Isaac M. Small

“ 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. ”

“ Over sand hills swept bare by the driving gale, through meadow bogs and brush covered ridges, they finally reached the beach in the vicinity of the wreck. No attempt was made to launch the life boat, as such an effort, in the face of all the terrible conditions that prevailed, the awful sea and the distance of the vessel from shore, would have been foolhardy in the extreme, and would only have added to the death roll the lives of the life-savers, without accomplishing the saving of a single life. ”

“ The rocking of the ship by the waves and the storms that beat over her on the sand and coarse gravel of the bed of the sea had worn holes through her iron sides where her masts were stepped into her keel, and immediately the ship rose from the bottom a great torrent of water poured in through these openings, flooded the entire ship again and carried her back into the sandy bed where she had so long reposed. For many years in the ever changing sands the jagged sides of her ever diminishing hull would be exposed only to be buried by the next great storm that swept her. ”

“ Such was the force of this hurricane of wind that every window pane on the ocean side of our house (the Signal Station at Highland Light) was blown in and smashed into a thousand fragments. Men exposed to the full force of the storm were blown from their feet and hurled about like blocks of wood.
Men of the Life Saving service were exhausted by their exertions in trying to cover their beats, and several of them were completely unnerved by their frequent trying experiences in dragging torn and sea-washed bodies from the surf. ”

“ If we had been surprised at seeing any portion of the hull still standing above the water, we were dumbfounded when we saw a man jump from the bow near the broken foremast and swim through the fiercely raging waters to the after deck house, and in the face of the pounding sea that beat upon him, climb under a sheltering piece of the cabin that had not been torn away. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Eldredge stood in the stern of the boat with the steering oar giving his orders and the surfmen stuck to their posts.
As soon as the water came into the boat, the rescued men from the barge became panic stricken, threw their arms about the necks of the surf men so that none of us could use our oars; the seas, one after another, struck us, and the boat, filling with water, turned bottom up, throwing all of us into the raging sea. The seas kept striking us after the boat upset and we were soon in among the heaviest breakers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is believed that no less than 500 human lives were the sea’s death toll in this awful hurricane that swept the shores of Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bay in that frightful storm.
This disaster will pass into the annals of Cape Cod’s shipwreck history as the one which concerned the greatest loss of life from a single vessel.
The fury of such a gale can hardly be understood or appreciated by any one not having had personal experience with sea coast storms. ”

“ Higher and stronger ran the seas, wilder and more terrific blew the gale, often across the ship’s decks swept the huge waves, while all about them the dark skies lowered and the angry waters swirled when suddenly, just before midnight with a terrible plunge and an awful crash the ship struck the sand bars of the dreaded Peaked Hill Shoals, nearly a mile from shore ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every avenue of approach to the beach was blocked with snow, huge drifts covering every highway and hollow. There were no mortar guns and no life saving crews then, and no boats of any kind on the outer beach available. At the shore on the bay side of the cape was a whale boat, a boat sharp at both ends and about eighteen feet in length; this boat might afford possibly safe means of reaching the imperilled crew on the ship, but to get it to the scene of the wreck was a problem. ”

“ Many kinds of appliances were hurried to the locality by fast ships; many tugs and steamers gathered over the place where the S-4 lay at the bottom of the sea off Long Point. Over the sunken boat white-capped waves were breaking, forced over the surging waters of the bay by a thirty-mile northwest gale.
As soon as the divers reached the locality a man was sent down and succeeded in placing a chain over the bow of the submarine; they had hoped to raise the bow enough to tip the bow towards the surface, but failed to offer any help. ”

“ Six of the crew managed to reach the shore on top of the cabin which had broken away from the ship and were pulled from the surf by the Life Savers. One of the boys said he swam ashore. An investigation conducted by the Italian government, disclosed that the Captain did commit suicide.
It has been said, whether true or not, that it is a tradition among Italians that when a master of a vessel is so unfortunate as to lose the craft he is in duty bound to do away with himself, as he could never again expect to command a vessel. ”

“ On the 21st day of June, 1927, the ocean-going tug Gettysburg, of the Reading Coal Company, towing four empty barges from Portland for Port Reading, Pennsylvania, was proceeding down the coast outside of Cape Cod. When the tow had reached a point east of Race Point Light, the wind, which had been strong from the northwest, began shifting to the northeast and increasing in violence, but as it was fair and favorable for running down the coast, the tow kept on instead of pulling up for Provincetown. ”

“ Between Highland and Race Point Lighthouses, on Cape Cod, stretches a long line of treacherous, dangerous sand bars. Situated midway between these points on the shore is the Coast Guard Building known as the Peaked Hill Bars Station. From this station the surfmen have rescued many lives and have seen many sailors go down to death in the raging sea.
On November 30th, 1880, a cold northerly gale was sweeping down the coast from Massachusetts Bay and lashing into fury the waters that pounded over the sand bars from Race Point to Wellfleet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The diver’s tapping along all other parts of the ship obtained no other response.
The other men on the boat had been imprisoned either in the engine room or the after compartments and were all probably drowned when the ship went to the bottom.
Monday morning brought no change or any hope of relief.82 The northwest gale had become bitterly cold, and it was more and more certain that not a man on the boat was alive, as these men had been entombed more than forty-eight hours, so the probability or even possibility of any man being alive down there a hundred feet under the sea was remote indeed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some adverse criticism was directed against the men of the Life Saving corps, for their failure to rescue these sailors, but it was wholly unmerited as the Life Savers did everything in their power or that it was possible to do under the circumstances.
It was one of those terrible marine disasters, of which there are many, where man is a plaything in the grip of the sea when the storm king is abroad in his might. ”

“ Israel had mistaken the force of the sea on the outside of Cape Cod in a storm, and his barge dragging her anchors was forced nearer and nearer the shore, until he and his crew of four men had to be brought ashore in the breeches buoy by the Coast Guard men.
The fury of the gale and the high and rising tide soon forced the barges well up on the beach, so that on the following morning one might walk dry footed entirely around them. The Manheim escaped serious injury. ”

“ Just at this moment, coming in from a patrol cruise along the coast, came the Coast Guard cutter Paulding, steaming for an anchorage in the harbor at a sixteen miles an hour speed, and crashed with great force into the side of the submarine, just breaking the surface water. The sharp iron stem of the Paulding tore a great ragged hole in the side of the S-4, just forward of the conning tower, and passed completely over her. ”

“ It is believed by men on the coast familiar with storms and tides that the whistle heard by the Race Point Life Savers at 4 o’clock was the last despairing cry sent up by the doomed ship before the sea engulfed her and those on board, and that between that hour and 7 o’clock that night the ship’s total destruction was accomplished. ”

“ With the first glimmer of approaching daylight men hurried to the outer beach, believing that some terrible disaster had occurred. They found the shore for miles covered with portions of the cargo and many broken timbers of the lost ship, but owing to the distance from shore to where the ship went down only three bodies were ever recovered and those only after many days of washing about in the surf. ”

“ The fishing schooner Elsia G. Silva of Gloucester, coming in from a fishing trip to the South Shoals, off Nantucket, on the afternoon of February 14th, 1927, encountered a strong wind with fog when nearing Chatham Bars. This condition grew constantly worse and the storm increased until it reached gale force, driving a high sea over the outlying bars, and the thick mist obscured the shore of the entire coast. ”

“ This was Sunday afternoon, twenty-four hours after the disaster.
When it was found that six men were still alive renewed and strenuous efforts were made to reach the men. All day Sunday and all Sunday night a hundred men with such appliances as it was possible to get, labored to bring the bow of the boat to the surface.
Late in the afternoon of Sunday a diver went down and in response to his tapping found that the six men were still alive, but they signalled, “We are still alive but growing weaker. We cannot stand it much longer. ”

“ Fortunately no lives were lost in this disaster, but it caused many hours of suffering for those men who comprised the crew of the wreck.
67
WAS IT MURDER?
Tragedy stalks abroad on the great sea and land always, not only on the wide stretches of the great ocean but all along the bordering coasts and inlets.
A big ship sails away into the mists and fogs of the pulsing deep and never comes back, a fisherman pulls out in his little boat to draw his nets and drops as completely out of sight as though he had never been. ”