The steamship Lexington burns and sinks in…
January 1840 CE
A paddlewheel steamboat that has operated along the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States between 1835 and 1840, commissioned by industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt, the ship is considered one of the most luxurious steamers in operation, and began service on a route between New York City and Providence, Rhode Island.
In 1837, the Lexington had switched to the route between New York and Stonington, Connecticut, the terminus of the newly built railroad from Boston.
Vanderbilt had sold the ship to his competitor, the New Jersey Steamship Navigation and Transportation Company, in December 1838 for sixty thousand dollars, at which time the Lexington was reputedly the fastest steamer on Long Island Sound.
On the night of January 13, 1840, midway through the ship's voyage, the casing around the ship's smokestack catches fire, igniting nearly one hundred and fifty bales of cotton stored nearby.
The resultant fire is impossible to extinguish, and necessitates the evacuation of the ship.
The ships' overcrowded lifeboats are sunk almost immediately after their launch, leaving almost all of the ship's passengers and crew to drown in the freezing water, with rescue attempts impossible due to the rough water and lack of visibility.
Of the estimated one hundred and forty-three people on board the Lexington, the only four survivors had clung to large bales of cotton that had been thrown overboard.
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Awful conflagration of the steam boat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday eveg., Jany. 13th 1840, by which melancholy occurence; over 100 persons perished. Courier lithograph documenting a news event, published three days after the disaster.(Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g03102), drawn by W.K. Hewitt; Nathaniel Currier. lithographer.
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