Sloop Falcon ~ 14 July 1827

The Sloop Falcon was lost near Cape Lookout Shoals on 14 July 1827.

Hatteras Lightship ~ August 1827

Lightships anchored at the tip of Diamond Shoals have had a stormy history since their beginning. Floating tubs with thick hulls, they are small vessels, pointed at both ends like a cigar, ungainly, top-heavy and can barely make it out of their own way. Their sole purpose is to remain at anchor in the most turbulent, dangerous spots which other ships try to by-pass.

     A lighthouse had been in operation on Cape Hatteras point for almost 20 years when, on June 15, 1824, the Hatteras Lightship took up her position 14 miles away on outer Diamond Shoals under the command of Naval Captain Jesse D. Elliott. She was over 320 tons, with two lights—one 60’ high and the other 45’ high. After Elliott was transferred to another assignment, he was replaced by Captain Life Holden, a teacher of navigation and maker of nautical instruments. Captain Holden, a married man with three daughters, turned the lightship into a home and brought his family along to live with him.

     In late August of 1827 a hurricane moved up from the Windward Islands causing the lights to go out on the lightship. At the height of the storm, a tremendous wave struck the vessel, throwing her into “a perpendicular position”. But she weathered it and returned to an even keel. Then a terrific cross sea hit her broadside—she rolled deep in the trough of the wave and bounced back to the surface. “The concussion,” Captain Holden said, “was equal to the report of a cannon.” Her cable parted and she drifted toward the dangerous shoals.

     Though the mainsail was quickly hoisted in an attempt to keep her off, she passed into the shoals with breakers making a clean breach over her. She drifted through those breakers and drifted to the south of the shoals and along the coast toward Ocracoke. The companion slide and doors had been swept away and canvas was nailed over the openings to keep out the breaking waves. She grounded 14 hours later—her binnacle and hatches washed away and the chief mate and carpenter were thrown overboard. Captain Holden, his wife, three daughters and the remaining members of the crew survived the trip and night. The next morning they found themselves hard aground abreast of old Whalebone Inlet on Ocracoke Island where, with the help of local residents, they reached shore safely.

     Over the following months, and for many years afterward, unsuccessful attempts were made to launch the Hatteras Lightship.

Schooner Mentor ~ 25 & 26 August 1827

On September 6, 1827 the Carolina Observer of Fayetteville, NC reported on the storm of August 24 & 25.

Disastrous Intelligence: Five vessels are ashore at Teache's Hole, and one has drifted into the Sound, her fate not known. There were but six vessels in Wallace's Channel, and all of them are said to be ashore. The schooner MENTOR, Captain Manson of New Bern was among them. The WILLIAM AND FREDERICK, and another Schr. are ashore at the marshes.

Schooner Maurice R. Thurlow / 13 October 1827

During a storm on October 13 the Maurice R. Thurlow grounded on Diamond Shoals about 10 miles NE of the Ocracoke Island Station. The crew from the Cape Hatteras Station answered the distress signal and saved the crew of 9. The next morning the Thurlow had vanished. Usually when a vessel washes off Diamond Shoals they find a resting place on the Ocracoke Beach. The Coast Guard Cutter Mascoutin from Norfolk searched for the vessel but to no avail. Almost two weeks later a Dutch oil tanker sighted the Thurlow in the North Atlantic. The Coast Guard renewed it's search, but again failed to locate the vessel, which had become known as The Phantom Ship.

The Evening Independent

St. Petersburg, Florida ~ Friday, October 28, 1927

OCEAN DERELICT SAILS ATLANTIC

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LUMBER SCHOONER, THOUGHT LOST SIGHTED

UNDER FULL SAIL, CREWLESS

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Washington, Oct. 28.—(UP)—Crewless and with her sails bellied full, a derelict schooner is playing hide and seek with trans-Atlantic shipping and a full fleet of pursuing coast guard cutters.

     The “Flying Dutchman” of the North Atlantic, the abandoned Maurice Thurlow, with a valuable lumber cargo aboard, has eluded searchers since she went on the Diamond shoals off the (Virginia) coast and then slipped away 10 days ago.

     Yesterday the steamer Slidrecht wirelessed coast guard headquarters that it passed the phantom ship about 100 miles east of Nautucket, fully 600 miles from where it was lost.

     It was sailing along serenely “without a helmsman at the wheel or any sign of life aboard,” the Slidrecht reported. “The sails were full and the schooner was pushing steadily north by east.”

     The Maurice Thurlow is a four master schooner of about 1,200 tons. During the recent Atlantic coast storms she was abandoned by her crew off Diamond shoals. The crew was picked up by a coast guard cutter, which was later forced to the open seas by the storm. Returning 10 hours later the cutter found the schooner gone and the beach strewn with wreckage. It was thought the schooner had been bettered to pieces until it was reported sailing to the northward.