1883 -Sad Fate of an Old Hero

Sad Fate of an Old Hero.
The Daily News
Batavia, Genesee County, New York State
August 10-1883

James Lafferty, an old man of seventy years who has been in the Erie jail a drunken wreck, and whom the authorities of that city propose to turn adrift--"banished from Rome"--was the hero of a tragedy many years ago. Old citizens will recall the burning of the steamer Erie between Angola and Silver Creek in 1841, by which several hudred lives were lost. Lafferty was the wheelman who stood at his post, never swerving from his duty as he held the wheel and steered the burning steamer toward the beach. But the doomed vessel became unmanageable, and burning to the water's edge, sunk. Lafferty terribley burned and almost blinded was saved to become in his old age a homeless drunken vagabond, to be turned out into the world helpless and forlorn.
***Submitted by Linda C. Schmidt
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