A YACHT DISASTER.
Four Members of a Pleasure Party Go Down With the Wreck.
ST. JOHNS, N. F., Sept 24.—A disaster occurred in the Bay of St. Johns this morning, the British schooner Mary Ann, and cutting her in two. There were twenty-seven persons on board the ill-fated craft, four of whom were drowned. Their names were Charles Weeks, Nicholas Milley, Leander Milley and Sarah Ann Fahey. The others saved themselves by clinging to the main rail of the Summerset or were picked out of the water by her boats.
The Mary Ann sank within two minutes after the collision. Fahey had hold of his wife’s hand, and was drawing her out of the companionway of the sinking vessel, when the mainmast and mainsail fell, parting husband and wife forever. Gregory Leman, another passenger, was fatally injured.
Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook
December 20, 1886
A FLOATING COFFIN.
The Wrecked Whaling Bark Atlantic a Mass of Rotten Timbers.
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 20.-Thousands of people visited the wreck of the whaler Atlantic on the ocean beach yesterday. None of the twenty-five sailors still missing have been found, although the beach has been searched for miles. The investigation of the causes which led to the disaster will be interesting. The Atlantic was a fair sample of the vessels composing the large whaling fleet which sails out of San Francisco; she looked as seaworthy as any of the fleet, but as she lies on the beach here, broken into match-wood, it is plain that she was a floating coffin.
The surf on the sandy beach beat her into pieces as if she had been stuck together with glue. One can pull the ringbolts out of her rotten timbers. Her shattered boats show the same criminal disregard of life. The boards of which they are made are of the poorest material, loosely tacked together with the cheapest nails and painted over to hide the defects. A prudent man would not select the boats for a duck hunt on a pond, much less for a whaling expedition in the Arctic. |
From the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
The 1886 Morbid Scrapbook
Olde News for Morbid Minds!