The Daily Herald

Dreadful Steam Boat Disaster.

On Sunday morning the 30th inst. the steam boat Benjamin Franklin burst her boilers at Mobile, by which accident several persons were killed. The particulars reached us in a letter written at Mobile about three hours after the accident took place. The letter states that the Benjamin Franklin (a regular packet between Mobile and Montgomery) burst her boilers just as she left the wharf, and when within fifty yards of her starting place, and in sight of one hundred persons. She had on board about one hundred passengers. I was standing (says the writer) close at the river's brink, and saw the whole fore part of the boilers carried to an immense height, with the pilot and one of the hands. The pilot fell into the dock at the distance of a hundred and fifty yards, having been thrown into the air near three hundred feet, and was dreadfully mutilated. I saw the bodies of two or three persons who were killed instantly, and of many others who were seriously, perhaps fatally wounded. I fear the list of sufferers will be large, perhaps ten or fifteen killed. The explosion was dreadful; the upper deck, from the wheel-house forward, was carried to a great height.

—N. Y. Com. Adv.