"Bell-J.C. Rawn"

Brass bell found 49 years after riverboat exploded in the Ohio River
 
Almost 49 years to the day after the tragic explosion of the stern-wheeler J. C. Rawn, divers found the boat's bell in the Ohio River.
On December 7, 1939, the J. C. Rawn was tied up on the river near 20th Street when one of its three boilers exploded, blowing out the entire front end of the boat, killing three men and badly burning several others.
On December 4, 1988, the bell of the J. C. Rawn was found, partially buried in the sand-and-gravel river bottom.
The bell's discovery rekindled memories for E. W. Rawn, Jr., who owned the stern-wheeler, which was named for his grandfather.  The J. C. Rawn was scrapped, due to the damage from the explosion.
The 130-pound bell was cast in 1911 at the E. W. Vanduzen Co.'s Buckeye Bell Foundry in Cincinnati, the same year the Howard Boat Works at Jeffersonville, Indiana built a 135-foot-long stern-wheeler.
The boat was originally named the H. S. Chamberlain and worked for an iron ore company on the Tennessee River until it was sold in 1929.
Renamed "The Weber" by the Northwestern Terminal Company, the boat operated around Evansville, Indiana, until Rawn bought it in 1931.
The bell is a dull pewter color because that is the way brass was formulated in the early 1900's.
 
Ernest H. Wright states that the J. C. Rawn was operated by his Uncle William McKinley Wright.  William McKinley Wright was blown into the air, came back down on the rubble from the explosion, burned badly, but survived to work more years on the boats.

All of the information on this page was
compiled by Ernie Wright, while he was
doing genealogy research. It has been
put on this page with his permission in
hopes that it will help him to find some
missing links.

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