On Aug 18, 1925 the aging boilers of the Newport, RI Steamer Mackinac burst killing 55 (article we found puts figure at an initial 35) and inuring 35 with severe burns. Ship was carrying 677 excursionist. Quick action by sailors of the nearby Naval Training Station kept the casualty figures as low as they were.

http://genealogytrails.com/ri/disasters_mackinac.html

"Please kill me, I'm suffering so," a brawny Pawtucket policeman pleaded to nurses. An hour later death relieved him from all pain. The officer, one of three killed, was so scalded that the skin on his hands hung in strips. His features were burned so black that he was barely recognizable. Hospital attachés were constantly checking the lists of patients, transferring names from the roll of injured to that of the dead, and all through the day ambulances rolled through the training station gates and carried away to undertaking establishments the bodies of those who had suc***bed.

Amid the moaning and screaming victims walked clergymen of all denominations giving spiritual aid. The more seriously injured were all in separate room and it was here that the Catholic priests walked from cot to cot giving the last rites to some only seconds before death came.

The night of horror presented scores of pitiful sights. A girl whose life was despaired of cried out continually, asking why she should die.

In the first group of injured landed was a 10-year-old girl. As Patrolman Timothy Sullivan went to her side she held up her scalded arms and pleaded, "Please blow on them, they burn so."

This is the only photo we've been able to find of the ill-fated vessel so far. One of those disasters that seems to have been forgotten outside of local history...