To seaman William Hughes, who was forward on the lower deck, it sounded like a hissing. To passenger Giles Williams, a Buffalo salt and produce dealer standing forward on the upper deck, it resembled “a report as if something had burst.” To Illinois farmer Hiram DeGraff on the boiler deck, it was more like “the escape of a cork from a bar bottle, only louder.” Twenty-seven-year-old First Engineer Edgar Clemens called it “an explosion like the light blast of rock.”

As each would soon discover, what they had heard was a gasp like the first breath of a newborn dragon, a fire-snorting monster that would shortly attack them with flame and smoke, leaving them begging for mercy and facing the terrifying dilemma of fire at sea: sheer agony in the flames or frantic, clawing desperation in the water. It was 8 p.m., Monday, August 9, 1841.

Buffalo had awakened that morning to greet another breezy sunny day. Since the opening of the Erie Canal 16 years earlier, its population had grown exponentially. Main Street was a beehive of business, while up and down the thoroughfares there were fancy houses, multistory brick buildings and all kinds of lesser structures. The West was opening and Buffalo was its gateway.  A good place for the ambitious.

Erie was scheduled to depart Buffalo at 3 p.m. for Dunkirk and Erie, PA, before continuing to Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.  The vessel’s large crew would be led by 33-year-old Capt. Thomas J. Titus. Typical of the time, Erie’s seamen were all white, the service staff mostly black.  Before weighing anchor, they would add tons of cargo and more than 250 passengers.

Those booking passage aboard the steamship came from all walks of life.  They included an 18-year-old painter named John A. Minkel, part of a crew headed to Erie to redecorate another steamship.  Also on board was dry goods merchant Alexander Nealey, nearly 30, who was bringing a shipment of merchandise acquired on credit from wholesalers in New York City back to his store in Belvidere, IL. Charles J. Lynde, his spunky wife, and his brother Walter were also aboard, heading home to Chicago after visiting his parents in Cortland. 

In 1841, lakes boats were the only practical way west.  Such roads that did exist were little more than rugged foot trails.  On this day, five steamboats, 20 schooners and a sloop would arrive in Buffalo. Eight vessels would depart.  Of those, seven would deliver their cargoes to the budding markets of the Midwest and their hopeful immigrant passengers to a new life in a new land.  One would not. 

Docked at the foot of Michigan Street, the steamboat Erie looked spanking fresh.  She was one of the newer, bigger boats: 176 feet long and over 27 feet wide, with an 11-foot hold and weighing 550 tons.  She had 12 first-class staterooms and smaller cabins with room for 250 passengers, including steerage, which contained mostly immigrants.

Though only four years old, she had just undergone a complete refurbishing, necessary due to the inherently dangerous design of wooden lakes steamers: The heat of the high-pressure boilers dried out decking and tended to set them afire.  The threat of fire was real. In September 1830, the boilers of the steamboat William Peacock exploded soon after the boat had left Buffalo, killing 15 people.  In June 1838, the steamer Washington was about 35 miles off Buffalo when she caught fire, killing 40. Erie, herself, had already caught fire four times in her short life.  Each time, the crew quickly put out the blaze without injuries.  

Fire danger had prompted safety measures. A hand-pump fire extinguisher was kept on board and portions of the boat were covered with whitewash and salt as a fire retardant.  There were sheets of tin- or zinc-lined decking nearest the heat sources—the smokestacks and wood-fired boiler.  Although there was grating in the boiler deck to let out heated air, the deck itself still got very hot.

At the dock, the captain supervised the loading of about 30 tons of cargo, which took all of the morning and most of the afternoon. When prospective passenger William O'Neill of Dunkirk showed up with two wagonloads of merchant goods, Captain Titus told him the Erie was booked full, advising him to sail aboard the DeWitt Clinton docked nearby that was scheduled to depart that afternoon.  The captain was in a good mood, however, and proudly walked O'Neill around the Erie to show off how handsomely she had been refitted, including a complete repainting. "The Erie was a fine boat," O'Neill recalled, "in fact, the crack of the lakes."

While talking with the captain, O'Neill noticed a couple of workmen hauling aboard two demijohns of turpentine.  He took notice solely because he thought they had plunked them down rather hard instead of setting them down carefully. These men were part of the Miller painting crew, loading their supplies.  One of them, William O. Murray, recalled that they put half a barrel of oil and four kegs of white lead paint near the steerage cabin, and everything else—the turpentine, five jars of green paint and a case of varnish, among other flammable items—on the boiler deck near the smokestacks.

Other passengers clambered aboard, with squealing children and excited adults speaking in several European languages.  The passengers would include a large number of German and Swiss immigrants, including a large number of children. Big families were the norm, and most carried all their possessions with them, carpetbags full of family heirlooms and often large sums of money. John Voegele, with his wife and nine children, carried 25,000 gold florins. In all, the immigrant passengers carried aboard $180,000 in cash.

In Dunkirk, O'Neill had already off-loaded his wares from the DeWitt Clinton and was standing on the dock with them.  In the distance, he could see the boat on which he had originally hoped to book passage. Walking toward that dock was freight supervisor Frank French, 19. Glancing toward the lake, and said to a fellow worker: "There comes the Erie." Passing a pile of lumber that blocked his view of the lake, he looked again when he reached the end of the pile. What he saw riveted his feet in place and made his heart pound.

O'Neill stood gaping at it, too: The Erie was a mass of fire!  In just those few moments, a dragon was born. On the upper deck, Williams was standing near the foremast, passing pleasantries with Titus, when he heard that sound—the hissing, popping, bursting or whatever noise the hot turpentine made cracking open its demijohn, spreading over the heated decks onto the red-hot pipes and down through openings to the boilers. "Immediately," recalled Williams, "I saw a flash of fire come up through the skylights and around the smoke pipes." Then all went dark for three seconds, "and then again the flames came bursting up as before. I told the captain to keep cool and they would put out the fire."  He soon realized the foolishness of his bravado and thought about saving his wife, below in their cabin.

Clemens was below, midship near the engine, oiling and fixing machinery.  He heard children scream.  Suddenly there was an "explosion, fire and rolling of paint kegs all at the same moment."  The heat burned his face.  The smoke disoriented him.  People ran past him and filled the gangway.  He tried to stop the engine, but the best he could do was pull the pin from the throttle so the engine would get no additional steam and at least run slower.  Then he ran up to the promenade deck, where Titus asked him if he could try again to shut off the engine.
"I told him I could not and get back alive," Clemens said.

The seamen closest to the boiler were among the first to die, as flaming turpentine and paint rained down on them. Next were many seasick women and children, as the fire raced through staterooms and cabins.  With the fire amidships, people ran either to the bow or to the stern, although with the boat still under way, the winds swept the flames speedily aft. Hughes tried to get to the fire extinguisher, which was stowed forward of the wheelhouse.  But when he arrived, he found only fire.

Titus quickly realized he could not slay the dragon.  Confiding to Clemens that "there was no chance of saving her," he ordered helmsman Augustus Fuller to steer a course for shore.  "Stick it out as long as you can," Titus told Fuller.

Meanwhile, Williams rushed to an aft stairway to run down and find his wife. Instead, he was pushed back by the surging crowd.  Running toward the bow, he saw "a man coming up from under the deck with his back all on fire."  Then he ran to one of the sides and found a big wooden hopper or wheat measure, which he planned to lower overboard, then climb down the railing to find his wife. The two of them would then jump into the water and cling to the hopper for flotation. But as he lowered the hopper, a Dutchman put his three children into it, and then tried to climb in himself. Williams warned the man not to get in, but the weight of the children alone was too much for Williams.  Williams, the kids and the hopper fell into the water.

Clemens, the captain and others launched the yawl boat.  Immediately, "passengers jumped in from the main deck," Clemens recalled.  A wave hit the small boat and "she swamped and took cranes and tackle with her." The crane, part of the launching mechanism, hit the second engineer and killed him.

Hughes managed to launch a lifeboat, but not easily.  "Many Swiss were in the boats before they were clear of the deck," he said.  "I ordered them out but they did not obey, so I jumped in and threw them out." First Mate Dennis McBride tried to launch a second lifeboat, but failed because there was only one man on its stern tackle and the lifeboat was too heavy for just the two of them.  "I saw flames rushing through the after skylights," McBride said, "then I looked and saw it coming out the quarterdeck stanchions."  The man on the tackle ran off, so McBride jumped into the first lifeboat.

There was no order, only panic.  People were tearing the boat apart, searching desperately for anything that would support them in the water.  Some 30 or 40 people from the ladies' cabin and from below tried frantically to climb down rudder chains into the water, but they shoved each other off in the scramble. Non-swimmers tried to hang onto the sides, but fell off from exhaustion or were chased off by the heat and flames.

Minkel, the teenage painter, saw three families of seven or eight each huddle together, go overboard and probably drown.  While some were overcome by the flames on board, others were in the water, screaming for help.  Iron bolts exploded in the heat. The dragon roared. In the wheelhouse, Fuller stayed on through the smoke that obscured his view and the flames that seared his ankles. He gave his life to do his duty.

"Flames were now burning out of the boat in every direction," reported Clemens. "I pulled up a piece of bench and threw it over," but two men in the water made it theirs.  "I put my hands on the rail—it was on fire and I burned my hands . . . I let go, then ran and jumped over."

Most of the limited life jackets aboard were consumed by flames in the first minutes.  Among the few lucky people to get some were Mr. and Mrs. Lynde.  Mrs. Lynde saw her husband put his on, and she calmly put hers on too.  Then she jumped over, assuming he was right behind. Nealey, the Illinois merchant, took off most of his clothes and entered the water, holding on to one of the rudder chains until it got too hot.  Then he set out swimming opposite from shore to avoid the clinging, drowning crowd.

In the water, even strong swimmers drowned as the weak clutched them and pulled them under.  Husbands struggled to save wives, mothers to save children. The three Dutch children and Williams died within 15 minutes.  The hopper kept rolling over in the waves, and they simply grew exhausted trying to hold on.

Minkel found himself on one end of a 14-foot-long fender of the boat, with a stranger on the other end.  With each wave, one man went up, the other down, like playing on a teeter-totter.  "The man who was with me found out I could swim, and he kept working himself over toward me, which I did not like," Minkel said.  So he gave the man the fender to himself and swam to one of the paddlewheels, which by now had stopped churning. Soon the man slipped off the fender and drowned.

Two other men flailed by on planks and Minkel pulled them onto the paddlewheel, a refuge from drowning but not from heat.  In fact, the three of them nearly cooked. A bale of cotton sheeting floated by, and they grabbed it, wrapping themselves in wet sheets for protection from the heat.  Minkel's parched throat ached, but he couldn't bring himself to drink the same water that the charred body in front of him was floating in.  One of his companions obliged, pulling out a flask of "black strap" whiskey.

Clemens floated on a board, but gave it up to three children.  Then he found a bale, but gave that up to an old man. Finally, he made it to the overturned yawl, and clung on with several people, including Titus. Edward Johnson, one of the Erie's black cooks, held onto flotsam and swam away from the crowd.  "Human bodies were plainly seen floating around by the glare which the fire threw out, and cries for help were heard in every direction," he reported.

In Dunkirk and along the shore, people could faintly hear the screams and cries.  Capt. George R. Dwight fired up the Lady, a small steamboat in Dunkirk harbor, and set off to save lives. At Irving, near the mouth of Cattaraugus Creek, men set out in an open, 14-foot boat, rowing and sailing against the incoming waves. The crew of the DeWitt Clinton spotted an orange glow on the horizon and guessed what it meant.  They sped to the scene, but that took a couple of hours. When they got there, they found a hulk of burning embers and a mile of charred cinders and bodies.

The rescue boats searched most of the night for survivors, picking up one here, a knot of three or four there. About 1 a.m., the DeWitt Clinton and the Lady attached lines to the Erie and tried to tow what was left to shore.  En route, the Erie sank about four miles from land in about 70 feet of water.  Only then was the dragon's fire doused. Safe aboard the DeWitt Clinton, Titus began fabricating a lie that "I was the last person who left the Erie."

Mrs. Lynde searched the decks for her husband but found only what she thought was his lifejacket—on the back of a big German immigrant.  The man swore he had found the lifejacket in the water, but Mrs. Lynde wondered whether her husband had been murdered for it.  As it happened, when Mr. Charles Lynde’s body was finally recovered, he was still wearing his lifejacket, only it was not inflated.

Nealey fell unconscious before he could swim all the way to shore.  Some men waded in and saved him. Minkel and his companions finally got off their paddlewheel oven.  Aboard the DeWitt Clinton: "They took off our wet clothing and wrapped us in blankets and we lay down to rest.  In the morning, hearing a great noise on board, I got up and walked about in my blanket, and found we were in Buffalo." The city didn't yet know of the disaster.

Researchers disagree on exactly how many people died, but recent accounts suggest over 200. What is known, however, is which people died disproportionately. Children.  There were likely more than 100 aboard, and only one or two survived. Women.  There were likely close to 50 aboard, and only Mrs. Lynde survived.  Women of the time would not have been taught such an unladylike skill as swimming. Many of the immigrants perished because the fire ravaged the steerage cabin so early and so fast. 

Those who survived were men, especially many of the boat's own sailors—men who were mostly in their teens and 20s, were strong and could swim.  Conspicuous among them were most of the officers of the Erie, including the captain, first mate and first engineer.  Crewmen who died included much of the mostly black service staff.

A coroner's jury was empaneled in Buffalo to investigate the disaster.  Survivors told their harrowing stories.  Titus told his lie.  The verdict came in as an accidental fire for which no one was responsible.  The jury blamed the bursting of one or more demijohns of turpentine.
"The boat recently had been painted and varnished, and this, together with high winds, drove the flames so rapidly through the entire boat that it was impossible for the persons on board to stop the fire or to prevent the destruction of said boat," the official verdict said.

The jury also made non-binding recommendations that passenger boats carry lifeboats enough for everybody, 100 inflatable life preservers and a number of pine planks with rope loops for something to hold on to in the water. 

The tragedy would, in time, become a popular literary theme. In 1845, a sketch immortalizing the heroics of Augustus Fuller, titled “The Helmsman of Lake Erie,” first appeared in the Church of England Magazine and eventually in several American papers.  Long ascribed to Charles Dickens, recent research suggests a strong possibility that James Fennimore Cooper was, in fact, the author. In “Helmsman,” the author changed the name of the hero to John Maynard, and that of the boat to Jersey, while also ignoring many facts of the Erie tragedy. Horatio Alger Jr., the novelist, later wrote a poem about John Maynard and called the boat the Ocean Queen. German poet Theodor Fontane also composed a verse on John Maynard, putting him aboard the Swallow. So great was the stature of this conjured John Maynard, that it took 120 years for the name Augustus Fuller to resurface in valor.

Titus got other commands.  One day, his steamer broke down off Ashtabula, OH, and as he was ferrying in a part for repair, the skiff he was riding in overturned.  He drowned.

The Erie herself lay at the bottom of the lake for 14 years, when a salvage crew raised her and towed her into Buffalo Harbor.  Some parts were still usable; some useful as scrap. The salvagers also recovered most of the immigrants' $180,000.  Money that had been intended to build wonderful new lives for young families in the West, instead became booty for the ambitious in Buffalo.

Richard R. Haynes, born and raised in South Buffalo, earned degrees in history (BA), journalism (MA) and finance (MBA) from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Syracuse University and Canisius College, respectively.  Haynes served for two years in the Army as a military journalist in Alaska and worked at The Buffalo News for 35 years as a reporter and editor, retiring as deputy business editor in 2010.  After a long illness, he died on February 20, 2021.