[4] On October 27, 1869, a tragedy occurred at Neely's Landing when the steamboat The Stonewall, which was carrying 300 passengers and heavily laden with tons of cargo and 200 head of livestock, caught fire.

The exact location of the disaster was known to local residents as the Devil’s Tea Table and was even mentioned by Mark Twain in his Life on the Mississippi.

The Stonewall was traveling southbound on the Mississippi River near Neely's Landing, its destinations being Cape Girardeau, Memphis and New Orleans.

The panicked passengers were caught between the flames and the icy cold water, with the Missouri shore only laying 150 feet away.

Local residents pulled bodies out of the water and wrote down the hair color, clothing type, sex and apparent age so families could identify them.