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A Fire Broke out on the General Slocum

As the PS Slocum made its way up the East River, things turned badly almost immediately. While no one is exactly sure how the fire broke out, we do know that it spread rapidly within a half hour of leaving the dock at around 9 a.m.

Most of the passengers on the ship couldn’t swim. A panic broke out as the passengers faced either being burned alive or drowning. Captain William Henry Van Shaick steered the ship towards North Brother Island, but it was too late. Only 321 passengers would survive out of the 1,358 on board. The final death count totaled 1,021, and many of the bodies washed up on shore within the next week. This disaster was the next largest death toll in the United States next to 9/11.