Explosion of the Steamship Dayton

A newspaper report of the time had a theory. It said the Dayton's boilers had probably run dry, because the pump pipes may have clogged with salt from the bay water, and that the chief engineer had gone to rest, leaving his assistant in charge. The paper counted nine dead at once, against the eight names on the plaque, and the list took in the watchman and four unidentified people. It called the wreck a warning to government agents about the steamers and engineers they hired to carry troops. Captain West was badly scalded and not expected to live.

What the plaque says

Explosion of the Steamship Dayton Shortly after the people of Texas voted to approve annexation to the U.S. in June 1845, the U.S. entered a boundary dispute between Texas and Mexico. President James K. Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to position his troops on or near the Rio Grande. Corpus Christi was chosen as headquarters for the troops. The steamer "Dayton" was carrying troops from Corpus Christi to St. Joseph's Island on September 12, 1845 when a boiler burst near McGloin's Bluff (Ingleside). A second boiler blew as the boat plunged into the water. The remains of the vessel caught on fire and soon sank. A small boat picked up the wounded in the water following the explosions. Seven soldiers were killed, and one died several days later. A burial site was chosen here by Gen. Hitchcock and a military funeral took place the same day as the accident. The "Dayton" explosion victims buried here are: Lt. Benjamin A. Berry, age 28; Lt. Thaddeus Higgins, age 28; Richard Edwards, born in New York, age 33; John Hughes, born in Chambly, Canada, age 18; Alexander Iwanowski, born in Kamienic, Poland, age 39; James Johnson, born in Nottingham, England, age 36; James Marshall, born in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, age 39; and Daniel McKerns, born in Chester, Pennsylvania, age 26. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — 0.6 mi
  Corpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 0.8 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• Texas State Aquarium — 1.0 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 1.2 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Old Bayview Cemetery — steps away
• Louis de Planque — steps away
• Anna Moore Schwein — steps away
• John Dix — steps away