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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shipwrecks
on Cape Cod
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Shipwrecks on Cape Cod

the story of a few of the many hundred shipwrecks
which have occurred on Cape Cod

Author: Isaac M. Small

Release date: February 14, 2024 [eBook #72960]

Language: English

Original publication: Chatham, Mass: The Chatham Press Inc,

1928

Credits: Steve Mattern and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

SHIPWRECKS ON CAPE COD ***
 Transcriber’s Note
Larger versions of most illustrations may be seen by right-
clicking them and selecting an option to view them separately,
or by double-tapping and/or stretching them.
Additional notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
 ISAAC M. SMALL
WHO RESPECTFULLY DEDICATES THIS LITTLE
VOLUME
OF “SHIPWRECKS”
TO CAPE COD’S SUMMER VISITORS
Shipwrecks on Cape Cod
THE STORY OF A FEW OF THE
MANY HUNDRED SHIPWRECKS WHICH HAVE
OCCURRED ON CAPE COD

By ISAAC M. SMALL
FOR SIXTY YEARS MARINE REPORTING AGENT
FOR BOSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
HIGHLANDS OF NORTH TRURO, MASSACHUSETTS
HIGHLAND LIGHT
MAY 1st, 1928

Reprinted 1967 By
THE CHATHAM PRESS INC.
CHATHAM, MASS.
 CONTENTS
PAGE
Author’s Preface 5
Loss of the Josephus 8
The Clara Bell 11
The Loss of the Ship Peruvian 14
The Bark Francis 18
Loss of the Giovanni 21
The Jason 24
Loss of the Steamship Portland 27
The Gift of the Sea 31
A Few of the Many Deep Sea Mysteries 34
The Monte Taber 35
Loss of the Oakland 37
Loss of the Castagnia 39
Thomas W. Lawson—the Largest Schooner 41
Loss of the Ship Asia 42
Barges Wadena and Fitzpatrick 43
Story of the Sloop Trumbull 46
Wreck of the Somerset—British Man of War 48
The Mystery of the Mary Celeste 50
The Self-Steered Craft 52
Tragedy of the Herbert Fuller 53
The Job Jackson Wreck 56
Loss of the Number 238 57
The Palmer Fleet 59
A Gale, and What it Did 61
Loss of the Montclair on Orleans Beach 63
Loss of the Reinhart at Race Point 65
Was it Murder? 67
Stranding of the Barges 69
The John Tracy Mystery 72
Wreck of the Roger Dicky 73
The Gettysburg Tow 75
Loss of the Elsia G. Silva 77
A Terrible Disaster 78
Terrible Submarine Disaster 80
Stranding of the Robert E. Lee 85
 PREFACE
I hardly know whether to call this a preface or part of the story, it
seems rather too long for the former and too short for a chapter of
the latter, but I may as well follow the general rule and call it a
preface.
Friends have often said to me, “Why don’t you write some stories
concerning shipwrecks which have occurred on Cape Cod?”
Perhaps one of the strongest reasons why I have not done so is
because, to describe all of the sad disasters which have come under
my observation during my more than half a century of service as
Marine Reporting Agent, at Highland Light, Cape Cod, would make a
book too bulky to be interesting, and a second reason has been the
difficulty of selecting such instances as would be of the greatest
interest to the general reader.
But out of the hundreds of shipwrecks which have become a part
of the folk lore and history of this storm beaten coast I have finally
decided to tell something of the circumstances connected with the
loss of life and property in a few of the more prominent cases.
The descriptions herein written are only just “unvarnished tales,”
couched in such language that even the children may understand,
and in order that there may be a clear understanding of how I came
to be in close touch with the events of which I write, it is perhaps
necessary to state briefly a few facts concerning my life work here.
So far back as 1853, the merchants of Boston, desiring to obtain
rapid and frequent reports concerning the movements of their ships
along the coast of Cape Cod, were instrumental in causing the
construction of a telegraph line from Boston to the end of Cape Cod,
and a station was established on the bluffs of the Cape at Highland
Light, this station was equipped with signal flags, books and a
powerful telescope, and an operator placed in charge, whose duty it
was to watch the sea from daybreak until sunset, and so far as
possible obtain the names of or a description of every passing ship.
This information was immediately transmitted over the wires to the
rooms of the Chamber of Commerce, where it was at once spread
upon their books for the information of their subscribers.
When the boys in blue were marching away to southern
battlefields at the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861, I began the
work of “Marine Reporting Agent,” and now on the threshold of 1928,
I am still watching the ships.
A fair sized volume might be written concerning the changes
which have taken place in fifty years, as to class of vessels and
methods of transportation, but that is not what I started to write
about.
My duties begin as soon as it is light enough to distinguish the
rig of a vessel two miles distant from the land, and my day’s work is
finished when the sun sinks below the western horizon. Every half
hour through every day of the year we stand ready to answer the call
at the Boston office, and report to them by telegraph every item of
marine intelligence which has come under our observation during the
previous half hour. With our telescope we can, in clear weather,
make out the names of vessels when four miles away. When a
shipwreck occurs, either at night or during the day, we are expected
to forward promptly to the city office every detail of the disaster. If the
few stories herein told serve to interest our friends who tarry with us
for a while in the summer, then the object of the writer will have been
attained.
 HIGHLAND LIGHT, NORTH TRURO
This is known as Cape Cod Light, more often spoken of as Highland Light. It
stands on a bluff 140 feet above sea level. The brick tower is 65 feet high. It was
built by the United States Government in 1777 and rebuilt in 1851. It is a revolving
flash light and its rays can be seen 45 miles at sea.
 LOSS OF THE JOSEPHUS
The first shipwreck of which I have any personal recollection was
that of the British ship “Josephus,” which occurred about the first of
April, 1849. The terrible circumstances attending the destruction of
this ship were so vividly impressed upon my childish mind, (I was
four years of age at the time) that they are as plain in memory as
though they had occurred but yesterday.
This vessel stranded during a dense fog, on the outer bar,
directly opposite the location of the present Highland Life Saving
Station, about one mile north of the Highland Lighthouse. She was a
full rigged ship from some port in England, bound to Boston, and
carried a cargo of iron bars. Losing her bearings during a protracted
fog and severe easterly gale her keel found the sand bar half a mile
from shore, immediately the huge waves swept her decks, and the
ship was doomed to destruction.
In those days no life savers patrolled the beach to lend a
rescuing hand and the first intimation of the disaster was when,
during a temporary rift in the fog the light keeper, from the cliffs,
discovered the stranded ship. The alarm quickly spread to all the
neighboring farm houses and to the village, from all directions men
came hurrying to the beach, hoping in some way to be able to aid
the suffering sailors on the wreck, which by this time was fast being
smashed to pieces by the thunderous waves which pounded upon
her partly submerged hull. Her masts had already been torn from her
decks and with tangled rigging and strips of sail thrashed her sides in
a constant fury. Many of her crew had been crushed to death and
their bodies swept into the boiling surf. When the spars went down
others could be seen clinging to such portions of the wreck as yet
remained above the angry waters, and their screams for help could
be heard above the wild roar of the awful surf, by the watchers on
the shore, utterly powerless to render the least assistance. At this
moment down the cliffs came running two young men, just home
from a fishing voyage. They had not even stopped to visit their
homes and families, but hearing of the wreck had hurried to the
beach. Lying on the sands of the shore was a fisherman’s dory, a
small boat, about twelve feet in length, such as small fishing vessels
use and carry on their decks.
These men were Daniel Cassidy and Jonathan Collins.
Immediately they seized this boat and ran it quickly over the sands to
the edge of the surf. The watchers on the beach stood aghast, and
when they realized that these men intended to launch this frail skiff
into that raging sea strong cries of protest arose from every one.
“Why, men,” they said, “you are crazy to do this, you cannot possibly
reach that ship, and your lives will pay the forfeit of your foolhardy
attempt.” But in the face of the earnest pleadings of their friends and
neighbors they pushed their boat into the gale-driven surf and
headed her towards the wreck. Their last words were, “We cannot
stand it longer to see those poor fellows being swept into the sea,
and we are going to try to reach them.” Standing with my mother and
holding by her hand on the cliffs overlooking the scene I saw the little
boat, with the two men pulling bravely at the oars. They had hardly
gone fifty yards from the shore when a great white cataract of foam
and rushing water was hurled towards them. The next instant it
buried men and boat under its sweeping torrent as it swept onward
towards the beach with the overturned dory riding its crest; two
human heads rose for a moment through the seething sea, only to
be covered by the next on-rushing wave, and they were seen no
more. Darkness soon settled over the terrible scene, the cries of the
despairing sailors grew fainter and ceased, while the mad waves
rushed unceasingly towards the shore. The watchers, believing that
every sailor had perished, turned away and sought their homes with
sad hearts. The light keeper, Mr. Hamilton, coming down from the
lighthouse tower at midnight, where he had been to attend to the
lamps, decided to visit the beach again, thinking possibly that some
of the bodies of the lost sailors might drift to shore. What was his
surprise to find upon a piece of the cabin of the ship, which had
washed ashore, a helpless sailor moaning piteously, still alive but
suffering terribly from the hardships he had endured; he had been
scratched and torn by the broken timbers through which he had been
washed and driven.
After great exertion and a long struggle the lightkeeper
succeeded in getting the unfortunate sailor up the cliff and to the
lighthouse, where the man was put to bed and a physician sent for.
He finally recovered, but he was the only man of that ship’s company
of 24 souls who escaped with life, these and the two men who
attempted a rescue made a total death list in this disaster of 25.
It is a far cry from 1849 to 1872, and the broken timbers of many
a lost ship, and the whitened bones of hundreds of dead sailors lie
buried in the drifting sands of this storm beaten coast, between those
dates, but as we cannot here present the details of more than a very
few of them, we only select those having especial and somewhat
different features and so pathetic as to stand out more prominently
than those of a lesser degree of horror, though it would be hard to
describe a shipwreck on this coast devoid of suffering, death and
destruction.
 THE CLARA BELL
On the afternoon of March 6th, 1872, a moderate wind was
blowing from the land across the sea, the sun shone full and clear, a
great fleet of sailing vessels, urged forward by the favoring breeze,
made rapid progress over the smooth sea towards their destination.
In the late afternoon, as the sun approached the western horizon, it
settled behind a dark and ominous cloud that was rising towards the
zenith and casting a dark shadow over all the sea.

WRECK OF THE CLARA BELL

The two masted schooner Clara Bell, Captain Amesbury, with a

cargo of coal for Boston, had that morning sailed out of the harbor of
Vineyard Haven and passed across the shoals of Vineyard Sound,
moved rapidly up the coast, and by ten o’clock that night was nearly
opposite Highland Light. The wind, which had been only fairly strong
up to this time, rapidly increased in velocity, and snow began falling
thick and fast.
The wind rapidly increased to a gale, when the vessel had
reached a point two miles north of Highland Light the wind suddenly
changed to north and in a short time became a howling gale; the fast
falling snow hid all the lights and the surrounding sea from view, and
the temperature dropped to zero. In trying to make an off shore tack
the vessel was struck by a huge wave, forced shoreward and with an
awful plunge the schooner struck a bar a fourth of a mile from shore.
It was now nearly midnight; the sea, though running fierce and wild,
had not at this time reached monstrous size, and Captain Amesbury,
thinking that his only hope for life depended upon getting away from
the schooner, decided to make an attempt to launch the ship’s boat.
After great exertion upon the part of himself and crew they
succeeded in getting the boat over the vessel’s side, and the crew of
six men and himself jumped in and cast off the line that held them to
the vessel, but not two strokes of the oars had been taken when the
cockleshell, borne like a chip on the top of an onrushing wave, was
thrown bottom up and her crew were struggling in the icy waters.
Captain Amesbury and one of his men were carried on a towering
wave rapidly towards the shore, but before they could gain a foothold
the remorseless undertow had drawn them back into the swirling
waters. With the next oncoming wave the sailor was thrown
shoreward again and succeeded in grasping a piece of wreckage
and by its aid managed to crawl away from the jaws of death; not so
fortunate the captain, who with the other members of his crew were
swept away in the freezing sea and seen no more. The sailor, finding
himself safe beyond the reach of the mad sea on the sand-swept
and desolate shore, started to find shelter. In his struggles to reach
the shore one of his boots had been torn off and lost, he was
coatless, without covering on his head, thoroughly drenched, his
clothes freezing to his benumbed body and limbs. In the blinding
snow storm which had now set in in dead earnest with a cold so
intense that it nearly took his breath away, this poor fellow started
out to find if possible some human habitation; he could make no
progress against the freezing gale so was obliged to turn towards the
south and follow the direction of the wind. Over frozen fields, through
brush and brambles that tore his bare foot at every step, over the
ever increasing snow drifts, through bogs and meadows and hills
and hollows, he struggled until the coming of daylight; then a farmer
going out to his stable in the early morning found this unfortunate,
frozen and exhausted sailor standing in the highway a short distance
from the Highland House, so dazed by his terrible night of torture
that he could not speak or move. He was carried into the farm house
and the writer was one of those who helped to revive him. We were
finally made to understand that he had come from a shipwreck on
the coast and that all of his shipmates were drowned. Leaving him to
the care of the women of the household I hurried with others to the
beach, believing it possible that even yet there might be some other
unfortunate still alive on the wreck.
After a somewhat exhausting trip over the drifted snow and the
frozen beach, we reached the stranded vessel, which had in the
meantime been driven by the huge seas completely over the sand
bar upon which she struck and the constant pounding of the waves
had driven her high and dry upon the main beach. We walked on
board dry footed and passed down the cabin stairs. There in the
cabin stove burned a nice cheerful fire and all was dry and warm.
The haste of Captain Amesbury and his crew to leave the strong
vessel for a little frail skiff had cost them their lives, and this has
been so often the case, it would seem that sailors so often exposed
to the dangers of the sea would realize when brought suddenly into
positions of extreme danger by the stranding of their ship, that their
only chance for life lay in staying by their vessel, rather than taking
the chances afforded by a small boat in the wild sea; if their large
and strong vessel cannot stand the shock certainly the little boat
cannot. Many men have gone down to their death in the sea
because of too great a faith in the ship’s boat.
The sailor who escaped with his life from this wreck finally
recovered after the amputation of three toes and a finger.
 People have sometimes said, “Are there no romances connected
with shipwrecks?” Fiction writers have often distorted the facts
sufficiently to be able to weave about the incidents of a shipwreck
some romantic story, but most of the disasters which overtake those
who go down to the sea in ships to do work on the great waters,
partake so much of the elements of tragedy that there is little room
for the entrance of romance into the situation. In almost every
instance where ships are overwhelmed by the storms and the seas
the cold hard facts are so distressing that every other feature, except
the one of suffering, is lost sight of and only the thought of drowning
men takes possession of the senses. The following story, though
bearing the color of romance, had a sad and heartbreaking ending.