On January 28, 1851 the sidewheeler John Adams hit a snag and sank near Greenville, Mississippi. The ship, built in 1848, was carrying over 600 tons of sugar, molasses and 250 passengers and crew. She departed New Orleans for Cincinnati on the 27th, at 03:00 on the 28, just after captain Jones had gone to bed she ran over an underwater stump with such force it tore the ship in two.

As it was the middle of the night most people were sleeping and certainly not prepared to jump overboard, this coupled with the fact that the hull of the ship sank in about two minuets caused most of the deaths that night. The cabin separated from the hull, broke in two and drifted downstream finally grounding which saved some of the cabin passengers, but the deck passengers and deck crew perished quickly when the hull sank.

Ten hours later the SS Petonya arrived on the scene and removed the survivors from the two sections of the cabin and those found along the shore. In total about one hundred and forty-three people were killed with about one hundred and seven saved.

© 2008 Michael W. Pocock
MaritimeQuest.com