Moselle (riverboat)

The Moselle was a riverboat constructed at the Fulton shipyard, in Cincinnati, Ohio.[1] between December 1, 1837 and March 31, 1838.[2] The Moselle was considered one of the fastest river boats in operation at the time, having completed a record-setting two-day, sixteen-hour trip between Cincinnati and St. Louis.[3][4] On April 25, 1838, the Moselle, piloted by Captain Isaac Perin, suffered a boiler explosion just east of Cincinnati, killing 160 of the estimated 280–300 passengers.[5][6]

During a brief stop at Fulton to take on additional passengers, Perin decided to keep the boilers at full steam in order to impress onlookers[7]. The boat had just pulled away from a dock near the neighborhood of Fulton, when all four boilers simultaneously suffered a catastrophic failure resulting in the destruction of most of the ship. The remaining section drifted approximately 15 minutes / 100 yards before sinking to the bottom of the Ohio river.[4][8][7] Negligence may have been a factor in the explosion: many eyewitness reports claimed that Captain Perin had been racing another riverboat, the Ben Franklin (1836) at the time of the explosion, and therefore the pressure in the boilers was excessively high.[9][5][10][11]

References

  1. ^ Suess, Jeff. "Our history: Steamboat explosion led to federal regulations". cincinnati.com. 2018. Retrieved 23 August 2018. Congress passed the 1838 Act requiring inspection of steamboat boilers "to provide better security of the lives of the passengers." Though there was little means of enforcement, this was the first federal regulation of private industry for safety reasons and set the precedent for consumer protection laws.
  2. ^ Lloyd (1856), page 93.
  3. ^ James T. Lloyd, Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters,... (Cincinnati, Ohio: James T. Lloyd & Co., 1856), pages 89–93: "Explosion of the Moselle, near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838"; see page 89.
  4. ^ a b "GenDisasters: Cincinnati, OH area steamboat Moselle explosion, April 1838". Archived from the original on 2012-03-26. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  5. ^ a b Cincinnati Views: Ohio River: Steamboats, p. 5 Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine (Note: This page includes illustrations of the steamboat Moselle before, during, and after its explosion on April 25, 1838.)
  6. ^ The following report estimates 150 dead among at least 280 passengers: Report of the committee appointed by the citizens of Cincinnati, April 26, 1838, to enquire into the causes of the explosion of the Moselle, and to suggest such preventative measures as may best be calculated to guard hereafter against such occurrences (Cincinnati, Ohio: Alexander Flash, 1838), page 22.
  7. ^ a b Scullin, Katy (2024-10-04). "The Steamboat Moselle Disaster -". Retrieved 2026-03-11.
  8. ^ Lloyd (1856), page 90.
  9. ^ "The explosion of the Moselle". The Evening Post (New York, New York). 5 May 1838. p. 2. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  10. ^ Lloyd (1856), page 91.
  11. ^ Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio... (Norwalk, Ohio: State of Ohio, 1898), vol. 1, page 760.
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