coast from Massachusetts Bay and lashing into fury the waters that
pounded over the sand bars from Race Point to Wellfleet.
On the afternoon of the previous day one of those ungainly stone
carrying sloops, with a deck load of granite bound from Rockport for
New York, sailed out of Rockport Harbor. She carried besides her
captain a crew of four men.
When daylight broke on the morning of the 30th the patrol from Peaked
Hill Bars Station discovered this sloop hard and fast on the outlying
sand bar, a half mile south of the station. Capt. David H. Atkins of
the Peaked Hill Station decided that the sea was not so severe but
that the surf boat might be launched. This was done and the following
members of the Coast Guard Station, Elisha Taylor, Stephen Mayo, Isaiah
Young, Chas. P. Kelley, Samuel O. Fisher, with Capt. Atkins at the
steering oar, pushed the boat through the surf and pulled away through
the angry sea for the rescue. Surfman John Cole was left on the beach
to assist the boat’s crew on its return. They reached the vicinity of
the stranded vessel but the sea was so rough and the vessel rolled so
in the troubled waters that a near approach to the craft was unsafe and
in fact almost impossible.
The men on the sloop were told to jump and the Coast Guardsmen stood
ready to pick them up. Three of the men did as requested and were
pulled into the life boat, but the captain and mate refused to take the
chance, thus making it necessary for Capt. Atkins and his men to return
to the shore. This they did and landed the three sailors.
Capt. Atkins, fearing that the sloop would be destroyed and the two men
drowned, again went out to try and induce them to leave the vessel. As
the surf boat neared the vessel the rush of the tide and sea carried
the boat towards the long projecting boom and the loosened main sheet
carried over and back with every roll of the craft caught under the
bow of the boat and turned it completely over, throwing the entire crew
into the mad waters. The surfmen, finding it impossible to right the
boat, clung desperately to her bottom. Soon Capt. Atkins, who was not
a strong swimmer, dropped exhausted into the sea. He was soon followed
by Elisha Taylor and Stephen Mayo. Young, Kelley and Fisher, who were
good swimmers, seeing that if they clung much longer to the boat must
soon go as had their mates before them, so kicking off rubber boots and
as much clothing as they could, struck out boldly for the shore, which
they reached exhausted and chilled, and were pulled from the surf by
Cole who had been standing by.
The bodies of Capt. Atkins and surfmen Taylor and Mayo were recovered
the same day many miles down the coast from where the disaster occurred.
One of the crew of the Highland Station who helped to recover Capt.
Atkins’ body from the surf was his own son.
With the incoming tide and moderating wind the Trumbull floated away
from the sand bar and sailed down the coast with the captain and mate
on board.
This tragedy could have been averted had not the requirements of the
service and the sense of duty urged the Coast Guardsmen to attempt the
rescue.
[Illustration]
WRECK OF THE SOMERSET
BRITISH MAN OF WAR
So far back as November 2nd, 1778, the British warship Somerset was
wrecked on Peaked Hill Bars, two miles east of Race Point Lighthouse.
The Somerset was one of a fleet of British warships which had been
throwing shot and shell at Bunker Hill Monument and terrorizing Boston
and the surrounding coast towns for many weeks.
[Illustration: THE WRECK OF THE SOMERSET--BRITISH MAN OF WAR]
She often anchored in Provincetown Harbor, and a few days before this
November day on which she was lost, left the harbor for the purpose
of intercepting some French merchant ships which were due in Boston.
On the second day of the cruise, and while attempting to re-enter the
harbor, she encountered thick weather and a fierce northeast gale.
Losing her bearings she stranded on Peaked Hill Bars and everything
movable was speedily swept from her decks. She carried a list of nearly
500 officers and men, more than 200 of whom were swept from her decks
and drowned when the ship stranded.
Next day the ship was beaten over the bars by the rough sea which
continued, and she was forced near enough to the beach to allow of the
rescue of the remainder of the ship’s company.
Capt. Hallet of Yarmouth and Col. Doane of Wellfleet with a detachment
of the Militia came down the Cape to the wreck, put Capt. Aurey of the
frigate under arrest and marched them all up the Cape to Boston, where
they were imprisoned.
For more than a hundred years the old ship lay buried in the sands of
the beach; then the ever moving sands and the currents of the ocean
tore away the sand bars and exposed the timbers and rust covered cannon
of the once proud ship, but it was not for long that the remains of the
hull lay exposed. Relic hunters carried away many of the old timbers as
souvenirs; then the relentless sea drove back the ever shifting sands
and completely covered ship and guns. That was more than fifty years
ago and since that day no part of the old Man of War has shown on the
surface.
She was supposed to have carried sixty guns, most of them 24-pounders;
that is, they shot a solid ball that weighed twenty-four pounds.
[Illustration]
MYSTERY OF THE MARY CELESTE
The possible solution of the fifty year old mystery of the Mary
Celeste, which has baffled the investigators the world over, is herein
explained.
The story is told by Capt. Lucy of the British Reserves. Capt. Lucy is
70 years old and lives in India, but was recently on a visit to England.
The history of the abandoning of the Mary Celeste was told to him by a
man who was boatswain on the Celeste, but only on Capt. Lucy’s solemn
oath not to divulge it until his informant was dead.
For more than forty years Capt. Lucy has kept the secret but now
considers himself free to speak.
The Mary Celeste, a brig rigged vessel, sailed from Baltimore for
Genoa, on the 7th of November, 1872, with a cargo of alcohol. She was
captained by a man named Briggs, whose wife and daughter accompanied
him. The crew consisted of 17 Americans, Danes and Norwegians. On
December 13th the brig was found with all sails set and was towed into
Bermuda. There was not a soul on board, and no sign of a struggle, but
all of her boats were missing. Meals were found spread on the table in
the cabin.
According to Capt. Lucy’s informant, who called himself Triggs,
probably an assumed name, told the story to Capt. Lucy in Melbourne.
The voyage of the Celeste was uneventful until nearing the coast of
Bermuda, when a derelict, an abandoned steamer, was sighted.
Triggs and four others launched a boat and rowed to the derelict but
were unable to identify the craft because the salt water had washed
away the name. London as hailing port was legible. In the purser’s
cabin they found a safe. The captain of the Celeste and a carpenter
were sent for.
The safe was broken open and about 3500 pounds of gold and silver
were found inside. After opening the water cocks, so the derelict
would sink, because it was a menace to navigation, the boarding party
returned to the Celeste with the booty and there split it up, the
captain taking 1200 pounds, the mate 600, the second mate 400, Triggs
400 and the crew the rest among them. The captain’s wife and daughter
had no share.
Then the officers and men of the Celeste began to fear they had
committed an illegal act. No one was very well posted in marine law,
and the officers became seriously worried.
So the captain called the other officers to his cabin and it was
decided to sink the Celeste and make for the nearest land.
But in the meantime a passing vessel had spoken with the Mary Celeste
and they, on board the Celeste, felt there had been a suspicion, on
board the hailing vessel, of possible foul play if they sank the
vessel. So instead they abandoned the brig, making off in the boats
which they had. They left meals on the cabin table to make the affair
as mysterious as possible so as to throw off investigation.
They painted on the boats they rowed away in, the name of a schooner
that had been recently lost, and arriving at Bermuda reported the loss
of the schooner whose name they had painted on the boats.
Triggs declared that he never again saw any member of the Celeste’s
crew.
From private enquiries Capt. Lucy was inclined to credit Triggs’ story,
because he seemed to be well supplied with money and had money in the
banks at Melbourne.
_A very interesting story, but quite improbable._
A more reasonable explanation of this mystery lies in the fact that a
slight fire developed in the galley, and those on board knowing what an
inflammable and dangerous cargo was beneath them hurriedly launched the
boats and all of the crew scrambled in and pulled away from the vessel
but probably lay by for a while to see if an explosion would follow,
then a breeze sprang up and the Celeste, with all sails set, sailed
rapidly away and they could not overtake her.
Very likely before those in the boat could reach land a gale came on,
swamped the boat and all were drowned.
THE SELF-STEERED CRAFT
Late in the afternoon of October 23, 1854, a great storm was sweeping
the New England coast. Watchers on the cliffs sighted through the
thick and driving mists a brig rigged vessel over which the sea was
constantly breaking, heading directly towards the shore. Soon, wind and
sea driven, she drove through the onsweeping waves over the outlying
line of sand bars. Suddenly, when directly between the outer and inner
line of bars, she swung broadside to the sea and headed straight up
the coast, when it was seen that her crew had been forced to mount and
cling to the main rigging, where they were clinging desperately above
the raging sea which was pouring in torrents across the vessel’s deck,
making any attempt to regain the use of the wheel impossible. Before
being driven to the rigging the crew had lashed the wheel. Then up the
coast, under short sail, the vessel drove onward without guiding hand
clear to the end of the Cape and around Race Point into Massachusetts
Bay; across this tumbling sea of mad waters she rushed on until she
piled up on the rocks at Scituate, and there in a few hours she was
ground to pieces, where the entire crew of seven men were swallowed up
in the sea.
As she drove along the surf opposite Highland Station a great brown pig
was swept from her deck and came rolling up in the surf on the shore.
He was a good swimmer and had made the distance, somewhat out of breath
but intact. A spectator took him home and he grew to be a big and lusty
porker. If he could have talked we would have known the name of his
ship.
TRAGEDY OF THE HERBERT FULLER
The death of Lester H. Monks, early in 1927, recalls one of the most
mysterious crime cases in the history of the country. It was that of
the murders committed on the barkentine Herbert Fuller, which in 1896
sent a chill of horror down the spine of everyone who read the details
of these wicked murders.
Somewhere between the port of Halifax and Delaware Breakwater, on a
starlit night in early June of that year, the captain and second mate
and the captain’s wife were brutally murdered with an axe, in the cabin
of the Fuller. This vessel was carrying a cargo of lumber to Cuba.
The arrival of the barkentine off the port of Halifax with the three
bodies of the murdered victims in a canvas covered boat towed behind
the Fuller, unfolded a tale of horror to shock humanity and unequalled
in criminal history.
The ship was in charge of Monks, a young Harvard student who was taking
this trip on the Fuller for his health, while the first mate, Thomas
Bram, a colored man, and a seaman named Charles Brown, were in irons.
The Halifax authorities locked up Monks and the entire crew. Monks was
the son of fine people, respected and well-to-do ship owners, and he
was quickly given his liberty on parole, but the other members of the
crew were held until an investigation could be made.
It appeared that upon the night of the murders only six persons were
aft. On deck were Bram, the first mate, in charge of the ship, and
Brown, the helmsman. The other four were below, only half a level lower
than the after deck. They were Captain Charles I. Nash, asleep in the
chart room; Augustus Blandburg, second mate, in his bunk in the room
adjoining the chart room; Mrs. Nash, in her stateroom leading from the
main cabin; and Monks, whose room was between the chart room and the
captain’s cabin.
In the middle of the night, Monks testified that he was awakened by
a woman’s scream, loud and piercing. Dressing as quick as possible,
he seized his revolver from the table--and it was discovered later it
was the only one on board--and rushed up the companionway stairs to
the deck. In doing so he had to run through the chart room, and on the
floor he saw the body of the captain. As he reached the deck he said
he saw Bram at the head of the stairs holding in his hand a heavy piece
of board which he threw at Monks. Bram said afterwards that seeing the
passenger rushing up the stairs with a pistol, he became frightened and
threw the board as a matter of protection.
The entire crew was then aroused and the cabin inspected. The second
mate’s body was found on his bunk and Mrs. Nash’s body in bed in her
cabin.
Monks’ escape was considered miraculous in view of the fact that
he alone of the four persons below decks at the time escaped the
slaughter. All of the rooms here practically opened into the main cabin.
In the panic which followed the finding of the bodies, Monks and the
cook, Jonathan Spencer, took charge. Every man, particularly Bram and
Brown, were watched. On the morning of the fourth day Spencer became
suspicious of Bram and had him put in irons.
After being ironed, Bram declared that on the night of the murders, he
had, through a window of the chart room, seen Brown murder the captain.
Brown in turn accused Bram of the killing. There was considerable doubt
whether Brown could have left the wheel, committed the murders and
returned to the wheel without the course of the ship being very evident
to the others of the crew.
For a few days after the murders the bodies were lying in the cabin
where they fell. Then they were sewed up in canvas, placed in the
ship’s jollyboat and towed astern.
About this time some member of the crew found the blood-stained axe,
with which the murders were committed, hid away in the lumber of the
vessel’s deckload, and it was thrown overboard, fearing that some
person on board might get it and use it as a weapon for further killing.
Bram and Brown were accused of the murders. It developed that Brown’s
real name was Leopold Westerburg, and that he once shot a man in
Wurtenburg, in Germany, but had escaped by pleading insanity. Later
the charge was dropped and he was accused of only having concealed the
crime which another had committed.
Bram went to trial in Boston, October 29th, 1896. After a sensational
and hard fought battle by some of the most prominent lawyers in the
state, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but his counsel
got a new trial on a writ of error. Meanwhile the United States had
passed a law permitting a jury to return a verdict of murder in first
degree, but with a recommend of life imprisonment instead, and though
again Bram was found guilty, life imprisonment was given him and he
was committed to Charlestown State Prison for life.
In November, 1906, Bram was removed to the Federal Prison at Atlanta.
He always protested his innocence of the crime, and this coupled with
good behavior, secured his pardon, August 27, 1913.
On receiving his pardon he asked the citizens of Atlanta for a chance
to vindicate himself. He opened a restaurant there and became a highly
respected citizen and business man.
Monks got his degree from Harvard in 1898, and he became a prominent
figure in the business world.
Though this story was not closely connected with the coast of Cape Cod,
the writer had seen the Herbert Fuller many times in her voyaging up
and down the coast.
Later reports of Bram find that after he had sold his restaurant
business in Atlanta he purchased a four masted schooner and engaged
in the transportation of lumber on the coast and made many successful
voyages.
[Illustration]
THE JOB JACKSON WRECK
On the 5th day of January, 1895, the big coal laden schooner Job
H. Jackson, in a howling northeast gale, went ashore on the outer
bar between Peaked Hill Bar and Race Point Coast Guard Station, and
was torn to pieces in the terrific gale that drove the great waves
constantly over her.
Eight of her crew of nine men were rescued after much difficulty by the
life savers of the two stations. She was deeply laden with coal and was
so far from shore that no mortar lines could be shot over her.
The first attempt of the Coast Guard to launch a boat resulted in a
capsize. On the second try the boat was successfully launched through
the towering seas, but could not approach nearer than two hundred feet
of the wreck.
In the meantime the entire crew of the vessel had climbed into the
rigging, to prevent being swept overboard by the deluge of water that
swept the decks of the fast breaking up craft.
Then the men one by one jumped from the rigging into the wild surf and
were pulled into the surf boat; all but one man of the crew made it.
Then the somewhat overloaded boat was headed through the breakers for
the shore.
Just as the boat rode the last wave at the shore it was again
overturned, but twenty men on the shore stood ready and the crew of the
schooner and the Coast Guardsmen were snatched from the surf. By noon
of the following day all that remained of the Jackson were broken spars
and deck houses scattered along the sands of the beach.
LOSS OF THE NUMBER 238
On the morning of February 18th, 1927, a northeast storm was developing
on the North Atlantic coast and white-capped waves were driving towards
the shore all the way from Chatham to Race Point.
The Coast Guard cruiser No. 238, one of the smaller boats of this
fleet engaged in patrolling the coast for the purpose of intercepting
rum runners, was several miles off Nantucket Lightship. This boat had
rendezvous at Provincetown and those on board, recognizing that a gale
of unusual violence was rapidly approaching the coast, the return of
the boat to port should be immediate. So the officers of the cruiser
felt that as a matter of safety all possible speed should be made for
Provincetown Harbor.
The boat made good time up the coast in the ever increasing gale which
drove water in torrents over her decks. When she had reached a position
one mile east of the Peaked Hills Buoy, suddenly her engines went dead
and she became a helpless, drifting craft. Every possible effort was
made to repair the engine without avail.
On board the stricken craft they signalled to the Highland Coast Guard
Station and asked that help be sent to them. Conditions of wind and sea
grew constantly worse. Soon the darkness of night came on and from the
disabled boat signal lights flashed every little while telling of the
seriousness of their condition. These signals were seen and understood
by the Highland Coast Guard crew. It was seen that the boat was being
driven nearer and nearer the sea-swept sand bars.
Over the dark and rushing sea came to those on shore by the flashing
signals this message: “We are helpless; both anchors are down but they
do not hold us and we are slowly but surely going to our destruction;
unless you can send help we must surely perish.”
Telephone and telegraph messages were hurriedly sent to the authorities
in Boston, and a large ship was dispatched from the Navy Yard at
Charlestown, but she had not proceeded two miles beyond Boston Light,
when, from the fury of the storm, she, too, broke down and had a
struggle to get back to shelter, coming dangerously near to foundering
herself.
All night long until midnight frequently from the distressed boat came
frantic cries across the surging waters, but no earthly power could
reach them.
Miss Olive Williams, manager of the Western Union Telegraph and Marine
Reporting Station on the cliffs at Highland Light, remained on duty all
the night long to keep in touch with the boat and the stations on shore.
At midnight the last signals from the doomed 238 flashed across the
angry sea--the end had come.
With daylight next morning, out there, two hundred yards from the
shore, lay a mass of broken timbers and twisted iron, all that remained
of the little cruiser, and the bodies of her crew of eight officers and
men were being washed about in the cruel waters that thundered to the
shore.
This was the worst disaster in this immediate vicinity since the
terrible storm of November 27th, 1898, when the Portland foundered,
carrying to death 165 persons.
Only two bodies of the cruiser’s crew were ever recovered from the sea.
[Illustration]
THE PALMER FLEET
About the beginning of the Civil War and for several years thereafter,
there were many four and five masted schooners built and operated in
the coal carrying trade along the North Atlantic coast.
Capt. Wm. H. Palmer and Associates built and managed a fleet of this
class of schooners, which were known as the “Palmer Fleet.” Each vessel
when built took on the name of some member of the Palmer family. Capt.
Palmer became the managing owner. These were great, beautiful vessels,
and when with a favoring breeze they sailed gaily up and down the
coast, presented a picture worth going many miles to see.
About that time and for some fifteen years thereafter, the coal
carrying business from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Boston and ports
beyond was very good, and much money was made in the business, and
these large schooners were built especially to handle this trade along
the Atlantic seaboard.
The Palmer fleet did not by any means include all the four and five
masters engaged in this transportation business. There were other firms
that, in addition to handling four and five masters, were building and
operating six masters.
Of all the six masters, I do not know of a single one afloat on the New
England coast today, and the four and five masters are very few indeed.
Following are the names of the schooners of the Palmer Fleet, and so
far as I know there is not one of them afloat today, December 15th,
1927.
The first of this fleet, the Jane Palmer, was built at Harbor View,
East Boston, and she had a carrying capacity of 4400 tons of coal. Her
draft was 29 feet, that is, she required more than 29 feet of water in
which to float when loaded.
The others were Paul Palmer, Baker Palmer, Dorothy Palmer, Singleton
Palmer, Davis Palmer, Fuller Palmer, Elizabeth Palmer, Prescott Palmer,
and Harwood Palmer, these were the ten five masters, and the Maud
Palmer and Marie Palmer were the two four masters.
The Davis Palmer was the largest of the fleet and had a carrying
capacity of 5000 tons. The four masters carried only 2800 tons each.
There were two schooners named Paul Palmer. The first one was stranded
on the Jersey Coast, later was floated and re-named George P. Hudson.
The second Paul Palmer was totally destroyed by fire five miles east of
Race Point Light.
The Davis Palmer was lost in the terrible Christmas blizzard of 1909,
and with her entire crew of nine officers and men went to the bottom in
Broad Sound, in Boston Harbor.
[Illustration: SIGHTED BY SHIPS OFF CAPE COD]
A GALE, AND WHAT IT DID
The sea, powerful, wonderful and ever full of mystery, ever restless
and uncontrolled by human efforts, destructive in its might when sea
and wind and tide combine, calm and beautiful when the summer sun
shines across its blue surface, over which the ships move grandly and
safely; but when the flying snow sweeps over the frozen surface of the
gale-swept ocean with seas that scatter destruction as it is hurled
upon craft or shore, it is a different story.
This is a book primarily of shipwrecks, where there is loss of human
lives that drop to untimely graves in the wild seas.
But there are many strange events on the sea coasts, though not
directly concerned in the sacrifice of human lives, but are so strange
and unusual that they appeal to our wonder and interest.
We want to tell you a little about what the wind and the sea did in and
around Provincetown Harbor one night in December, 1926.