Aboard at the last minute was a Presbyterian church delegation. Polk of Tennessee, while other passengers had likely participated in the pre- Churchill Downs horse racing season at Louisville. Some of the passengers were perhaps excited about the looming Presidential campaign in less than a fortnight between Whig and Kentucky native-son candidate Henry Clay and Democrat James K. Lucy Walker departed the Louisville wharf at noon on Wednesday, October 23, 1844, outbound for New Orleans. For some unknown reason, Halderman was replaced in Louisville just before departure, and her owner, Joseph Vann, took over the duties as captain.

Captain Halderman was a very experienced river man, who since 1820 had worked as fireman, deck hand, engineer, and captain on steamboats, and later was a steamboat inspector. Halderman had successively served as masters or captains of the Lucy Walker. She was a side-wheeler with three boilers, only one deck, no masts, no figurehead, and an above-deck cabin. The boat frequently steamed to both Louisville, Kentucky and New Orleans, Louisiana. She was built at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1843 and her home port was Webbers Falls on the Arkansas River in the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Lucy Walker was an average vessel of her time: 144 feet (44 m) long with a beam of 24 feet 6 inches (7.47 m) and a draft of 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m). The vessel's owner was a Native American her crew were African-American slaves, and her passengers represented a cross-section of frontier travelers.Ĭircumstances leading up to the disaster It was one of a number of similar accidents of early 19th-century riverine transportation that led to important federal legislation and safety regulations. The explosion occurred on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 23, 1844, when the steamer's three boilers exploded, set the vessel on fire, and sank it. The Lucy Walker steamboat disaster was an 1844 steamboat accident caused by the explosion of the boilers of the steamboat Lucy Walker near New Albany, Indiana, on the Ohio River.

Lucy Walker explosion, as depicted in an 1856 woodcut. ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points.

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