had swung off he found he must go into the water. He grasped his wife firmly around the waist, jumped into the stream, and succeeded in catching hold of a hawser, but it broke and they both sank. Three times they went below the surface together. The last time Mr. Main lost the hold on his wife, as he was nearly exhausted. He found himself clinging to one of the wheel paddles without knowing how he came there. The body of his wife was recovered this afternoon.


(Although this comes from a site re: the same ship, there were numerous ships with that name.)

The shape in the water is the remains of the Granite State Steamer which burned at East Haddam in May of 1883 and was towed to this spot in Old Saybrook, CT.

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