Historic North Country Disasters by Cheri L. Farnsworth

Author:Cheri L. Farnsworth [Farnsworth, Cheri L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, General
ISBN: 9781467145008
Google: RnXADwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2020-01-15T16:09:02+00:00

Waiting for word at the mine. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

The wives of the miners attended, with their children and friends. Quiet and orderliness has reigned in the saddened village since the accident at the mines, the first wild outburst and grief and frenzy having subsided. After the explosion the bodies were taken to the priest’s house and from there to the church.…

Work will be resumed at the mines within a few days.

16

SEVEN MEET DEATH IN RIVER

GRASSE RIVER, MASSENA, 1911

Shortly after noon on Tuesday, August 1, 1911, a group of residents primarily from Massena and Ogdensburg gathered at the old power house dock in Massena to board the Sirius, a double-decker ferry licensed to carry seventy-five passengers, for a pleasant day trip to Cornwall, Ontario. The Massena Methodist Church was holding its annual picnic at Massena Point, and the excursion members planned to return by 4:00 p.m., giving them plenty of time to picnic and socialize. For many, it would be their last such excursion. A terrible tragedy that unfolded in the short distance between destinations that afternoon cut their lives short and sent shockwaves throughout the North Country. As the Norwood News of August 8, 1911, said: “A pall of sorrow overhangs all Northern New York as a result of the disaster, which is one of the greatest in the history in this section.”

Captain Weston Cline, a veteran navigator of the Grasse River, routinely made two trips daily between Massena and Cornwall on the Sirius. He was at the helm of the Sirius with fifty passengers aboard when the unthinkable happened near Brewer’s Landing. The Norwood News explained:

The river is very narrow at the point where the crash occurred, and when the bow of the little boat struck against a shoal, the steamer listed over on her side. All those on the top deck were thrown into the water and a panic immediately followed. Several on the lower deck also went overboard and a number of the male passengers leaped into the river in an effort to assist ashore those struggling in the deeper water.

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