Steamboat from Houston suffers fatal explosion in Galveston Bay
The steamboat Farmer, on the way from Houston to Galveston, blew up in Galveston Bay, about ten miles from her destination. More than a dozen passengers and crew were killed or missing in the explosion and six others injured. The passing steamer Neptune was able to take off the casualties and the survivors. All the U.S. mail aboard was also lost. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
James T. Lloyd, Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters ... (Cincinnati, OH: James T. Lloyd & Co., 1856), 293.