Loss of the Steamship, H. B. Plant,

In the pre-dawn hours of April 29, 1890, the worst accident in a century of steamboat travel on the upper St. Johns took place. The incident occurred when the southbound side wheeler H.B. Plant entered Lake Beresford heading for Deerfoot Landing on the lake’s northeast shore. Most of the passengers on board were sleeping soundly in the reassuring knowledge that this steel hulled vessel had made the run from Jacksonville to Sanford three times a week for the past eight years without a single incident. But when the ship was only one half mile from the dock, a disastrous series of events began to unfold.

At 4 a.m., agent J.B. Taylor was already on duty at the wharf, watching as this “flagship” of Henry Plant’s fleet made its approach. To Taylor’s shock, he saw flames suddenly flare up on the lower forward deck and heard a mate call for a water hose.

In his eyewitness account given two weeks later, Taylor noted that the fire spread so rapidly that “in less than one minute the steamer was doomed.” Following on the heels of the mate’s cry, Taylor heard the captain giving orders to lower the lifeboats. Since only one lifeboat could be lowered at a time, the captain and mate started throwing life preservers out onto the water.

The ship’s paddle wheel must have halted almost immediately, because Taylor estimated that the vessel remained at its half mile distance from the landing for the entire time it took him to take a rowboat out to the ship.

When he reached the intense heat of the stern, he paddled around doing what he could to help. Fortunately, only three passengers lost their lives that day, and Taylor took all 38 of the survivors into his home, where he and his wife provided them with food and dry clothes.

While the rescue was going on, winds slowly pushed the burning hulk toward the Deerfoot wharf, but fortunately, the hull ran aground at an undeveloped piece of shoreline a short distance away, thus sparing the dock from damage.

The ensuing investigation determined the fire’s cause.

When the night watchman was preparing to refill his oil lamp, he accidently overturned a 5 gallon container of the fuel. The lamp immediately ignited the oil spill and “liquid flames spread swiftly across the deck.”

For many years afterward, the charred wreckage of the once proud vessel could be seen on the Lake Beresford shoreline, just south of the town of Beresford. (It remained in its overgrown gravesite until it was salvaged as part of a World War II scrap metal drive.)

Excerpt from, Better Country Beyond.

Written by, DeLandite Karen Ryder.

Karen Ryder and her husband, Bob Wetton, live in DeLand and are active members of the West Volusia Historical Society. For information about obtaining a copy of her book Better Country Beyond, call the Historical Society at 386-740-6813, or email [email protected]. All proceeds from the sale of this book go to the West Volusia Historical Society’s Bill Dreggors Fund, which helps finance the printing of books about West Volusia history.