Getting Ready for a Start -- February 27, 2014

From the 07-November-1898 San Francisco Call. William A Coulter did many maritime drawings for the newspaper. Click on the image for a larger view. 

THE river steamer J. D. Peters, that was wrecked in a collision with the collier Czarinia last week and was afterward beached in Richardsons Bay, is still on the mud fiats. The tugs Rescue and Sea Queen went over to her yesterday afternoon. It was the intention to tow the steamer off the flats and up to Hunters Point dry dock where she was to be overhauled. H. J. Corcoran, superintendent of the California Navigation and Improvement Company, owner of the Peters, and Captain Grey, superintendent of the towboat company, went over on the Rescue, but after several attempts had been made they decided to postpone the matter until to-day. The Rescue got on one side of the wrecked vessel and the Sea Queen on the other, but the difficulty was in finding a place on the hull of the wreck to which to make fast. Superintendent Corcoran thinks there are at least five Chinese in the forward cabin of the J. D. Peters. This place was built up especially for the use of the Chinese employed on the various ranches along the river, and as it was in the eyes of the vessel and below the main deck it must have been flooded very quickly. The Chinese runner for the company is known to have been drowned. He rushed on deck as soon as warned by the chief engineer, but remembering that he had $300 in a bundle on his bunk, he rushed back to secure it and was never seen again. It is thought that four others who were smoking opium when the collision occurred were also drowned. The Chinese Consul and the chairmen of the six companies have written to the navigation company, informing the management that five Chinese are missing and asking that the bodies be cared for when recovered. Quite a number of Chinese went out to the dry-dock to meet the Peters during the fternoon in the hope of learning something about their relatives as soon as the vessel was docked, but they were disappointed.  Another attempt will be made to get the Peters on the dry-dock this morning.