| Show RIVER STEAMER BLOWN TO PIECES + Sixty People Drowned In the Mississippi + SENT TO THE BOTTOm WITHOUT WARNING MagnificenJ Passenger Boat Row na L e Meets DIsaster t Boiler Exploded While the Vessel Was In Midstrrom Opposite Tyler Ty-ler MissouriSteamer Parted In the Middle aild Immediately Sank In S venteen Feet of WaterOnly Two of Those On Board Escaped EcL Thirty Passengers + St Louis 3ch 29A special to the Republic from Madrid Mo says The steamer RowenL Lee with about thir tyone passengers aboard besides her crew exploded opposite Tyler 1110 about 4 oclock this afternoon and im nediatey sank with aU on board except ex-cept Captain George Carvell and one of the crew The steamer left Cairo with sixteen passengers aboard bound for Memphis At Caruthersville Mo she landed and took aboard fifteen more passengers It is estiIrated that with passengers and crew she then had aboard about sixty people She made the next landing at Tyler Mo and at 4 oclock this afternoon backed into midstream from Tyler to proceed on her journey The steamer had just reached the middle of the river when she suddenly sopped and lurched as if a snag had been struck The next moment the boat parted in the mhlde a volume of steam and debris arose and the detonation of an explosion thundered over the water The river is running very high and the steamer immediately sank in seventeen feet cf water with all onboard on-board but the captain and one of the crew These two clung to wreckage and were saved by boats The cause of the disaster cannot be ascertained A list of the passengers is unobtainable tonight Among them were H C Lewis traveling freight a4ent of the Lee line H C Humphre general agent for the Chicago Mill Lumber company of Caira I The steamer was manned by the fol owing crew Captain George Carvell i FIrst Clerk L K Booker Second Clerk Gus Mitchell Third Clerk Sam Lewis Pilots Sid Smith and E Banks Mates John Crasty and Patrick Flanagan Engineers Albert Calder and Frank Stun Steward George W Todd Mail Clerk 11 T Kelly Most of the crew lived in Memphis Memphis Tenn March 29The steamer Rowena Lee was owned by the Lee line of Memphis and was one of the most mOJ1ificent passenger steamers In the Mississippi river trade I She plied between Memphis and Cairo I News of the sinking of the Rowena Lee i sprcad like wildfire in Memphis where I most of the crew lived As to the I passenger list of the illfated vessel nothing can be obtained at the lUem I phis office of the company tonight |
