The Burning of the Henry Clay

There is considerable poetry in the harmony of a steam engine. Within its boiler the elemental forces of fire and water are tricked into cooperation, becoming the first of humanity’s creations to liberate us from the limits of mere animal strength. The invention of the steam engine was an achievement equal to breaking the sound barrier and the creation of the internet; tangible proof that the power of the mind could be applied to cross the threshold of physical barriers once thought absolute and insurmountable.

Vertical Steam Engine from “Growth of Industrial Art” Published by the United States Patent Office, 1888

If the invention of the steam engine was equivalent to breaking the sound barrier, then the marriage of steam engines and wooden ships was something akin to the initial development of supersonic jets - the learning curve was immense and the end results were often imperfect. For millennia sailors had utilized the wind, tide, and brute strength to conquer the vastness of the sea and the power of Earth’s greatest rivers. The steamboat subverted this ancient and venerable tradition virtually overnight. These vessels dispensed with sails in lieu of mechanical contrivances and relied on fire (once the sailor’s great foe) to spurn the wind which had so reliably borne humanity to unknown reaches for generations. It is no wonder so many doubted and feared the steamboat upon its introduction, and less shocking still that the fears of many would prove well founded as steamships grew in popularity and number during the Antebellum period.

The earliest days of steam transportation on the Hudson River are recorded in graveyards. From New York to Waterford crumbling tombstones give mute testament to an industry fatally plagued by greed and hubris whose only victims were the innocent. Expedience rather than prudence governed the operation of these vessels, resulting in a steady stream of accidents that were so frequent as to almost appear comical in retrospect. Shipping companies competed neck-in-neck billing their steamboats as safer than others, while some deigned to tow their most prudent passengers in comfortable “safety barges” ostensibly beyond the range of the steamboat’s boilers in the likely advent of a mishap. Undetectable manufacturing defects in machinery, poor business practices, and the fundamental design of the ships themselves were bad enough, but all this was compounded by the desire of captains to lay claim to the title of “fastest” on the river. 

Steamboat races are a subject which has been dealt with in numerous articles. The grand summary is that these races were categorically a bad idea and often downright dangerous. Captains would push their machines literally to the melting point causing timbers to buckle and boilers to fail - sometimes catastrophically. This carnage was perpetuated in the name of vanity, though some legendary captains refused invitations to race in the name of their passengers’ safety. Such was not the case when Captains Isaac Smith and John Tallman agreed to a competition between the Henry Clay and Armenia on July 28, 1852.

Three days later the Greene County Whig carried a small announcement in that week’s edition:

“The Bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Ray and their Daughter, who were drowned at the burning of the Henry Clay, passed through this village yesterday, on their way to Durham, for internment. Mr. Ray was a son-in-law of S. W. D. Cook, who was saved.” Greene County Whig, August 1, 1852 - Collections of the Vedder Research Library.

The churchyard of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Oak Hill is a place out of time. Harkening to the holy grounds of New England’s old houses of worship, gravestones here creep right to the back walls of the Church edifice. The humble aspect of the building itself belies the prominence and affluence of the community it originally served; a fact enshrined in the stately marble stones of the hallowed dead and perhaps more so in the grand homes of the neighborhood around the Church itself. Behind St. Paul’s lie lawyers, industrialists, financiers, gentleman farmers, and business owners who rode the crest of a transformative wave of industrialization in the years prior to the Civil War. These people were masters of change who embraced the most exciting and new opportunities the young republic had to offer - in a sense becoming pioneers of the Nation’s industrial frontier and harbingers of the era to come. 

It is a grievous irony therefore that this same social class would end up being the victims of one of the great tragedies of their time, and that this tragedy would be brought about by the invention that typified the age. The Henry Clay and Armenia left Albany on the morning of July 28 racing neck-in-neck. These two ships were products of the same celebrated owner and builder (Thomas Collyer), a fact which only raised the stakes for the crews who knew victory or defeat would rest solely on their shoulders. Several hours into the race the Henry Clay held a comfortable lead of almost four miles over the Armenia, and such a distance could not be closed with the boats so near the finish line in New York. Just off Yonkers, as the Clay steamed towards victory, somebody on board noticed flames roaring up from the vicinity of the engine compartments. Efforts to suppress the fire were insufficient, and the fire quickly engulfed the midship. The vessel’s pilot made for shore and drove the Henry Clay at speed upon the banks of the Hudson where those near the bow could make good their escape. Unfortunately, those who found themselves trapped in the comfortable accommodations in the after section of the boat could not make their way forward to the shoreline and faced a terrifying choice between the approaching inferno and the roiling water below. 

Currier Lithograph of the Burning of the Henry Clay, 1852.
Courtesy of the Hudson River Maritime Museum, Kingston, NY

The class of passengers traveling on the Henry Clay that day was of a particularly affluent nature. On board were statesmen, judges, artists, authors, and relations of the great notables of the era. Andrew Jackson Downing, one of the 19th century’s most influential architects and a pioneer in landscape architecture and horticulture, was counted among the passengers. His charred remains would not be found until several days after the accident. The flames themselves killed Downing and a number of others, but drowning would take the lion’s share of victims. The ship’s paddle wheels didn’t stop turning in time for many who had chosen to leap from the aft section into the Hudson - the engines, out of control since flames had driven the engineers from their stations, washed victims in the water away from shore out into the channel. This continued until the boilers themselves succumbed, releasing a scalding breath of steam which killed others that the Hudson and approaching flames had so far spared.

It was in the water that the Ray and Cook families of Oak Hill hedged their bet. Mrs. Cook pleaded to her husband that he escape, and probably found small comfort in knowing her grandchildren at least made it to the water. At this point there is conflict in extant accounts, but by all indications Mr. and Mrs. Cook would end up surviving the calamity only to find that their daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter met their end in the water that had seemed sure salvation from the burning wreck. In the same newspaper which carried this tale of the Cook family’s tragedy the editor of the Greene County Whig ran a statement that he was hedging bets on the Alida as contender for the fastest and most reliable boat on the River, clearly oblivious to the tastelessness of the juxtaposition.

The burning of the Henry Clay, followed by a similar and equally tragic explosion on the Reindeer that September, sparked uproar at the management of the steam passenger and freight industry on the Hudson. Similar to the calamitous sinking of the Titanic sixty years later, the people most affected by the burning of the Henry Clay were of the same social class that thought themselves impervious to such tragedies by nature of their money, influence, and importance. Indeed, these people ended up reaping the bitter harvest of their industrial speculations and business practices, and it would be but a short time after the Rays were laid to rest at St. Paul’s that reformists would call for a reassessment of the industry - the silver lining to a tragedy whose victims were celebrities and notables.

The grave of William, Abbe Ann, and Caroline Ray who were all killed in the burning of the Henry Clay on July 28, 1852. Buried at St. Paul’s cemetery, Oak Hill, Durham Township. [Palmer Photo]

The Ray family would never know it, but the accident which claimed their lives paved the way for a golden age of steamships on the Hudson. In the face of new regulations passed by Congress and the New York State Legislature operators found themselves incapable of running their companies in a fly-by-night manner. With the practice of racing outlawed the steamship industry grew into a safe and reliable operation which offered legitimate competition with rival rail lines in the Hudson Valley for nearly another eighty years. In the end this legendary industry would simply fall victim to the same technological innovation which had brought the steamboat to the forefront a century previously, relegating the Ray family to the footnotes in a story of bygone times. 

- Jonathan Palmer, Deputy Greene County Historian

Banner photo: “Black and White Photograph of the ‘Henry Clay’ by J. Bard” courtesy of the Hudson River Maritime Museum at Kingston, New York.