Dreadful Accident at Troy!
Rediscovery of a “Dreadful Accident at Troy!”
The project of transcription of the interment records of the city of Troy has yielded yet another fascinating incident. On October 13, 1854, Coroner R.B.Bontecou listed ten men as having drowned, adding one more the next day. What happened??? Surely if loss of life like this happened in Troy today, it would be well-covered by the media. We found that A.J. Weise’s classic “History of the City of Troy”, written in 1877, had a paragraph on the accident which described the boat involved as a ferry skiff. That gave us a good search term. We found that two of the local newspapers didn’t report the accident, but the “Daily Whig” did, and that story was reprinted in at least a dozen New York State newspapers, four or five in New York City alone.
What started as a simple investigation of the incident has expanded into research into the men who died, the use of a “skiff ferry” or “ferry skiff” for easy crossing of rivers in the 19th century, the Taylor, Seymour & Co. Chair Manufactory where many of the dead worked, and the Coroner, Dr. R. B. Bontecou. But let’s begin with the accident itself:
At about 7 a.m. on October 13, 16-18 men climbed into a “skiff ferry boat” at the steamboat dock in Troy (approximately behind the current Art Center on River Street) for a quick trip across to the tip of Green Island on western shore of the Hudson River. Most were employees of the Taylor, Seymour & Co. Chair Manufactory in West Troy (Watervliet.) The boat was rowed by one young man, a Canadian immigrant named George Yetter, age 18 or 19. Apparently it was overloaded to begin with, and the passengers expressed concern that they might get wet.
About fifty to 75 feet from shore, a small steamship, the “Alice”, passed by. Water from her wake sloshed into the boat, causing some of the passengers to stand up to keep from getting wet. The skiff soon tipped and all the passengers were thrown into the river. Most of the men could not swim. One of the passengers was Captain John Mider, captain of the steamer “ John S. Ide.” He and five other men swam to safety. The rest drowned.
The newspaper article in the Troy “Daily Whig” on October 14 lists the men who survived, but gives more information on the men who died. The interment record gives information too: where they were born, occupation, parents’ names, ages, places of interment. We set out to find out more about them, but found scant information in the public records available: the 1850 census and the Troy City Directories. The newspaper account and the Troy interment records don’t agree on the number of men who died nor their names, ages, or, in one case, race.
The following men drowned. The first data is from the interment record. If we could find out anything further about him, it is noted:
John Douglas, laborer, 30, born in New York, son of W & I Douglas. The newspaper called him Robert Douglas, colored, age 23, resided in Williams Street and had a family.
Charles Dailey, laborer, born Germany, 27, son of L and M Dailey. The newspaper called him Charles Delie, 24, only six weeks married, resided in Congress Street near 8th.
John Mahar, turner, 14, born Troy, son of F and M Mahar. The newspaper added “the agony of his father on beholding the body exceeded all exhibitions of sorrow we have ever witnessed. He was perfectly inconsolable.” There was a Francis Mahar, carpenter, listed in the 1853-54 Troy City Directory.
Patrick Coakley, chair maker, born Ireland, 28, son of P and B Coakley. The newspaper added that he resided near the corner of 4th and Adams Streets.
George Yetter, ferryman, 18, born in Canada, son of Anthony Yetter. The paper added that he was a Frenchman who resided on 2nd Street in South Troy.
Barney Rigney, turner, 37, born in Ireland, son of J and H Rigney. The newspaper said he was 22 and resided in 5thStreet. There was a Bernard Rigney, a chairmaker living at 245 4th Street in the 1852-53 Troy City Directory. (a “turner” would have operated a lathe, probably in this case to “turn” chair legs.)
Ira Cavanaugh, turner, born Ireland, 23, son of D and C Cavanaugh. The newspaper said he was Jeremiah Cavanaugh, 25, married.
Thomas Norton, laborer, born Ireland, 47, son of M and E Norton. The newspaper said he lived in 5th Street near Ferry. The city directory for 1852-1853 listed a Thomas Norton, ostler (horse handler), living in the alley near Read’s Brewery.
Anthony Mench/Anthony March- the interment record lists both, but we believe they are one boy: Anthony Mentch, 13 or 14, born in Germany or Prussia, who lived at 180 Williams Street.
Robert Baltic, laborer, b Ireland, 28, son of J and H Baltic. This man was listed drowned on October 14. He was not listed in the newspaper, which did say that a body was recovered the day after the accident.
We also worked to find out more about the skiff ferry, or ferry skiff which was the ill- fated ferry boat. The first eureka moment was to realize that two of the dotted lines crossing the Hudson River from Troy to Watervliet on Barton’s 1858 “Atlas of the City of Troy” were labeled “skiff ferry,” one originating at the steam boat dock, the other at the end of Washington Street. The engraving of E. Whitefield’s “View of Troy”, published in 1845, includes two skiffs on the Troy shore. Were they ferry skiffs? I spoke to Michael R. Pittavino, curator at the H. Lee White Maritime Museum at Oswego, NY about the use of skiffs as ferries, and though he didn’t know specifically about it, he said that skiffs were multi-purpose boats, made in a number of sizes. Caitlin Playle at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY, told me about specialized St. Lawrence River skiffs, which were guide boats, used for recreational purposes.
A contributing scholar at the Hudson Valley Maritime Museum in Kingston provided several illustrations of skiffs or wherries in use in Britain in the 19th Century, as well as a great illustration of a skiff in Buffalo Harbor. This led to an article by John Montague in the Spring 2003 edition of “Western New York Heritage.” He concluded that a particular kind of skiff ferry- with two flat ends, propelled by one oar at the stern- was developed for use in the Buffalo Harbor. There were up to sixty licensed ferry routes in the mid to late 19th century. Originally young boys were the oarsmen. There were a few ferries still in use as late as 1930. Montague even made a reproduction skiff.
All of this make it clear that a skiff was a versatile craft. It was a flat-bottomed boat, sometimes with a flat stern, sometimes flat bow and stern, that could be of different sizes, though the one in the Troy accident must have been a bit larger than I those found pictured, just because it held so many passengers. Skiffs could be rowed with two oars, or with one long oar at the stern. If both ends were flat, the skiff could be propelled from either end. If propelled with two oars, the rower would take up possible seating space in the middle of the boat.
Doing a search of the term “Ferry skiff” in the newspaper website Fultonhistory.com yielded accounts of these boats being used from the 1840’s to after 1900. The Albany “Evening Atlas” of 1848 reported that three men drowned in an accident when a ferry skiff was crossing the Illinois River. The boat contained six men plus the ferryman. An article in the NY “Sun” of August 14, 1857 told of an incident with a Southern family complaining about an “impudent colored man” in a ferry skiff they were taking across the Niagara River from Canada to the U.S. And in 1901 the Delta, Ohio “Atlas” told of Bertha Walz, 16, who supported her mother and sister by rowing her big ferry skiff across the Ohio River, taking "6 or 8 stalwart men per trip," sometimes making forty trips a day.
And cementing the use and need for the ferry skiff, the Taylor & Seymour Chair Manufactory placed an advertisement in the Troy “Daily Whig” on December 29, 1854, telling customers “cross to Factory by skiff Ferry, at Steam Boat Landing, …ten minutes walk from the principal Troy Hotels.” Apparently the company folks thought that the recent accident was an anomaly and the trip was generally a safe one.
For readers wondering why people just didn’t cross the Hudson River on a bridge, the only nearby bridge at the time was the Green Island Bridge, which was a railroad bridge. The Congress Street bridge was built in 1872. Perhaps that brought an end to the use of the skiff ferry at Troy.
Seymour chair, from the collections of the NYS Museum
So, moving on to Taylor & Seymour. According to “The City of Troy and its Vicinity” by A.J. Weise (p 297), Henry J. (1824-1869) and George R. (1829-1884) Seymour began their chair manufactory in Troy at 171 River Street in 1851. In 1854 the firm moved to Watervliet/West Troy, and became Taylor and Seymour. It was known by several variations of that name until 1885, when it passed to different owners. Henry and George were two of the sons of Israel Seymour, who was a potter on Ferry Street in Troy from about 1810 until his death in 1852, succeeded by another son, Walter. The Taylor of the title was Robert Menzies Taylor (1823-1892). He came with his family to Troy from Canada as a child. The 1855 NY Census listed Robert, 31, as a chair manufacturer. By 1859, Taylor was no longer a partner.
Did the loss of ten workmen at once cause problems for the chair company? Probably not. The NYS Census of 1855 indicated that Taylor & Seymour had 150 employees in 1854, 100 men and 50 boys. The men made $20 per month. A steam powered factory, it used 900,000 feet of lumber and 400 bales of cane to make 120,000 chairs valued at $95,000.
And finally, the coroner who affirmed the drowning deaths of the eleven men was R. B. Bontecou. This was Reed Brockway Bontecou, born in Troy in 1824. He graduated from R. P. I in 1842, where he studied with the iconic Professor Amos Eaton. He studied medicine first with local doctors Wright, Skilton, and Brinsmade. Then from 1844-1845 he attended lectures in the new University of the City of New York medical department. After a year collecting flora and fauna along the Amazon River, he returned home and obtained his medical degree from the Castleton Medical College in Vermont.
In 1847, Bontecou went into partnership with Dr. Brinsmade. Brinsmade saw general patients and Bontecou did the surgery. He pioneered surgical techniques for many injuries and ailments. He studied cholera in New York City in 1848, and got to treat lots of it first-hand in Troy through 1857.
Reed B. Bontecou
Bontecou’s military career began in 1849 when he became a surgeon for a NYS Militia unit. When the Civil War began, he enlisted and was commissioned the surgeon of the first Rensselaer County Regiment, the 2nd NY Volunteer Infantry. His prowess handling the wounded was quickly noticed by higher-ups, and he operated in larger and larger facilities, until in October 1863 he was named surgeon in charge of Harewood US Army General Hospital, near Washington, D.C., the largest of the Union hospitals. He was there until June 1866. Besides his many contributions to the field of combat surgery, Bontecou introduced the photography of soldiers’ original and then healed wounds, invaluable to the education of medical students. He was the major contributor of text and photos to “Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion”, and of photos to the Army Medical Museum.
He returned to Troy in 1866, in general and surgical practice. Bontecou was also the doctor for the Watervliet Arsenal, examining new recruits and ailing veterans. He continued to pioneer surgeries, including for appendicitis, strangulated hernias, hysterectomies, and more. In the 1880’s he developed the first antiseptic wound packet to be used by a general soldier in combat as a stopgap until treatment of a wound could begin. Bontecou served as President of the Rensselaer County Medical Society in 1891 and 1892. He died in 1907 and is buried in Oakwood.
(The preceding biographical information is from “Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography by R. B. Bontecou” by Stanley B. Burns, M.D.- which includes many of his photos of wounded soldiers.)
When we began to research this tragic accident, we had no idea where the various threads would lead us. It ended up illuminating aspects of the nature of the laborers in Troy in the mid-19th century, water transportation, manufacturing, and medicine of the same period.
Sources
Newspapers:
Troy “Daily Whig” October 14, 1854, December 29, 1854
Troy “Daily Times” Dec 18, 1870
New York “Times”, Oct 15, 1854
NY “Sun” Aug 14, 1857
Delta Ohio “Atlas”, 1901
Albany “Evening Atlas” 1848
Primary sources:
E. Whitefield, “View of Troy” engraving published 1845
Barton’s “Atlas of the City of Troy” 1858
Troy Interment Records October 13, 1854
Troy City Directories
US Census, 1850
NY Census 1855
Publications:
Burns, Stanley B. “Shooting Soldiers” 2011
Montague, John, “The Buffalo Harbor Ferries” in “Western NY Heritage” April 2003, p 38
Scherer, John, “NY Furniture at the NYS Museum”p 108
Weise, “History of the City of Troy” 1886, p 217
Conversations with Brad Utter at the NYS Museum, Michael Pittavino at the H. Lee White Maritime Museum in Oswego, Carla Lesh at the Hudson Valley Maritime Museum- a “contributing scholar” there led me to the Montague article, above, and Caitlin Playle, at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY- who led me to the Hudson Valley Maritime Museum.
This blog post and accompanying research was completed by by M. Barbara Urban and Christina Kelly, Research Associates at the Hart Cluett Museum.