COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 231 
and were of a kind known as the Martin boiler, which had verti- 
cal tubes. A large number of vessels in the Navy were fitted 
with boilers of this type, while others had boilers with horizontal 
tubes, opinion being divided as to the relative merits of the 
two forms. 
The Chenango was delivered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard 
early in 1864 and placed in command of Lieutenant Fillebrown. 
On the afternoon of April 15 the vessel left the Navy Yard for 
Sandy Hook to join the Onondaga for blockade service. She 
steamed slowly past Governor’s Island and entered the Narrows, 
when one of her boilers exploded, scalding thirty-two of the 
crew of whom twenty-eight died.* 
This terrible accident “ appalled the whole country,” and an 
inquest was immediately held in New York to ascertain if pos- 
sible the circumstances under which it occurred. A very large 
number of witnesses were examined, and the testimony given 
occupies 141 printed pages.*’ The jury was unable to agree and 
two verdicts were rendered, the majority holding that the ac- 
cident resulted from “ the bursting of one of the boilers, which 
was caused by a greater tension exerted on the boiler than it 
could bear, the result of the unproper bracing,” while the 
minority asserted that the boiler “ exploded from low water and 
superheated steam.” 
The specifications for the boilers were prepared by the Navy 
Department, while the boilers themselves, as already men- 
tioned, were built at private iron works in New York. It is 
probable that the majority verdict was unacceptable to the Navy 
Department because it could be interpreted as implying that 
the specifications were faulty. Doubtless on this account the 
Department, on April 30, 1864, through its Assistant Secretary, 
authorized the President of the Academy to appoint a com- 
mittee to make an independent investigation of the cause of the 
accident. He appointed J. F. Frazer, Fairman Rogers and 
* See the New York Herald for April 16 and 17, 1864. 
* See “The Boiler Explosion of the Martin boiler on board the U. S. ‘ Double-ender’ 
Chenango. The Coroner’s Inquest. A full report of the testimony, the charge of Dr. Norris 
to the jury and the verdicts.” New York, 1864. 8°. 
