In 1852, this po])ular boat, while making her regular run and crowded with passengers, was discovered to be on fire. She was headed for the shore at Riverdale and ran hard aground near the wharf. But while from the bow of the boat it was only a step to the shore, yet the stern floated in deep water, and the majority of the passengers w^ere imprisoned by the flames in that part of the boat. A wild panic ensued. The heli)less people, without means of escape and maddened l)v the intense heat, leaped into the river and literally fought w^ith each other in their eagerness to reach the shore, pulHng each other, in many instances, under the waves, so that the strong went down with the weak. The

134 The Hudson River

victims were numbered by scores, and for days the river shore was thronged by the relatives and friends of missing passengers, trying to identify the bodies that the tide washed ashore. This disaster had a sad Ijre-eminence and pkmged the whole State in gloom. A graphic picture of steamboat travel on the Hudson was presented by the lively pen of N. P. Willis, in 1840. With most persons [he wrote], to mention the Pahsades is only to recall the confusion of a steamer's deck, just off from the wharf, with a freight of seven or eight hundred souls hoping to "take tea" in Albany. The scene is one of inextricable confusion, and it is not till the twenty miles of the Palisades are well passed that the bewildered passenger knows rightly whether his wife, child, or baggage, whichever may be his tender care, is not being left behind at the rate of fifteen miles in the hour. I have often flung my valise into the corner, and, sure that the whole of my person and personal effects was vmder way, watched the maniform embarrassments and troubles that beset the uninitiated voyager upon the Hudson.