The steamboat "Kate McLaurin", Capt. Evans, of Orrell & Daily's Line, left Wilmington for Fayetteville 
on Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock, with merchandize for Fayetteville and the interior.

At four o'clock yesterday (Tuesday) morning when about eight miles below Elizabethtown, her boiler 
exploded, killing Capt. Evans and two deck hands. The fireman was pretty badly scalded. All the other 
hands on board escaped without injury. Luckily there were no passengers.
The boiler was blown out of the boat and landed on the river bank. Half her upper deck was also blown 
off. Her cargo of goods is either a total loss or materially injured.

The "Kate McLaurin" was owned by Messrs. Orell & Daily of Fayetteville-had been running only six months, 
and was valued at $6,000. She had a very good freight of general merchandize, but we cannot learn the 
definite amount or value-supposed to have been worth  from $2,000 to $3,000.

Captain Evans had been on the river a number of years. By his gentlemanly deportment he had gained 
a number of friends who will sincerely lament his death. His body had not been recovered at the last 
accounts. He was a native of Fayetteville, about 35 years of age, and unmarried.

There is a very heavy freshet in the river, and it no doubt required a high pressure of steam to 
enable the boat to steam the current, which may partly account for the accident. It has been said that 
the boiler was defective, and that the boat was to have laid over on her return from Fayetteville, to 
have the defect remedied.

The boat now has only her upper works out of the water, and is coming down with the current. Wilmington Journal