PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
“I’m to receive a pardon, so I won’t kill myself breaking anymore rocks with this damn sledgehammer.” William Henry Van Schaick, former Captain of the riverboat PS General Slocum took a challenging stance in front of Sing Sing prison’s newest and most brutal guard.
“You’re not out yet, Van Schaick, and if it was up to me, you’d serve every day of your ten-year sentence. My sister, two nephews, and a niece were killed because of your negligence.”
“It’s not up to you. President Taft himself has said he’ll sign my pardon.”
“Not if you’re shot trying to escape first.”
It’s Wednesday and time again to participate in Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ 25 October 2024 edition of Friday Fictioneers. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a poem or short story no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.
The file name for the image referenced “east river.” A brief bit of Googling turned up the history of the PS General Slocum, “an American sidewheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891.”
In 1904, it caught fire and sank in the East River and was considered the worst maritime disaster of it’s time until the Titanic. At the time of the disaster, she was on a chartered run carrying members of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (German Americans from Little Germany, Manhattan) to a church picnic. An estimated 1,021 out of the 1,342 people on board died, most of them women and children.
The riverboat had a history of mishaps and groundings and in the aftermath of the disaster, her Captain William Henry Van Schaick was convicted of negligence and sentenced to ten years hard labor at Sing Sing prison.
According to this article:
Van Schaick would serve only part of his sentence at Sing Sing prison. He received a pardon (through the efforts of his wife) from President William Howard Taft in 1911.
I thought I’d tinker with history slightly in the name of justice.
To read other stories based on the prompt, visit inlinkz.
My occult, steampunk western “Blood Trail” is now available in the anthology Zehlreg Augustus Grindstone’s Spectacular Western Oddity Emporium in both Kindle and paperback formats.
Former Idaho City Sheriff Bobby Bill Thornton has become the partner to Occult Investigating Detective E.E. (Emma Elizabeth) Durbin, joining her on her quest to find the monsters who have entered our world from another realm and return them from whence they came. This time, it’s a vampire in 1888 San Francisco, but that’s just the beginning.
Durbin and Thornton first appeared in my story “Wolf in the Wind” which can be found in the anthology Shoot the Devil.
I hope you’ll buy and read Emporium and also be so kind as to leave an honest review.
Thanks.
poweredbyrobots.com 
I detect a little conflict of interests there
LikeLike
Perhaps.
LikeLike
A tense rewrite of a true situation where William needs to watch his back. Relatives may always seek revenge.
LikeLike
I’m surprised some of them didn’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is somewhat eerie, James, as our writing ideas have crossed paths before. My story is already written but, in keeping with the name of this site, I never publish until Friday. I was originally going to write about the General Slocum. My mother told us the story of how my grandfather, a construction worker in New York at the time, and his crew were called to help with the rescue and recovery after this disaster. My grandfather came home from this tragedy in a state of shock and had recurring nightmares of pulling dead women and children from the waters. What a horror.
Good solid story, James. I understand why the prison guard felt as he did.
LikeLike
Wow. That’s a great (though tragic) piece of family history. Must have been awful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it really took a toll on my granddad. It was very upsetting for me and my sister when my mother told us the story. How indescribably awful for those poor people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It doesn’t do to be cocky in the face of one’s victims, I suspect the guard had more than enough clout to get away with whatever he did.
On a FF note, I’m always impressed when a writer manages to give a character a multi word name. It cuts into the word count and makes your job even harder. Well done!
LikeLike
Thanks but that was actually his name in real life so I made due with what I had.
LikeLike
A glimpse into what was truly a tragic event. Well ‘tinkered’ James.
LikeLike
Thanks, Keith.
LikeLike
And the company who failed to keep the ship in good working order experiences no consequences for it. Who knows if the guy in prison was really at fault or just a convenient scapegoat. That said, good story, James.
LikeLike
Thanks. Yes, there was probably a lot of corruption that was swept under the rug.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Or under the waves? 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good story.
LikeLike
Thanks, Dawn.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, how sad and ominous. What a tragedy, and it seems justice was not served, unless in this version of history the guard has his way. So much sad, yet well written story, James.
LikeLike
Justice can be difficult to achieve sometimes. Thanks, Brenda.
LikeLike
Dear James,
Nice tinkering with history.
Shalom,
Rochelle
LikeLike
Thanks, Rochelle.
LikeLike