Saginaw, Michigan
Steamer Handy Boy Bridge Accident
April 1890
SWEPT INTO THE RIVER
Passengers Drowned Because of a Steamboat
Captain's Carelessness.
The Handy Boy, a little steamer carrying
about seventy-five passengers, plying between
East Saginaw, Mich., and Bay City, on the
Saginaw River, left her dock on a regular trip
with about thirty-five passengers.
It was necessary for her to pass through the
draw of the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad
bridge, and at her signal the draw was opened
for her passage. Just at this moment Captain
DOLSEN left the wheel and began collecting
fares, giving the wheel in charge of some one,
nobody seems to know whom. At any rate the boat
shied off and struck a pier with a terrific
crash sixty feet from the middle of the draw
passage.
The whole upper deck, with about eighteen
passengers, was swept off into the water, part
of the debris crashing down on the deck below.
Boatmen on the shore saw the disaster and at
once put off to the rescue of the people
struggling in the water or clinging to the wreck
and the piers. The Handy Boy did not
sink, but lay a wreck against the pier, thus
averting greater loss of life.
Most of the passengers were easily rescued,
but those in the water were saved with much
difficulty. It is certain that six were lost.
MISS MARY HEIGHT and MRS. CATHERINE NAVIT, of
East Saginaw, are among them.
Captain DOLSEN, as soon as he reached the
shore, disappeared and could not be found. It
was supposed that he had fled.
The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1890-04-18
Submitted & transcribed by Stu
Beitler Thank you,
Stu!
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