A woman observed an eerie, orange glow over the Chesapeake Bay one summer evening 87 years ago. She thought it was the moon. Someone suggested it might mean hot weather arriving.
She soon realized it was a ship burning off Seven Foot Knoll, near where the Patapsco River joins the Chesapeake Bay.
Lillian Klecka, the wife of U.S. Marshal Andrew Klecka, was on the porch of her Bayside Beach home at 7:15 p.m. July 29, 1937, when she realized a wooden Chesapeake Bay steamer, the City of Baltimore, was burning in Anne Arundel County waters about 14 miles from downtown Baltimore.
She put in a call to the local telephone exchange and alerted telephone operators Eva Hall, Louise Phelps and Julia Dunlap. They contacted emergency maritime authorities. News of the fire spread quickly. Physicians were told to hurry to northern Anne Arundel County. The first volunteer ambulances arrived from Riviera and Bayside beaches.
Every available municipal ambulance from Baltimore responded.
News reporters, Navy seaplanes and newsreel operators dashed to the scene.
Soon, the call went out for nearby watercraft to help in the rescue.
One of those tailing the City of Baltimore out of the harbor that evening was the Love Point Ferry, a vessel that carried passengers, freight, automobiles and trucks to the Eastern Shore.
It picked up three passengers and nine crew members, resumed its route to Kent Island and brought them back to Baltimore later in the night. The pilot boat William D. Sanner saved others.
Klecka told reporters it had taken 15 minutes before lifeboats were lowered. That time lapse would be a crucial point in the unfolding story.
“We could hear the people scream and saw some going down a rope,” Klecka said. “We could see people jumping overboard.”
The tragic event unfolded quickly. The City of Baltimore, bound for Norfolk, Virginia, departed its Light Street pier less than an hour before the fire started. It was owned by the Chesapeake Steamship Co.
The ship was built in 1911 at Sparrows Point with a steel hull but flammable wooden superstructure.
One passenger was having a drink in the ship’s lounge when he noticed smoke drifting by. Others were seated for dinner.
A 21-year-old kitchen helper named James Johnson first noticed flames in the cargo hold. The crew initially tried to douse the fire, but it was well-established.
The City of Baltimore was in plain sight of land. Dr. Frank Ogden, who lived most of the year at Calvert and 27th streets, was spending time at his Gibson Island summer home when he saw the burning ship.
He called for a pair of city fireboats, including the well-known Torrent, and seven municipal ambulances to respond. A floodlight wagon also raced to Bodkin Point to train searchlights on the water to check for anyone who might be in the bay.
“At Bayside, Pinehurst and neighboring summer communities, a corps of first-aid volunteers quickly mobilized to care for the injured and to transport them to city hospitals,” The Sun reported.
The fireboats pumped plumes of water on the burning ship, but the heat was so intense they had to back off. The ship burned to the water’s edge, and only its funnels and smokestack remained visible.
Of the 40 passengers and 52 crew members the City of Baltimore carried that night, three died. They included Aiken, South Carolina, attorney Jacob S. Polikoff, who had been visiting friends in the 2400 block of Eutaw Place a few hours earlier. Two crew members, Abel Whealton and Cyrus Haynie, perished.
Blame was assessed. The ship’s captain, Charles O. Brooks, got his license suspended because he failed to immediately sound a general alarm and was found to be remiss in getting passengers into lifeboats.
Second engineer Albert Neill was also found guilty of negligence for not using all available pumps to bring water to the fire.
Neill’s daughter was not on the ship that night but heard of its fire. She left her home in the 1400 block of Riverside Avenue in South Baltimore to go to the City of Baltimore’s Light Street pier, a gathering spot for people awaiting news of the unfolding tragedy.
“The child wept continuously until she disappeared into the crowd at about 10 p.m.,” The Sun reported. Reporters fanned out around the city and county to find and identify survivors, some of whom landed at Recreation Pier (now the Sagamore Pendry Baltimore hotel) in Fells Point.
The fire’s cause was never fully established. A federal investigator surmised a lighted cigar or cigarette had ignited a 100-pound bag of sugar.
The Sun printed edition after edition of news updates until 7 a.m. the next day.
Appearing in newspaper pictures was Ernest Horsely, who posed with his hands bandaged after he slipped down a rope to safety. Horsely was at the ship’s wheel when the fire broke out.
Newsreel photographers were able to get footage the next day, and soon, audiences were viewing what British Pathé described as “a floating funeral pyre.”