Steamship Pulaski disaster

For other ships with the same name, see USS Pulaski.

The Pulaski explodes; from page 170 of the book The Tragedy of the Seas; or, Sorrow on the ocean, lake, and river, from shipwreck, plague, fire and famine (1848) by Charles Elms
History
United States
Name	Pulaski
Builder	John A. Robb & Co.[1]
Launched	1837
Out of service	1838
Fate	Sunk by internal explosion 14 June 1838
Notes	Approx. 128 lost; 59 saved
General characteristics
Class and type	Steam packet

The Steamship Pulaski disaster was the term given to the June 14, 1838, explosion on board the American steam packet Pulaski, which caused her to sink 30 miles (48 km) off the coast of North Carolina with the loss of two-thirds of her passengers and crew. About 59 persons survived, and 128 were lost.[2] Her starboard boiler exploded about 11 p.m., causing massive damage as the ship was traveling from Savannah, Georgia, to Baltimore, Maryland; she sank in 45 minutes.[3]

The disaster

The packet steamer Pulaski, bound for Baltimore, Maryland, departed Charleston, South Carolina on June 14, 1838, under Captain DuBois, with a crew of 37 and 131 passengers on board.[4]

That night at about 11 p.m., when the ship was 30 miles (48 km) off the coast of North Carolina, the starboard boiler exploded, destroying the middle of the ship. Some passengers were killed immediately. Knocked out by the explosion, the first mate Hibbard assessed the small boats and put three in the water. Because two had been overexposed to sunlight, they were in poor condition, and one sank immediately. Ten persons got in one boat and eleven, including Hibbard, in another. They started rowing away from the sinking ship, which went down in 45 minutes. Others clung to makeshift floats made from the wreckage.[5]

Survivors

Among the 128 persons lost in the sinking was William B. Rochester, a former member of the United States House of Representatives from New York, and Jane (Cresswell) Lamar, wife of banker and shipper Gazaway Bugg Lamar of Savannah, five of their six children, and a niece. Her husband and their eldest son Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar were the only members of the immediate family to survive.[2]

• 
  Gazaway Bugg Lamar
• 
  Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar

The Delaware Gazette newspaper later ran a story about the fortunes of two alleged survivors: Charles Ridge, left penniless after the shipwreck, became engaged to heiress Miss Onslow, whom he had saved from the shipwreck.[6] However, neither of these persons was listed among the survivors in a June 27 North-Carolina Standard article published two weeks after the wreck.[2]

Search for wreckage

In January 2018 divers reported that they believed they had found wreckage of Pulaski 40 nautical miles (74 km; 46 mi) off the North Carolina coast.[7] This was confirmed several months later, when salvage divers recovered items from the wreckage.[8]

Depiction in media

• The Pulaski disaster figures prominently in Eugenia Price's 1985 novel To See Your Face Again, the second book of her Savannah Quartet.
• Surviving Savannah is a historical fiction novel based on this tragedy written by Patti Callahan, published in 2021.[9]
• The Pulaski disaster was the subject of an August 2021 episode of Expedition Unknown.[10]

References

1. "Pulaski (Steamship:1837)". catalogs.marinersmuseum.org. Baltimore, Maryland. 1837. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
2. "Heart-rending Catastrophe", The North-Carolina Standard, 27 June 1838, from Office of the Wilmington Advertiser
3. Price, Mark (19 June 2018). "1838 shipwreck of 'Pulaski' from Savannah was 'the Titanic of its time.' Divers just made an eerie discovery". Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
4. McLeod, Hugh (June 1919). "The Loss of the Steamer Pulaski". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. 3 (2): 63–95. JSTOR 40575609. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
5. Warnes, Kathy. "The Steamship Pulaski's Passengers Survive Her Sinking and Fall in Love". Magic Masts and Sturdy Ships. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
6. Story "Courtship on a Fragment of the Pulaski" from "Daring Exploits and Perilous Adventures: Being a Record of Thrilling ..." .pp.267-269
7. "Wreckage of Pulaski Found", Charlotte Observer 19 January 2018
8. "It was one of the nation’s deadliest maritime mysteries. NC explorers solved it this week.", Miami Herald 9 May 2018
9. McMichael, Kareem (15 June 2022). "RISING TO THE SURFACE: Ships of the Sea Museum brings Pulaski disaster to light". Connect Savannah. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
10. "NGC and NCS on Discovery Channel's Expedition Unknown". ngccoin.com. August 25, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025.

External links

• June 1838 newspaper accounts of the wreck of the Pulaski
• "Steamer Pulaski" Wilmington Advertiser, June 18, 1838, posted at North Carolina Shipwrecks blog, May 2012
• "Steampacket Pulaski Lost", Niles Weekly Register, June 1838
• Southworth Allen Howland, Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents in the United States: To which is ..., 1840, pp. 47-75
• Charles Elms, The Tragedy of the Seas; Or, Sorrow on the Ocean, Lake, and River, from ... , 1841
• "Historical Collections of Georgia" 1854 by H/George White pp. 353–64
• The Museum of Perilous Adventures and Daring Exploits: Being a Record of ..., 1859
• Hordance Edward Hayden, {a victim of the Pulaski} "Virginia Genealogies: A Genealogy of the Glassell Family of Scotland and ...", 1891 by 1891]
• Samuel Breck Parkman (Victium) The Diary of Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, of Westborough, Mass: For the Months of ...” pub 1899. p. 57
• Henry Cadwalader Chapman, A Manual of medical jurisprudence, insanity and toxicology, 1903
• "The Prominent Families of the United States of America" by Arthur Meredith Burke 1908
• Mrs Hugh McLeod (Miss Rebecca Lamar), "The Loss of the Steamer Pulaski", The Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1919, pp. 53–95]
• "‘The Titanic of its time’: Divers claim historic find of 1838 shipwreck off NC coast", Charlotte Observer, 19 January 2018

35.730°N 74.755°W / 35.730; -74.755