By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Ninety years after a steamship disaster that killed dozens of Rhode Islanders, the 1925 sinking of the Macinac is remembered with a wreath-laying and unveiling a plaque in memory of those whose lives were lost.
More than 600 passengers and crew were hurt and 55 killed when a boiler blew up soon after the ship left Newport on August 18, 1925.
“It was the single largest tragedy the state of Rhode Island had ever seen until, of course, our Station Nightclub Fire,” said Rev. Charles Galligan, pastor of Saint Joseph’s Church in Cumberland, who spent years as pastor of a Pawtucket church.
Pawtucket leaders organize the annual remembrance, and installed the plaque at the recently renovated Festival Pier, which was to have been the Macinac’s intended destination. Many of the victims were from Pawtucket.
“They said it was like a Sunday afternoon, going shopping in Newport,” said Mark Wildenhain. The Pawtucket city councilman lost several members of his extended family in the disaster.
“It was kind of like the Bay Queen, taking the Bay Queen to Newport and coming back. The memory doesn’t dwindle for those of us who’ve lived it all our lives,” he said.
Mary Thornhill, 98, of Pawtucket is one of the living links to the disaster. Eight years old at the time, she lost her sister, Martha McClelland, 19 in the disaster.
Her sister worked at the J.P.Coats Company, a textile and thread maker, and was on an outing with fellow mill workers.
“She said, ‘when I come home, I’m going to bring you each a gift’. Well, we waited for that gift more than we expected.”
“A difficult day,” she said of the remembrance ceremony. “It always is when it starts to come around because I still miss her.”
Mary Thornhill joined Councilman Wildenhain in laying a wreath beside the plaque, which reads in part:
“Dedicated to the Memory of the 55 Whose Lives Were Lost.”
“Husbands, wives and children torn from each other’s side by that hissing, blinding, burning steam”.
