Between the hours of 12 and 1 o’clock, on Monday morning, December 3d, 1855, a fire broke out on board of the steam packet George Collier, Captain Burdett, lying at the lower landing, Memphis, Tenn. The steamer had just arrived, and had not been made fast, when the mate discovered the fire in a small closet under a flight of steps in the forward part of the boat. From this small beginning, the flames spread to every part of the steamer, in less than five minutes. All efforts to arrest their progress proving ineffectual.
Captain Burdett, perceiving that the total destruction of the boat was inevitable, gave the alarm to the passengers in the cabin. His first efforts were directed to the preservation of the ladies, and in this, by almost superhuman exertions, he succeeded. The male passengers and some of the officers and crew were compelled to save themselves by jumping off, some into the river and some on the lower deck of the wharf boat, which lay,near the Collier. This fine wharf boat, called the Mary Hunt, together with the steamer May Flower, which lay on the other side, was soon involved in the fate of the George Collier, and the three burning vessels are said to have presented one of the most magnificent and terrible spectacles ever witnessed in that locality. A flood of light, even at that dreary midnight hour, made every object distinctly visible for a great distance around the conflagration. Crowds of people rushed to the wharves, all in the most intense excitement and anxietyfor the fate of the many people who were known to be on board the blazing steamer. There were more than forty passengers on the George Collier, who together with the officers and crew made a total of sixty-five or seventy people, all of whom, for a time, appeared to be doomed to an agonizing death. The register of the passengers names was destroyed with the boat. It is impossible, therefore, to state, with any degree of precision, how many lives were lost, but twelve persons, at least, are known to have perished.
The George Collier had just completed her trip from New Orleans to Memphis, with a valuable cargo, all, of which was destroyed. None of the passengers had landed.
KILLED.-Arthur Dignan, of Philadelphia, assistant bar.keeper of the Mayflower; R. S. Candon, of Louisville, engineer of the Gaines’ Landing Railroad; another gentleman attached to the same Railroad, name not mentioned; James Banks, cook of the Collier, and Sidney, a cabin boy of the same boat; several of the cabin passengers and three or four colored people, names unknown.
The George Collier was valued at $35,000; the Mayflower at $100,000, and the wharf boat at $15,000. The whole loss by this conflagration is estimated at $250,000.