Steam Boat Susquehanna, in Effort to Navigate River, Starts Fatal Trip, April 27, 1826

Even before the advent of canals or railroads the enterprising merchants of Baltimore sensed the importance of facilitating the commerce along the great Susquehanna River.

They believed it would materially enhance their volume of business, especially in lumber, iron, grain, and whiskey, if the river would be freed of such obstructions as impeded or hindered navigation.

Large sums of money were expended in removing rocky channels in the river below Columbia, so as to admit the passage of arks and rafts down stream, on their way to tide water. A canal had been constructed from Port Deposit, northward, in order that the returning 298craft might avoid the shoals and dangerous reefs along the first ten miles above tide water.

Yet in spite of all these improvements no satisfactory way had been found which would return to the producers of the Susquehanna Valley such articles of commerce and merchandise as they would naturally require in return for the raw products of the forest, field and mine.

The authorities of Pennsylvania were also awake to the situation, as were the citizens. Several attempts had been made to have complete surveys of the river and estimates of the cost of the work required to make the great river navigable.

To Baltimore, more than to Pennsylvania, belongs the credit of an actual attempt to establish steamboat navigation.

In 1825 a small steamboat, named the Susquehanna, was built in Baltimore and, when launched, was towed up to Port Deposit.

The Harrisburg Chronicle said:

“The Susquehanna was expected at Columbia on Sunday night, Tuesday’s reports were, that she had not got to Columbia. Eye-witnesses to her progress put the matter to rest on Wednesday; they had seen her a short distance above the head of the Maryland Canal, with a posse of men tugging at the ropes, and when they had tugged nine miles gave up the job. So ended all the romance about the Susquehanna. She drew too much water (22 inches) for the purpose and started at the wrong point. Watermen say that the crookedness of the channel, with the rapidity of the current, makes it utterly impossible for a steamboat to ascend the falls between the head of the canal and Columbia.”

The Chronicle article says further: “We have a report that Mr. Winchester, of Baltimore, has contracted for the building of a steamboat at York Haven. We also learn that the York Company are making great progress with the sheet-iron steamboat, and that she will be launched about the 4th of July.”

This sheetiron boat was called the Codorus, and early in April of the next year ascended the river as far as Binghamton, after which she returned to York Haven. Her captain, a Mr. Elger, reported that navigation of the Susquehanna by steam was impracticable.

Either the original Susquehanna renamed or another steamboat built by the BaltimoreBaltimore promoters, and named Susquehanna and Baltimore was put on the river and operation above Conewago Falls by Captain Cornwell, an experienced river pilot.

She was accompanied on her trial trip on this portion of the river by a board of Commissioners of the State of Maryland, Messrs. Patterson, Ellicott and Morris, three distinguished citizens of Baltimore. Capt. Cornwell had already in March made several successful trips as far up as Northumberland and Danville on the North Branch and to Milton on the West Branch, returning to York Haven without accident.

299April 17, 1826, the boat started from York Haven, having in tow a large keel boat capable of carrying a thousand bushels of wheat, and proceeded on her fatal trip, arriving at the Nescopeck Falls at 4 o’clock on May 3. At these falls there was an outer and an artificial inner channel of shallow water for the accommodation of rafts and arks. Capt. Cornwell decided after consulting with other river men on board, to try first the main, or deep water channel, and the captain argued that if the boat would not stem it, that he could then drop back and try the other one. The boat made a halt in a small eddy below the falls on the east side of the river and some of the passengers went ashore; this was the case with the Maryland Commissioners.

The boat was directed into the main channel, and had proceeded perhaps two-thirds of the distance through the falls, when she ceased to make further progress, the engine was stopped and she was permitted to drift back to the foot of the rapid, where she struck upon a wall dividing the artificial from the main channel, and at that instant one of her boilers exploded.

The scene was as awful as the imagination can picture. Two of the passengers on board, named John Turk and Heber Whitmarsh, raftmen from Chenango, N.Y., were instantly killed; William Camp, a merchant from Owego, was fatally scalded by escaping steam. Dave Rose, of Chenango, N. Y., was fatally injured. Quincy Maynard, the engineer, as stated in the account published in the Danville Watchman, one week after the occurrence, was not expected to recover. Christian Brobst, of Catawissa and Jeremiah Miller, of Juniata, were seriously injured. Messrs. Woodside, Colt and Underwood, of Danville, were more or less injured, as were Messrs. Barton, Hurley, Foster and Colonel Paxton, of Catawissa, and Benjamin Edwards, of Braintrim, Luzerne County.

It was said by somebody on board that at the time of the explosion, a passenger was holding down the lever of the safety valve, but why this should be done after the boat had ceased her efforts to pull through is difficult to conjecture. Thus ended the second attempt to navigate the Susquehanna by steam power.

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