The news lately has been filled with events and stories that strike fear into the hearts of the traveling public. In the 1800s, those traveling from Columbus on the floating palaces known as steamboats also traveled with fear but not fear of terrorists. It was fear of fire and boiler explosion. Though such disasters were uncommon considering the number of steamboats, when they occurred they attracted headlines across the country.
I have written before of the burning of the Steamer Eliza Battle and the explosion of the boilers of the Steamer James T. Staples. Another great disaster on the Tombigbee River was the burning of the W.H. Gardner. She was a 150 foot long, 28 foot wide stern-wheeler built in Mobile in 1880 for the Upper Tombigbee trade between Aberdeen, Columbus and Mobile.
On March 1, 1887, the Gardner was steaming down river from Columbus toward Mobile, crowded with passengers, and with 464 bales of cotton from the Columbus Compress Company. Her captain was Frank Stone, who had been Second Clerk on the Eliza Battle when she had burned in 1858. In that disaster he had saved a Cromwell child and a Miss Turner. Another lady died in his arms as he was attempting to swim her to shore through icy water. For his heroism the citizens of Mobile had presented him with a gold pocket watch and chain.
On the afternoon of March 1st (it had also been March 1st when the Eliza Battle burned) the Gardner was passing Howard’s Bar, three miles south of Gainesville, Alabama, when Capt. Stone discovered a cotton bale to be on fire. A black deck-hand attempted to quell the flames by throwing buckets of water on them but got too close and his clothes caught fire. He panicked and took off running through the boat spreading flames everywhere. The cause of the fire was unknown but there were reports that the Gardner may have been racing with the Steamer Tally that was also traveling from Columbus to Mobile.
The steamer was in mid stream and at full stream when the fire broke out. The pilot, W.A. Wilson, tried to make for the shore but the flames had quickly driven the engineers from their post and no one responded to the pilot’s orders. The rapidly spreading fire soon drove Wilson from the pilothouse and the boat drifted downstream out of control until it lodged in a flooded forest across the river from bank where the pilot had attempted to land.
At the time, the Gardner was found to be on fire, the steamer Tally was right behind and trying to pass her. The Tally steered near the Gardner but found the heat and flames to be too intense and threatening, so she backed away but not before she lowered her lifeboats and sent them to rescue those on the Gardner. The Tally also threw cotton bales, planks and anything else that would float into the water around the Gardner to help save those jumping from the burning boat into the water.
With the Gardner ablaze and lodged out of control in flooded woods, all that those on board, passengers and crew, could do was to jump into the swift flowing cold river and swim for shore. The screams of those poor souls were described as “heart wrenching.” In all, 22 people lost their lives. It was reported that of that number, 20 drowned.
W.T. Rembert, the Gardner’s clerk and a part owner, had invited his family to join him for a fun excursion together on the boat. Seven members of his family including his wife, his 3 children, their chambermaid and his cousin with her two children died. Of the entire family, only W.T. Rembert survived. They had jumped into the water together but became separated with two of his children dying as their father tried to save them. Also among the lost was S.C. Blackman of Columbus. Capt. Stone survived by swimming to shore. It was due to the rescue efforts of the Tally’s crew that many of the Gardner’s passengers and crew survived.
One of the Tally’s crew became the hero of the disaster and his story appeared in papers across the country, even being carried by that famed paper of the old West the “Tombstone Epitaph.” The accounts included this fitting tribute:
“There is still plenty of the stuff of which heroes are made among the American people, black as well as white, and it only needs the emergency to develop it. It is worthy of mention that at the burning of the steamer Gardner last week down in Alabama, a colored boy, Beebee McCaw, saved five lives by swimming ashore with those who precipitated themselves into the water from the burning vessel.” McCaw was the 19-year-old “cabin boy” of the Tally.
In today’s trying times we still see that in America “there is still plenty of the stuff of which heroes are made.” That was especially evident at the recent Veterans Day celebration.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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