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On this day in New York · June 15, 1904

The General Slocum Burns in the East River

A church picnic boat caught fire within sight of Manhattan, and by the time it grounded on North Brother Island, more than a thousand of the city's own Germans lay dead in the water.

The facts

Date
June 15, 1904
Death toll
About 1,021 of the 1,342 people aboard died; 431 survived
Departure and destination
Left the Third Street Recreation Pier on the East River at 9:30 a.m., bound for the church's picnic grounds at Eatons Neck, Long Island
Aftermath
Captain William Van Schaick was the only person convicted, found guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced to 10 years; he served three and a half years at Sing Sing before parole and was pardoned by President Taft in 1912

On the morning of June 15, 1904, the excursion steamer General Slocum pulled away from the Third Street pier on the East River carrying members of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church, almost all of them women and children from the Lower East Side's Little Germany, bound for the congregation's annual Sunday school picnic at Eatons Neck, Long Island. As the boat neared Hell Gate, a fire broke out in a below-deck storeroom used to fuel the ship's lamps and tore through straw, oily rags, and old paint faster than anyone aboard could fight it. The crew found the fire hose rotted through, the lifeboats lashed down, and life preservers that had hung unprotected on deck for thirteen years, some padded out with iron weights instead of enough real cork to float. Captain William Van Schaick pushed on into the wind rather than beaching immediately, fanning the fire the length of the ship before it finally grounded. About 1,021 of the 1,342 people aboard died, making it the deadliest single day in New York City history until September 11, 2001.

In their words

The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.

  1. The evidence before the Commission establishes the fact that the master made no attempt whatsoever to fight the fire, to examine its condition, or to control, assure, direct, or aid the passengers in any way whatever.

    the federal Commission of Investigation, in its official Slocum Report on the disaster, 1904

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. They are Earth's purest children, young and fair.

    inscription on the memorial fountain the Sympathy Society of German Ladies erected in Tompkins Square Park in 1906

    Source: Wikipedia

Why it still matters

The fire gutted Little Germany, the immigrant Lower East Side neighborhood that had thrived for decades, and its own church became a synagogue within a generation. It also forced the federal safety rules on fire drills, lifeboats, and life preservers that New York's excursion and ferry boats still answer to today.

Sources

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