Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1903 — BIG STEAMERS CRASH. [ARTICLE]

BIG STEAMERS CRASH.

• * Dozen Persons Are DrowneA in Long Island Sound. Nearly a dozen men lost their lives end 700 narrowly escaped drowning when two large steamers collided in the fog which hovered over the waters of Long Island Sound Thursday night. The large Fall River passenger steamer Plymouth, from New York for Full River, with 500 passengers and a crew of 200 men, was run down, while passing through the Race, by the freight steamer City of Taunton of the same line, bound from New York. A hundred feet of the starboard sido of the Plymouth was smashed as if it liad been paper, the staterooms of the second cabin were cut away and in the hold members of the crew who were asleep were drowned by the torrent that rushed through the great gap made by the bow of the freighter. Although terrified, the people aboard the ship exercised great self-control and there was no panic. The collision occurred after the vessel had made her way up the sound through the fog until she reached a point east of Gull Island. The City of Taunton came tip and when she was sighted by the officers of the Plymouth was too close to avoid the collision. There was a quick exchange of signals and then the crash. The bow of the City of Taunton penetrated ten feet into the hull of the Plymouth, nnd as she backed away she raked the upper works of the passenger vessel, tearing out the second cabin and ripping the staterooms to pieces. Water poured into the hold and drowned’the men in their bunks. It was thought at one time that the ship’s company would have to tnke to the boat®, but.the closing of the collision bulkheads prevented the water from gaining and the vessel made the harbor and wharf unassisted.