The loss of the steamer Martha Washington, with its attendant circumstances, is one of the most extraordinary events in the records of marine disasters, a cloud of mystery hanging over the whole subject, which will probably never be cleared away. This steamer, Captain Cummins, commander, was on her way from Cincinnati to New Orleans, when she took fire on the Mississippi river, near Island No. 65, at about half-past one o’clock, on the morning of January 14, 1852. The boat was entirely consumed. Several passengers lost their lives, but all the officers and crew, except the carpenter, were saved. The work of destruction was completed ‘within three minutes. A whole family, consisting of a man, his wife and two children, perished in the flames. Two or three other persons were either burned to death or drowned while attempting to escape from the fire. The books and papers were all lost.
The burning of this boat has given occasion for several law-suits and criminal prosecutions. A charge of conspiring to burn the boat has been made by Sidney C. Burton, of Cleveland, Ohio, against Wm. Kissane, L. L. Filley, the brothers Chapin, Lyman Cole, Alfred Nicholson, the clerk of the Martha Washington, and several others. It was alleged that a heavy insurance on the cargo was obtained from several offices, and that the boat had been fraudulently laden with boxes containing nothing more valuable than bricks, stones, and rubbish. It is said that in the summer of 1852, L. L. Filley of Cincinnati, one of the persons implicated in this imputed crime, confessed on his deathbed that there had been no merchandize shipped on the Martha Washington, and that the boat had been designedly set on fire to defraud the Insurance Companies. Sidney C. Burton states that he shipped on this boat a quantity of leather valued at $1,500, and that he was unable to obtain the insurance money, because the insurance officers protested that the boat had been fraudulently set on fire. At the suit of Mr. Burton, the persons named above were arrested on the charge of conspiring to burn the boat, which involved the charge of murdering the passengers who were lost. Kissane was tried at Lebanon, Ohio, and afterwards at Cincinnati, and was convicted; lie obtained a new trial, and was acquitted. All the persons implicated were afterwards tried at Columbus, Ohio, for conspiracy, forgery, &c., but the jury brought in a verdict of “not guilty.” Burton then obtained a requisition from the Governor of Arkansas on the authorities of Ohio, and bad all the accused parties arrested by officer Bruen, at the Walnut Street house, Cincinnati, in 1854. They were hurried into an omnibus heavily ironed and ill-treated, and conveyed down to one of the wharves belo* Cincinnati, placed, on a boat, and carried away to Jeffersonville, Ind., and from thence to Helena., Ark., to be tried for murder, arson, &c., where they were confined in a miserable jail three months.
They were again acquitted in the Court of Arkansas. But the determined prosecutor again returned to the charge. Kissane, one of the defenders, in order to raise money to defray the expenses of his legal defLnce, committed a forgeryon the Chemical Bank of New York, in the summer of 1854. Some of his friends or advocates assert that he committed this deed in mere desperation, having been driven to the last extremity by the prosecutions or persecutions of Burton. Kissane was arrested for this forgery, but while in the custody of an officer, he contrived to make his escape from the railroad car by creeping through an aperture in the water closet. After concealing himself for some time, he was retaken, tried, and sentenced to the State’8 prison, at Sing Sing, two and a half years; but in December of 1855, he was pardoned by Governor Clark, of New York. In the same month and year, the Grand Jury of Hamilton county, Ohio, found a true bill against Burton, the prosecutor of Kissane, &c., and another person, named Coons, for perjury. Coons acknowledged that Burton had paid him for giving in false evidence at the trial of the persons charged with burning the Martha Washington.
Such being the facts of the case, there are many conflicting opinions in relation to the guilt or innocence of the parties charged with the horrid crime of setting fire to the steamer and sacrificing the lives of several passengers, for the purpose of obtaining a sum of money from the insurance offices. Several other incidents of a mysterious and romantic character are related in connection with this narrative. Sidney C. Burton, the prosecutor of Kissane, &c., lately died (December 11th, 1855,) at Cleveland, Ohio, in circumstances which give a color of probability to a prevailing suspicion that he was poisoned. It is mentioned also that an attempt was before made to poison him at a hotel in Columbus, Ohio. The ‘whole affair presents a tangled web which it would require a good deal of ingenuity to unravel.