July 30, 1871: The Westfield Disaster

July 30, 1871: The ferry Westfield II explodes while sitting in its slip at South Ferry at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, killing 125 passengers. It would be New York City's deadliest transit disaster until 1904, and remains 2nd in that regard.

Cornelius Vanderbilt started a ferry service between Manhattan and Staten Island in 1810. He grew his ferry business to the point where he became nicknamed "The Commodore." In the 1850s, he switched to railroads, and founded what became the New York Central Railroad.

His brother Jacob had founded the Staten Island Railroad, and bought the ferry service from Cornelius. Passengers often complained about the poor condition of the boats, as well as the ferry’s limited schedule. On July 30, 1871, to accommodate unusually heavy demand on a Sunday afternoon, the wooden-hulled side-wheeler Westfield II was pressed into service.

(An earlier ferryboat named Westfield was among the three commandeered by the Union during the Civil War. It was never returned to the ferry service. Both boats were named after a town in Staten Island, that became a neighborhood of the Borough after the Consolidation into Greater New York in 1898. The name had nothing to do with the Township of Westfield, a few miles away in New Jersey.)

As the Westfield II prepared to leave shortly after 1:00 PM, passengers congregated at the bow of the boat, facing Staten Island. But the Westfield II carried her coal bunker and boilers at this end of the boat, and at 1:27, one of the boilers exploded, immediately killing 66 passengers and injuring 200. Eventually, 59 of the injured would also die, putting the death toll at 125.

Jacob Vanderbilt was eventually charged with murder, but was acquitted. The Westfield II was repaired, and was returned to service as a hospital ship. It was junked in 1916.

In 1884, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad gained control of the Staten Island Ferry company, which also ran service between the island and the New Jersey cities of Bayonne, Elizabeth and Perth Amboy. On June 14, 1901, another ferry, also with the Roman numeral for 2 on its name, the Northfield II, sank when another ferry collided with it, killing 5 people. That led to the City of New York taking over the service, and it runs the Ferry to this day, although it only runs the South Ferry to St. George line.

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July 30, 1871 was a Sunday. Only one professional sports league was operating in America at that time, and that in its very 1st season: The National Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs. But it didn't play games on Sundays, partly because several States prohibited sports on Sundays. These included  New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, which encompassed 4 of the 9 teams then in the league. So there were no scores on this historic day.