The East Village today has few remnants of its historic roots of the 19th and early 20th century as Kleindeutschland or “Little Germany.” Although there had been Germans settling in New York since colonial days it was not until the 1840s that there was a massive wave of Germans into the city. Beginning in the 1820s, Germans had moved into New York City and settled in the area. They settled initial between Canal and Rivington Streets but quickly spread uptown on the East Side to 14th Street. Along the way they opened up breweries, German businesses and established German churches of all denominations along the way. By 1904, some of the German families had moved uptown to Yorkville which was also a large enclave of German immigrants or to other parts of the tri-state area. But like many immigrant groups before and since they kept close ties with the old neighborhood and institutions. So it was no surprise that St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church had its annual end of the school year festivities on June 15, 1904 there would be a large crowd.
On June 15, a bright summer day, 1, 358 people mostly women and children boarded the General Slocum boat, named for a German Civil War General Henry Slocum,
anticipating a wonderful ride to Locust Grove on Long Island. At a little before 9 am with a German band playing on the deck the boat left its East Third Street dock and leisurely began its trip to Long Island. At about 9:30 the first shouts of Fire were heard throughout the decks. It is believed that the fire started in the lower deck when a spark or a discarded cigarette landed on some rags and ropes. It quickly engulfed the boat causing massive pandemonium on all the decks.
Unfortunately like the Titanic which would sink in 1912 there were not enough lifeboats and the life preservers were found to be of no use which only increased the panic. In addition, it would emerge later on that the crew had never had a fire drill. As was the case for most Americans in 1904, few on board knew how to swim making the decision to jump that much more difficult. The fire became so intense that most of the victims were burned beyond recognition. One victim jumped into the water only to be killed by the paddle wheel of the boat. Women jumped into the water holding their infants even though they couldn’t swim. The captain of the boat, Captain William Henry Van Schaick,
did not immediately bring the boat to shore even though he was passing Randall’s Island until he got much further up the East River to North Brother Island. By then, workers along the docks and lumber yards watched horrified as flames engulfed the boat. As it hit the rocks on the shore of the island the upper deck collapsed into a burning hulk trapping all aboard who could not jump into the river.
Tugboats and rowboats hurried to the scene in an attempt to rescue those in the water. The tugboat Wade captained by an Edward Fitzgerald went along side the Slocum as the upper decks collapsed throwing many of the passengers onto the deck of the tug. They managed to rescue 155 of the passengers that day. Police arrived at the scene and one an Officer Thomas Carroll jumped into the river and managed to save eleven people.When he went out to save the twelfth, according to the New York Times showed signs of distress and drowned. By then the scene on the shores of North Brother Island were horrific as the shore and the water was littered with the bodies of the victims of the disaster.
The bodies would wash up on to the shores of the Bronx and Manhattan for several days as distraught family members attempted to find their love ones and then identify their bodies. One little girl, Lizzie Kreiger, was discovered under a pile of bodies on the burned boat sobbing that her “Mama was all burned up.” The disaster devastated the German community. Whole families were killed and in many cases only parents or the fathers were left alive. In one case, a Mrs. Albertina Lembesk of 427 East Ninth Street lost all five of her children some of whom she had thrown overboard in an attempt to save them. Not a single family in Kleindeutschland was untouched either by the loss of their own members or relatives or friends.
The Slocum fire was the worst disaster in New York until September 11. The captain of the ship told several different stories to the police and reporters as to why it took him so long to get the ship to shore. Both Van Schaick and the owner of the ship, the Knickerbocker Steamboat Company came under investigation. In a trial in 1906, Van Schaick would be found guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced to ten years of hard labor at Sing Sing prison. The company and its president, Frank Barnaby were let off the hook. In 1911, President Taft would pardon Van Schaick.
As the city would do again after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire there was a public funeral and burial for the many bodies that simply could not be identified due to their charred condition.
Ave A and Sixth Street
In 1906, a memorial would be placed in Tompkins Square Park were most of the victims had sat on any summer day watching their children play. By then, many of the survivors had moved either uptown to Yorkville or back home to Germany. The memorial was dedicated by the youngest survivor Adella Martha Liebenow and her mother who was badly disfigured by the fire. The memorial made of Tennessee marble is very simple with the etching of two children and the words “They are Earth’s purest children young and fair.”
Bowery & Canal 