Friday, August 01, 2014
1868 ILLUSTRATION steamer UNITED STATES wreck, burns to waterline- $9
In the early evening of December 4, 1868, snow began to fall just as the luxurious packet steamer, theUnited States. cast off her lines and departed the Vine Street wharf in Cincinnati, Ohio. Almost immediately, increasing winds whipped the falling snow into a wall of purple blindness, but the highly experienced captain successfully navigated to the channel and headed downriver toward Louisville. Earlier in the day, another packet steamer, the America, departed Louisville, traveling upriver to Cincinnati, where one of her passengers, the famous concert violinist, a Norwegian nicknamed “Ole Bull,” along with his company, was to perform on the evening of the following day.
Fifteen miles downriver, the snow turned to freezing rain, and the ice covered all decks of the United States. The ice-covered decks took on a golden glow as light from kerosene lanterns poured from the windows of staterooms, lounges, and the ship’s bar where Harry Brunswick, son of J. M. Brunswick of billiard table fame, stood hoisting a glass with a few other young men, as young men are prone to do.
