The Night Disaster Struck in Long Island Sound
By Chelsea Mitchell, Director of Community Engagement & the Woolworth Library, Stonington Historical Society
On the night of June 11th, 1880, the steamship Stonington left the town dock at 10 pm, headed to New York. It was a warm summer evening, and everything seemed to be business as usual. Some of the passengers retired to their rooms for a good night’s rest before arriving in the city the following morning. Similarly, the Narragansett had set sail from the North River Pier at Jay Street in New York with over 300 passengers at 5 pm the same evening. The Narragansett was headed east to Providence, Rhode Island. Aboard the Narragansett was baseball player, John Reilly, a member of the Cincinnati Stars, who was on his way to meet the rest of his team.
The Narragansett. Courtesy of the Steamship Historical Society of America.
Both ships encountered a thick fog in Long Island Sound, and shortly after 11:30 pm the crew on board the Stonington heard a ship signal from nearby. With visibility so low, they couldn’t see the other ship anywhere, and sounded a signal of their own. Peering through the swirling fog, a light was suddenly visible from the Narragansett, and it was directly ahead! The order was given for the engines to be cut, but before anyone had time to react, the ships collided.
Due to the late hour and long trip, many of the passengers on both ships were asleep. The collision happened with such force, it threw some of them from their beds; and if that was not enough to wake them, the cold sea water rushing into the Narragansett from a massive hole in her starboard side definitely was. Confused and disoriented, they made their way to the decks to see what was going on. The Narragansett had been badly damaged, and the incoming water threw the ship into complete darkness. To make matters worse, the ship’s gas meter had been hit and now a fire was rapidly spreading. Passengers scrambled to find life preservers, which had been stored around the ship and were not only hard to find, but did not fasten correctly around the body. As the chaos grew, the Stonington, which had not been nearly as badly damaged sent out short signal blasts for help, luckily attracting the attention of the nearby steamship City of New York, of the Norwich line.
Currier and Ives print of the crash. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Norman Boas in the collection of the Stonington Historical Society.
Within fifteen minutes the Narragansett was engulfed in flames and desperate passengers jumped overboard, holding onto whatever they could find. One of those who managed to find a life preserver was John Reilly. He spent over an hour in the water before he was rescued. The City of New York and Stonington drew up alongside and tried to pull as many survivors as they could from the water, but the smoke from the fire made visibility difficult, and the water was full of the remains of those who had perished. Many of the survivors who were in the water were badly burned and in need of serious medical attention. Another ship, the Massachusetts of the Providence line, also came to their aid.
Steamship Massachusetts at the Stonington Dock, 1900. Gift of Marjorie W. Anderson in the collection of the Stonington Historical Society.
Mrs. Christine Bailey of Brooklyn, New York was on board the Narragansett, going to visit her sister, and her account of the horrific events of that night were published by a Philadelphia newspaper, The Times:
“I was lying in my berth when I heard a dreadful crash … I jumped out of the berth, put a few clothes on … and rushed up to the upper saloon deck … When I arrived there the utmost confusion prevailed, and for a few seconds I hardly knew what to do. Finally, an officer shouted for everybody to keep cool and put on a life-preserver. I then tried for some time to find one, and finally succeeded in getting hold of one, fastening it around me. By that time the boat was on fire, and people were jumping overboard from all parts of the steamer. I followed their example, but hardly had I struck the water when a man with a lady clinging to him caught hold of me and tried to pull my life-preserver off, I resisted to the best of my ability, telling him that life was as dear to me as to him. After considerable trouble I succeeded in getting into a small boat, which immediately capsized, throwing me again into the water. My chances for getting out then seemed desperate, but, with the exercise of all the strength I could muster, I paddled to another boat, only to find it full of water, and all efforts to turn it over were fruitless. I then saw another boat a little way off, and made for that. After considerable difficulty I, with several others, reached the last boat, which was also partially filled with water. Three times did we get into the boat, only to be thrown into the water again. I was determined not to die, however, … and if ever a person fought for their life I did. The boat last referred to fastened to the steamer Narragansett, which by this time was burning fiercely, and despite all we could do – for there were four ladies and one gentleman on board – the flames scorched our faces in a terrible manner, and it did not seem as if there was … [a] chance of our ever being saved. I myself saw three children drown, to say nothing of the others who were floating around near the wreck and who must have been lost. The most agonizing … part of the whole affair, was to see the poor people in the saloon deck suffer so terribly, for many of them must have been burned to death. … while in the boat waiting for somebody to help us, I could hear the poor creatures in the staterooms on the saloon deck moaning and groaning in a heart-rending manner. … [I]n the position I was, my hands and face were terribly burned. … Finally … we were rescued and taken on board the Stonington, which immediately put back to her starting place with a number of rescued persons.”
Within half an hour, the Narragansett had effectively sunk. She was grounded in shallow water and later towed into port and rebuilt. To this day, the number of lives lost from that ship is unknown, since the passenger list was never found. It is estimated that between 50 and 70 people died that night. The City of New York took 150 survivors back to New York. The Stonington headed back to its namesake with its original passengers, and the rescued and arrived back at the town dock around 6 am. News spread quickly, and soon worried residents were crowding the docks searching for loved ones, or hoping to hear first-hand what had happened.
Both captains were investigated to determine what had caused such a horrible event. The survivors of the Narragansett complained about the poor performance and incompetency of the captain and crew. A few passengers had stepped in to organize the crew after the crash, as they were panicked and only adding to the confusion on deck. Many of the lifeboats on board had proved useless in the water; their oars were missing, or the plugs which let rainwater drain from the vessels had been removed and not replaced. The captain and crew of the Narragansett also abandoned the steamer early on and left remaining passengers to fend for themselves without assistance or direction.
Each captain was interviewed by local inspectors and gave differing accounts of what had happened. Investigators discovered extreme carelessness and misconduct on both sides. According to the Hartford Courant, George F. Nye, captain of the Stonington, altered the ship’s course without giving the proper signals. He had also failed to stop the ship once he had located the Narragansett in their path. However, Captain Young of the Narragansett was found to be most at fault. After the signal had been given to slow and stop, through carelessness or panic, the signal was instead given to go ahead, putting the ship directly in the path of the oncoming Stonington. He was also charged with poor judgment for abandoning ship so early, and his license was revoked.
This tragedy caused a media sensation, being covered by local newspapers as well as in larger cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Gruesome discoveries along the Sound continued for weeks afterwards, and the crash was even memorialized by Currier and Ives. Sadly, this was not a unique incident. Between 1860 and 1899 there were 142 ship collisions, sinkings, and wrecks in the area between Point Judith and Fisher’s Island. That figure does not include loss of anchor, washing ashore, or ships stranded, of which there are at least another hundred during the same time period.
Steamships in Stonington Harbor. Gift of the Estate of Maurice LaGrua in the collection of the Stonington Historical Society.
Post script: In a strange twist of fate, one of the passengers on board the Stonington was Charles Guiteau. A misguided and eccentric man, he saw his survival of this collision as proof that he had been spared for a higher purpose. He became heavily involved in politics in the summer of 1880, backing Republican nominee James Garfield. Guiteau wrote a pamphlet which he eagerly passed out at the Republican National Committee, the corresponding speech being only delivered twice. After Garfield won the election, Guiteau felt the victory had been secured through his personal efforts, and so appealed via letter, and in person, for a consulship in Paris. Of course, his requests were denied or ignored all together, and a frustrated Guiteau felt it only necessary he take matters into his own hands. Only July 2, 1881, he shot James A. Garfield at a railroad station as he headed to the New Jersey shoreline for a vacation with his wife. President Garfield died from the infection of those gunshot wounds eleven weeks later, on September 19th.
*Research for this blog post was conducted in the archives of the Stonington Historical Society. If you would like to access our archives, or research your own interest in Stonington’s history, please contact the Librarian, Chelsea Mitchell at library@stoningtonhistory.org or by calling 860-535-1131.