Columbus Porter Watts, Fireman First Class, USS Delaware

Location:
Johnson Cemetery
Fairmount, Gordon County, Georgia
N 34° 26.625 W084° 41.972

Date of Visits: October 3, 2009

Tombstone Inscription:

Columbus Porter Watts
Born
Jan 21, 1883
Died
Jan 17, 1911
Died on USS Dellaware First Class Fireman
Discussion:

Columbus Porter Watts, the son of Pleasant Marion Watts and Willie A. Mansell of Fairmount, Georgia, was a Fireman First Class assigned to the USS Delaware. The sixth version of the USS Delaware (BB-28) was a battleship that had been launched at Newport News by the Newport News Shipbuilding Company on February 6, 1909. On the morning of February 17, 1911 the Delaware was in route to Hampton Roads, Virginia from Guantanamo, Cuba. The Delaware was to pick up the remains the Chilean Minister Cruz and transport them home to Chile. An explosion occurred and Watts was killed. The incident was described in the New Your Times:

WARSHIP EXPLOSION KILLS EIGHT SEAMEN.
THEIR BODIES ARE DRAGGED FROM THE DELAWARE'S STEAM-FILLED BOILER ROOM ANOTHER DYING. STORY TOLD BY WIRELESS.
BATTLESHIP WAS SAILING TO HAPOTON ROADS FROM CUBA TO CONVEY THE CHILEAN MINISTER'S BODY HOME.
Washington, Jan. 17. -- Eight men met instant death and one man was so badly burned that he probably will die as a result of a boiler explosion aboard the battleship Delaware at 9:20 o'clock this morning, the cause of which is as yet unexplained, according to a wireless message tonight to the Navy Department from Capt. GOVE.The Delaware was on her way to Hampton Roads from Guantanamo, Cuba, and had been designated to transport the body of Senor Cruz, late Chilean Minister to the United States, back to Chile, instead of the South Carolina, whose propeller met with a mishap. The nine victims were on duty in the boiler room when the accident occurred. A terrific shock sent the crew scurrying below and nine bodies were dragged from the cloud of hot steam that hissed through the hold.Capt. GOVE'S message to the Navy Department reads:"At 9:20 A.M., Jan. 17, three backheaders, Nos. 8, 9, and 10 of Boiler "0" in Fireroom 4 blew out explosively, killing eight and injuring one, who will probably die, these being all the men on duty in the fireroom. Board of officers appointed immediately to investigate and report. Not yet reported. Extent of damage is ten backheaders injured in Boiler "0". Cause not yet placed."The dispatch also stated that details of the accident would be telegraphed to the department when the vessel arrived at the Norfolk Navy Yard.The dead are:CHARLES HENRY HARP, fireman.WILLIAM MORRIS WHITE, fireman.COLUMBUS PORTER WATTS, fireman.HERBERT ANDERSON BREWER, fireman.LEWIS ADDISON WHITE, coal passer.CLARENCE DE WITT, coal passer.CHRISTIAN JENSEN, water tender.An unknown man.EUGENE PHILLIPS, a fireman, was badly injured.HARP came from Violet, Ky., and had been in the navy some three years.WILLIAM MORRIS WHITE, who had been in the service one year, was from Vicksburg, Miss., where his father, S. P. White, lives. WATTS was a resident of Fairmont, Ga., and leaves a father, Pleasant M. Watts, there. He had been in the service about three years. BREWER was a native of Hermitage, Tenn., and had been in the service one year. His next of kin was India Brewer, an aunt, of Hermitage. LEWIS ADDISON WHITE was from Beaver Dam, Wis., where his uncle, Charles White, lies. He had been in the service one year. DE WITT was a resident of New Florence, Penn., where his mother, Mrs. Kate De Witt, survives him. He had been in the service less than four months. JENSEN was from Brooklyn, N.Y., where his father, Andrew Jensen, lives. He had been in the naval service about two and one-half years. PHILLIPS, the fireman, who was badly injured, was from Washington, D. C. He had been in the service eight years and ten months.The boiler explosion on the Delaware, which belongs to the first division of the Atlantic fleet, recalls a similar accident that occurred on the North Dakota, a sister ship of the Delaware. In a four hours' endurance test in November, 1909, when a seven-inch tube in one of the boilers burst as the vessel was off Cape Ann, speeding at over twenty-one knots an hour. Two firemen, a coal passer, and a water tender were badly scalded, but no lives were lost. On Sept. 7 last there was a more serious mishap on the North Dakota, three of her crew being killed and thirteen badly injured through the ignition of fuel oil in one of the compartments when the vessel was near Old Point Comfort, Va.The worst boiler accident in the history of the navy was that which came near destroying the gunboat Bennington on July 21, 1905. This explosion was due to the excessive pressure in one of the boilers. Sixty men lost their lives. The boiler was hurled back upon another boiler, causing that one also to explode.On April 13, 1906, two officers and eight enlisted men of the battleship Kearsarge were killed in a gun explosion. This accident was similar to the one that killed three men on the battleship Iowa a few years before.On July 14, off Cape Cod, Mass., a powder charge in one of the 8-inch turrets of the battleship Georgia prematurely exploded, killing eight officers and men. One of the officers was Lieut. Caspar Goodrich, a son of Rear Admiral Goodrich. These are not all of the accidents that have beset the navy in recent years, but they are the most serious.The accident on the Delaware, occuring on the return from Europe of the fleet, brings the number of vessels disabled during the homeward voyage to three, the others being the dreadnoughts Michigan and South Carolina, both of which lost propellers and were compelled to head for Hampton Roads for repairs instead of proceeding as scheduled for the drill grounds off the southern coast of Cuba.The Delaware was expected to arrive at Hampton Roads tonight, but she was delayed by fog, and probably will not report there until tomorrow. She was spoken indirectly by wireless and reported "hung up in the fog."



Sources:
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, www.history.navy.mil

GenDisasters http://www3.gendisasters.com/virginia/13480/old-point-comfort-va-shore-battleship-explosion-jan-1911?page=0%2C1

The New York Times New York 1911-01-18

Side Panel of CP Watt’s tombstone in Johnson Cemetery.