The Tragedy of "The General Slocum"
A
touch with History
Some years ago, an ELCA Congregation in Westchester County (St. Paul's, in Rye Brook, NY) received
a letter from an Orthodox Jewish Congregation in New York City announcing
a dramatic presentation to be held at their community center. The title
of the play was: “The Hero of the Slocum.”
At first glance, the play would seem to have little to do with the Westchester Church. But a bit of research confirmed that it was far more relevant to us than anyone could have imagined. Furthermore, the letter teaches a lesson in kindness and compassion that is worth hearing. If your curiosity has been tweaked, please read on!
The
White Garden
At the turn of the century there was a lively, laughing, gracious, prosperous,
bustling lower East Side community called “Weiss Garten.”
It had received its name from the clean white fences enclosing the Tompkins
Square sector of a large German colony that had years earlier arisen on
the riverfront between Houston and E. 14th Sts. By 1904, there were three
quarters of a million people of German ancestry scattered about the city,
fully a third of the metropolitan population. “Weiss Garten”
was also known since the 1840s as Kleindeutschland or “Little Germany.”
At the very heart of the garden, on Sixth St. between First and Second
Aves., was the red-brick St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church,
a house of worship almost mystically revered in the old country as the
first place any immigrant would seek out upon arrival in the New World.
But on June 15, 1904, something happened which would forever change the people of this community.
The
Church Picnic
For a German child in early-century New York, the annual church picnic
was the first of summer’s sweet pleasures. At 9 o’clock on
the morning of Wednesday, June 15, they gathered excitedly at the Third
St. pier, the children and their mothers and aunts and grandmothers 1,350
in all, and by 9:30 were bound for Locust Grove on Huntington Bay for
a day of Christian frolic. They were to be home, weary and elated, by
nightfall.
In those steamboat days, the General Slocum was one of the river’s most colorfully familiar sights. Named for a Civil War officer who had gone on to Congress, it was a wonderful three-deck side paddler, and on this perfect picnic morning it was gaily pennanted and carried a merry oompah band that was already playing “Ein Fest Burg Ist Unser Gott” as it set out.
With appreciation to the National Archives for this photograph - click here to visit their site
Because of a combination of poor safety inspections, defective equipment, and bad judgement, within one hour the ship was a mass of flames with little equipment to save those aboard. It was estimated that 1,031 of the original 1,350 were lost. Though the General Slocum disaster is a piece of almost forgotten history today, it remained the worst New York City loss of life until the World Trade Towers disaster on Sept 11th, 2001.
The “Weiss Garten” section of New York City never recovered as its mourning residents turned their backs on the place forever and fled to other communities. Never again in New York would there be so vibrant and close-knit a German Protestant community. All that remains is a small monument in Tompkins Square bearing the inscription: “They Were Earth’s Purest Children, Young And Fair” written in testimony to a perfect picnic morning long ago when laughter all at once stopped as things went terribly wrong.
St. Mark’s
Church closed soon thereafter as its surviving parishioners slowly left.
For decades it was left abandoned and unoccupied.
The Community Synagogue
In 1940 a new Community Synagogue was formed in the area and took over
old St. Mark’s church. This last year they were the ones who sponsored
the play entitled “The Hero of the Slocum,” a one man presentation
where one actor portrays over 40 different individuals the chief of whom
is a fictional character there to tell the tale from the vantage point
of a survivor.
The letter that St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church received from this Synagogue said, “Ours is the building where the victims and their families worshipped, and we have decided to commemorate this event and honor the memories of those poor, innocent souls who perished.”
In a warm moment of human understanding it is clear that a Jewish Congregation was reaching out in love and with peace to honor the memories of 1031 victims, nearly all of whom were German. Amidst the sadness of the story, there is this shimmering message that the Lord wants us to lay aside all hatreds and to treat each other with respect and as fellow travelers on His earth.
Epilog
There is one known survivor of the Slocum tragedy still living as of the
date of this article (4/03). Adella Wotherspoon, was a retired teacher
from New Jersey who was a 6 months old baby on June 15, 1904. She was
saved by her mother who held her in her arms, and dove off the burning
ship to reach shore safely with her infant daughter. Ms Wotherspoon died in 2004 at the age of 100 years of age. (Click HERE to visit a Wikipedia Page concerning her and her relationship to the Slocum Tragedy.)
What remained of the Slocum was converted into a barge and renamed the Maryland. On December 11, 1911, the Maryland, loaded with coal, sank for the last time off Corson’s Inlet, NJ.