NORTH CAROLINA MARITIME MUSEUM
Beaufort, NC
www.ncmaritimemuseum.org
On this day in 1914 the schooner Hattie P. Simpson sank off of Cape Lookout. The ship was headed from Philadelphia to Galveston with a load of anthracite coal but suffered continual damage in successive storms along the way. The crew dealt with the situation the best they could, but after three days the ship eventually succumbed to its wounds. The Captain and five crew members were lost with the vessel. Four survivors managed to swim to a life boat that had drifted free of the ship, and spent six days afloat. Finally a passing steamship, the Caracas, spotted the small boat and picked up the surviving sailors. They were later transferred to the U.S. Navy Battleship Kansas and taken to Philadelphia.
My great uncle Percy Deane emigrated from Barbados to NY in this schooner in 1896 when he was 19 years old.
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