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            TWELVE WORST MARITIME DISASTERS IN GREAT LAKE HISTORY
                    (based on number of casualties)

                    -------------------------------


7. Erie:  Burned
   Date: August 9, 1841
   Location: Lake Erie, off Silver Creek, N.Y.   
   Type: side-wheel steamboat
   Hull type: Wooden   
   Owner: Charles M. Reed
   Master: Capt. Titus
   Casualties: about 100 - 175*
   
   
   Explosion, possibly caused by turpentine placed near the boiler.  Flames
   quickly engulfed the Erie and it burned to the waterline.  Steamers
   DeWitt Clinton and Lady had been traveling ahead of the Erie and turned
   back when they spotted the red glow in the sky.

   From Nelson's Biographical Dictionary....
   "One of the most dreadful calamities in the history of lake navigation
   occurred on the 9th of August, 1841.  The steamboat 'Erie,' of Erie,
   owned by Gen. Reed, and bearing a large party of emigrants, was coming
   up the lake from Buffalo, and when off Silver Creek was discovered to be
   ablaze.  In an inconceivably brief period of time the boat was burned to
   the water's edge.  Two hundred and forty-nine persons were lost, of
   whome twenty-six were residents of Erie.  Between 120 and 130 bodies
   rose to the surface and were recovered.  The 'Erie' was valued at
   75,000.  Her cargo was worth about $20,000 and the emigrants, it is
   calulated, had with them $180,000 in gold and silver."

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   Sources: "Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes" , Dana Thomas Bowen, 1952
            "Great Lakes Shipwrecks and Survivals", Wm. Ratigan
            "Nelson's Biographical Dictionary and Historical
             Reference Book of Erie County, Pennsylvania", by Benjamin
             Whitman - 1896