of the newly built railroad from Boston. She was carrying 143 passengers and crew and a cargo of 150 bales of cotton. The ship was expected to arrive in Stonington the following morning in time to meet the train that connected with Boston. The ship's usual captain, Jacob Vanderbilt (the brother of Cornelius), could not make the voyage owing to illness, and was replaced by veteran Captain George Child. At 7:30 p.m., the ship's first mate noticed that the woodwork and casings about the smokestack were on fire. The ship was four miles off Eaton's Neck on the north shore of Long Island. Crew members used buckets and boxes to throw water on the flames, as well as a small, hand-pumped fire engine. Once it was apparent that the fire could not be extinguished, the ship's three lifeboats were prepared for launch. The ship's paddlewheel was still churning at full speed, since crewmen could not reach the engine room to shut off the boilers. The first boat was sucked into the wheel, killing its occupants. Captain Child had fallen into the lifeboat and was among those killed. The ropes used to lower the other two boats were cut incorrectly, causing the boats to hit the water stern-first. Both boats promptly sank. Pilot Stephen Manchester turned the ship toward the shore in hopes of beaching it. The drive-rope that controlled the rudder quickly burned through, and the engine stopped two miles from shore. The ship, out of control, drifted northeast, away from land. The ship's cargo of cotton ignited quickly, causing the fire to spread from the smokestack to the entire superstructure. Passengers and crew threw empty baggage containers and bales of cotton into the water to be used as rafts. The center of the main deck collapsed shortly after 8:00 p.m. The fire spread to such an extent that most of the passengers and crew were forced to jump into the frigid water by midnight. Those who had nothing to climb onto quickly succumbed to hypothermia. The ship was still burning when it sank at 3:00 a.m. According to legend, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was scheduled to travel on the Lexingtons fatal voyage, but missed it due to discussing the merits of a recent poem, The Wreck of the Hesperus, with a publisher. The poem also included a ship sinking. One of the passengers who was lost in the catastrophe