Schooner A.S. Davis ~ 23 October 1878

Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1879:

The next fatal wreck of the year, relevant to the operations of the service, was that of the stanch ship A.S. Davis, which took place in the memorable gale of October 22 and 23, a mile and a half north of Life Saving Station No. 2 (6th District), North Carolina. A brief reference to this singular and terrible disaster was made in the last annual report, and also to the storm in which it occurred; one which will long be remembered in the middle region of the Atlantic seaboard, along which its track was marked by peculiar havoc.

“The surf was the biggest I ever saw, and ran full with the hills. I have been on this coast all my life and had to do with the surf since I was old enough, and I know I never saw such a night or such a surf before.”

     It was at the height of all this fury that the A.S. Davis drove ashore. The ship had sailed from Callao, Peru, on the 23rd of July, for Hampton Roads, VA, with a cargo of guano. She was quite a large vessel, her burden being 1,399 tons; was nearly new, her age being three years, and was very strongly built. Of the 20 men on board, comprising her captain and crew, her wreck left only one survivor, William H. Minton. It is from him that the particulars of her loss are derived.

     After the tempest began she sailed under only her upper canvas until the wind blew a whole gale. By midnight her lower main-topsail, which was new, was blown out of the bolt-ropes and the mizzen lower topsail was taken in. Finally, with only her fore-topsail and fore-topmast stay-sail set, she was racing through the darkness with headlong velocity, amidst the roar of the hurricane, when suddenly, with a shivering shock, she plunged aground. It a moment all was over with her. “There was time for nothing after the ship struck,’ says the witness, “except for all hands to get into the rigging.” The unhappy men sprang for the main and mizzen shrouds. At once, behind the vessel, held by her bow as in a vice, the sea arose like a mountain and fell down with a stunning crash upon the stern, which it stove in at one blow, filling the vessel and sweeping over her end to end. A few moments of horrible confusion and uproar, and the ship was torn to pieces.

     Those who saw the fragments marveled at a destruction which had been as utter as it had been speedy. “I visited the scene of the wreck about sunrise on the morning of the 23d,” says the wreck commissioner of that region,” and could not conceive it possible that a ship could be so completely broken up.”

     The surviving witness sets the hour of the striking of the vessel at two o’clock. Little more than an hour later the beach patrolman found her scattered in pieces for a mile along the shore. In the utter gloom which enveloped the whole scene of convulsion, no eye could have descried from the beach the brief and dread dismemberment, nor, had an army of men been gathered there, could any help have been afforded to either vessel or crew. From one of those on board, the survivor, the sea tore all his clothing, save the fragment of a shirt, and threw him, bruised and bleeding, upon the shore. Of the other 19 men there were only found, within 40 hours later, the dead bodies of 17, grotesquely clad in tatters of their former garb, and horribly mangled by the wreckage. They had voyaged for 3 months, and over 10,000 miles, to perish within 3 hours’ sail of their haven.

Brigantine Charles C. Overton ~ 3 January 1878

The brigantine Charles C. Overton, of Cedar Keys, was en route to Nassau from New York when she was driven ashore three miles north of Ocracoke Inlet. She was discovered bottom up in 12 feet of water on February 2. The vessel and cargo were completely lost and crew presumed dead.

Steamer City of Houston ~ 23 October 1878

Steamer City of Houston

As was common in steamships of the day, the City of Houston was fitted out with two masts and auxiliary sails that were, in this case, barkentine rigged. Her primary route was New York to Galveston via Key West, FL. She carried passengers in spacious accommodations and much–needed supplies in her ample cargo holds.

Fast steamer service was more desirable than the bouncy, dusty, weeks-long travel suffered by stagecoach. When the City of Houston left New York on October 20, 1878 her departure was like any other: 34 passengers, many of whom were emigrants, eagerly looked forward to landing in Galveston a week later.

But two days from port she ran head-on into a gale moving north along the coast. The storm quickly increased in intensity until the City of Houston was engulfed by mountainous waves that slapped her hull with rivet-loosening violence. The bilge pumps could not stem the rising tide and the boiler fires were soon damped. The engine coughed its last and the ship was driven broadside to the sea where she wallowed sickeningly in the troughs. By this time it was two in the morning on October 23. Captain Stevens roused the passengers from their staterooms and explained the situation as he passed out life preservers, telling them to stand by and be ready to abandon ship.

The outlook was bleak. The lifeboats were prepared, but it seemed sheer madness to put people into the wave-tossed sea, especially women and children, and expect them to row to shore in the dark during a tempest. They were abreast of Frying Pan Shoals, and off an area nearly as desolate as the plains of Texas. There seemed little chance for survival. “Signals were burned from the pilot house, but it was intensely dark and raining heavily, so that no vessel saw them.”

The ship was settling by the stern, where the water had risen to a depth of 10 feet. A little brig was seen 10 miles to leeward at daybreak, but owing to the wind she could not reach them. The steamer was now beginning to sink, and the boats were about to lowered when the steamship Margaret arrived. An hour later the passengers and crew were all safely transferred to the Margaret, although there was a heavy sea running at the time.

Newspaper Article:
New York Times, November 1, 1878

Schooner E.B. Wharton ~ January 31, 1878

The New York Times, Feb. 2, 1878

Schooner Harmon Curtis ~ 17 August 1878

Home port Harrington, ME: The schooner Harmon Curtis came ashore on the Ocracoke beach, ½ mile NE of the cable box. Total loss.

Steamer Metropolis ~ 31 January 1878



The Metropolis
Mariner's Museum, Newport News, VA

The State

November 3, 1951

by Bill Sharpe

THE CATASTROPHE THAT SHOOK AMERICA AND LED TO ESTABLISHMENT OF ALL-YEAR BEACH CONTROL BY OUR COAST GUARD

Nothing good could come out of such a ghastly, pitiful wreck as that of the Metropolis, it seemed. The steamship came ashore in a heavy sea below Whaleshead (Currituck) Light January 31, 1878 and 102 lives were lost.

Everything about the tragedy was shameful. The owners were charged with concealing defects in the ship, inspectors with collusion, the chartering company was accused of overloading her and the captain was accused of imprudent handling of his ship. The Life-Saving crew reached the wreck late, and then without sufficient equipment.

Worst of all, natives of the Bank as well as passengers were accused of inhospitality and looting. Coming on the heels of the scandalous wreck of the warship Huron in 1877 off Kitty Hawk, the disaster threw the county into an uproar. The New York Tribune carried columns of the story on its front pages, and even months later reverberations ... in the form of charges, counter-charges, investigation and reports ... were being heard.

Brought Remedy

It is not unlikely that this wreck and that of the ill-fated Huron, the two of them remarkably similar, started the legend that North Carolina bankers preyed up castaways. Almost certainly, the two wreck hastened, if they did not indeed prompt, the creation of our modern Coast Guard with its year-around vigil and modern equipment. So even this black cloud had its silver lining.

The Metropolis had a sad sailing from Philadelphia. She was loaded with 500 tons of rails and machinery and 200 tons of stores, destined for the Madeira and Mamore Railway, then building in the jungles of Brazil. Also aboard were some 215 passengers ... laborers and foremen recruited to work on the railroad. These were mostly simple people, unaccustomed to travel, and it is easy to imagine the scenes on the dock as mothers, wives and children bid tearful farewells to their menfolks embarking on such a long journey. But the contemporary reporters left nothing to the imagination.

Tearful Farewells

"The incidents were frequently exceedingly pathetic," said the Tribune. "One fine-looking woman, wife of one of the foremen, after a dozen passionate farewells, finally clung to her husband with such intense sorrow that the latter was compelled to remain on the wharf."

The Metropolis had been built in 1861 and used by the Navy in blockading Confederate ports.  After the war the vessel was cut in two, lengthened 40 feet and rebuilt with a length of 198.5 feet and a 34-foot beam. She was brig-rigged and powered with two engines.

For months debate rages as to why she foundered, why she broke up so quickly in the surf and why so many lives were lost, but the stark fact is that shortly after clearing the Cape of Delaware, the ship began to leak. She had put to sea in heavy weather, but no heavier, said the Captain, than he had braved before. Before long she was in a violent southeast gale and the master, Captain J.H. Aukers, kept away from the Virginia Capes, intending to make Hampton Roads. However, he fell to leeward and the weather worsened. The pumps would not discharge water as fast as it was coming in and the captain, no doubt now thoroughly aware of his grave situation, decided to lighten ship by throwing coal overboard. At midnight on the 30th, his circulating pump gave out.

Passengers Frantic

Aboard the ship the passengers' mood changed from one of restive anxiety to clamorous fear. Little by little the early reassurances given by crew members were dissipated by the grim activity aboard ship. The vessel pitched in the darkness, throwing the passengers around. They saw the efforts of the sailors redoubled, and head the hoarse shouts of the captain as he gave orders through his speaking trumpet. They heard the pumps cease, they saw the effort to throw coal overboard.

At 3 a.m. a heavy sea boarded the vessel, carrying away smokestack, lifeboats, engine rooms and doors of the forward saloon, and flooding the ship with a large quantity of water.

Now panic reigned. Having boarded the vessel with apprehension, the men finally gave way to an uncontrollable frenzy. All discipline was gone even before the fires of the boilers were extinguished. Captain Aukers, in a desperate attempt to save lives, knowing now that his ship was doomed, decided to beach her beneath Currituck light.

The Metropolis was all but unmanageable, but at 6 a.m. the vessel reached land under her sails. But instead of relief, both crew and passengers screamed at the frightening prospect they saw. The surf they entered was a crashing hell and at 6:15 a.m. the ship struck the outer reef and failed to ride over it, as the captain had hoped.

Now began the worst ordeal of all. Within sight of land, with safety only a few hundred yards away, those who survived helplessly watched as their companions one by one were dashed to death in the icy waters, or crushed by the crumbling ship as it was ground to pieces by the waves.

Currituck now is a lonely beach, but it was even lonelier in 1878. At about 8 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 31, N.E.K. Jones and James E. Capps happened along the beach and through the fog glimpsed the wreck. Capps immediately went to borrow a horse to ride to the Life Saving Station with the news, and Jones went to work hauling men, living and dead, out of the surf.

The Life-Saving crew did not reach the wreck until about noon. It is easy to imagine the bitter hours in which the survivors on the wreck looked for help. They had seen the two men on the beach and had supposed aid would come immediately.

Wild Confusion

When the crew reached the scene it was on of "terror and wild confusion, of struggling heroes and perishing victims in the greedy seas, while the air was filled with encouraging shouts and despairing shrieks."

The surf now was running high and it was full of deadly wreckage and swimming people, some washed overboard, some who deliberately cast themselves in the water in an effort to reach shore. The surfmen and other natives waded out and saved many--a hundred or more, said an affidavit.

"Even a noble Newfoundland dog, incited by the example before him, plunged into the surf and brought to shore a half-drowned man," says one eye-witness report.

What effort was made to save those clinging to the wreck? When the Life Saving cart reached the scene, the men prepared to shoot a line aboard so as to rig up a breeches buoy. The first shot carried too high, but the second shot lodged a line in the fore-topsail yard. What a shout of mistaken joy went up from the poor survivors still on the wreck! One clambered up and obtained the light line, and with it the men hauled the cable aboard, working with waning strength and numbed fingers.

And now came the heartbreaking incident.  The line was pulled across the fore stay wire, and it chafed the rope. Just as the "block of the whip" (the pulley needed to operate the buoy), was half way to the boar, the rope parted and an anguished scream rose from the ship, striking despair into those fortunate few who had reached shore and were looking back at their kin and comrades still aboard. The line was "faked"--coiled--again and fired, but the shot line parted. Another shot, another line parted.

There were no more efforts, because the powder was gone. In the excitement of the departure for the wreck, the keeper had failed to check his supply and had only half a horn of powder. A man was dispatched for more but it was too late, and this omission echoed for years through the controversy aroused by the disaster.

Fires had been built on the beach, and from time to time exhausted rescue workers came to them to renew their strength. The wind and surf roared loudly, but even above it could be heard the pitiful appeals for help from the ship and the sobbing of those on the beach. At about 3 o'clock the rescue work slacked up since those on board, seeing so many who had jumped overboard drowned before their eyes, were holding to their dangerous refuge.

However, one man on board took a light line in his teeth and jumped overboard, hoping to take it ashore, and thus set up the means of hauling the breeches buoy aboard. But those on board did not play out the line fast enough and so it jerked from his mouth, though he himself made land safely.

Shortly after this the foremast fell, killing a number and crippling others and knocking still others overboard, the fallen sail covering the miserable wretches still alive, many of them now about to die.

Then the ship broke up rapidly and began to disappear. At this, all on shore rushed into the water as far as they dared to save the last of the passengers.

Bodies Stripped

Was there looting of the crippled and the dead? There can be little doubt that there was. N.E.K. Jones himself said that he customarily went out on the beach after a hard blow to see if any wreck or flotsam was to be found, and after seeing the vessel go under, he testifies that he "went up the beach to look for wrecked stuff, the fragments of which was strewn as far as Whales Head."

Old Whaleshead Light at Corolla was burning, but she was unable
to keep the Metropolis from doom. (Photo Aycock Brown)

He also saw a trunk broken open, but says that one of the passengers looted it. Other passengers later testified that people--white and Negro--came over from the mainland and joined in stripping the bodies of clothing and jewelry and in picking up trunks and other personal belongings.

The Life-Saving Service conducted a lengthy on-the-spot investigation and published affidavits from many witnesses. These indicate that while there was both indifference and looting on the part of some--both by survivors of the wreck and by natives--there also were examples of extraordinary heroism and generosity. All passengers were taken in, clothed and fed, and it must be considered that the resources of the local people were very slender indeed.

It also must be remembered that the delay in the rescuers reaching the wreck, which the terrified passengers mistook for indifference, the magnitude of the calamity and the hysteria incident to such a disaster led to many wild and unfounded or exaggerated reports, many of which were printed and faithfully believed.

"If" was a big word around which debate raged so hotly. If the captain had delayed sailing, and if he had stood out to sea, and if he had plunged his ship across the outer reef onto dry land, as he forlornly hoped to do, things would have been different. And if the cart had reached the wreck by 8 o'clock instead of at noon, all would have been save, witnesses said, for the wreck was still in fair shape at that hour. If the cart had been adequately supplied with powder, and if a line, once landing on the tossing vessel, would have remained intact, few would have been lost.

But no matter. As long as men trod that lonely, violent beach, they will always remember the Metropolis as one of the too-often times when man's mistakes and inadequacies and greed coincided with a cruel mood of nature to shock the nation with a brutal episode of the sea.

In all the hundreds of thousands of words written about the Metropolis, then and since, no single person involved in the tragedy escaped ugly charges or bemoaning insinuations.

Even today, 73 years later, it seems that the only unblemished hero of the wreck of the Metropolis was that nameless Newfoundland dog of Currituck Bank.

New York Times

February 1, 1878

A TERRIBLE LOSS OF LIFE.

WRECK OF STEAMER METROPOLIS.

ANOTHER GREAT DISASTER NEAR THE KITTY HAWK SIGNAL STATION -- THE METROPOLIS DRIVEN ASHORE IN GALE -- NEARLY TWO HUNDRED LIVES BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN LOST -- NO ASSISTANCE RENDERED BY THE LIFE SAVING CREW.

At an early hour last evening, news was received at Washington from the Kitty Hawk Signal Station, that the steamer METROPOLIS had gone ashore off Currituck Beach, on the North Carolina Coast, and that between 150 and 200 lives had been lost. Fifty persons are said to have been washed ashore, but with these exceptions it is though that all of the 248 persons on board were drowned. The accounts from the wreck thus far are meagre, owing to the remoteness of the place where it occurred.

DETAILS OF THE DISASTER.

Special Dispatch to the New York Times.

Norfolk, Va., Jan. 31. -- During the south-east gale this afternoon the steamship METROPOLIS, of New York, from Philadelphia for Para, South America, with stores and laborers on board, grounded on the outer bar off Currituck Beach, about three miles south of the light, and 10 miles north of Kitty Hawk Signal Station. She at once bilged and floated broadside to the sea. Fifty of the passengers and crew got on shore, and the rest, about 150 in number, were lost, no assistance being rendered from the shore, from life stations, or fishermen.
     Capt. TRUXTON, of the Navy yard here, and Capt. PICKUP, of the towing company, received information of the disaster, whereupon the tug Croatan was coaled up, and will leave for the wreck via Albemarle Sound. The scene of the wreck is about 20 miles north of where the Huron was lost. As yet the news is vague as to the number lost, but only 50 have reached shore. The authorities in Washington have ordered an operator to a place near the scene of wreck.     
     Ten P. M. -- One of the men saved states that all last night the vessel encountered heavy weather, with a strong gale from south-east. About 6:30 this evening the ship struck, when all was confusion on board, the sea making a complete breach over the vessel, washing the passengers and crew into the seething foam. Amid the howling of the tempest and the roaring of the surf, the orders of the officers could not be heard. When the vessel struck, several of her boats were swept from the decks. Those who reached the shore, managed to do so by holding on to pieces of the wreck. Efforts are being made by the signal observer to get the names of the survivors. The tug Croaton, Capt. PICKUP, leaves here for the scene at 11 o'clock. It is learned from another source that when the vessel struck she was heading south-south-east. The wind was blowing a perfect hurricane, and she using all the power her machinery afforded to keep her head to wind.
     No assistance was given to the wreck by the signal stations or by the life saving crew in the vicinity. As soon as connection is made with the scene other and more important details will be send. The Navy Department has ordered assistance sent to the wreck, but what it will be no one can learn, as the Government has no steamer here capable of rendering any service at present.
     Feb. 1 -- One A. M. -- The chief officer of the METROPOLIS was among the saved, and set the message to the signal operator at Kitty Hawk. The vessel went ashore this morning. The Captain has not been seen or heard of since the vessel struck.

Survivor List and more ... click HERE.

Bark Phillipp Suppicich ~ 22 February 1878

Carolina Watchman,
Salisbury, NC
14 March 1878

On February 22, 1878 the German bark Phillipp Supipicich stranded and was totally lost on a shoal on the south side of Hatteras Inlet. She was en route from Newcastle to Philadelphia under the command of Captain Ludwig Korf. 12 lives were lost.

The Wilmington Star reported on February 27:

"Information received by Mr. Eduard Peschau, the German Imperial Consul at this port is ... that the wrecked vessel is the German barque PHILIP SUPPICICH, Captain Ludwig Korf ..."

The Consul had received a report that some of the crew were clinging to the fallen spars. He later learned that the entire crew was lost. The Star also reported that in a letter which appeared in the New York Herald, which had been sent from Hatteras to the Chief Signal Officer in Washington, DC:

"After a dilligent search and after seeing numerous papers, I can find only the following facts concerning the barque ashore at this place ... the owner seems to be Heinrich Bauer, of Bostock. Her books and papers are all in the German language ... Three bodies have been washed ashore ... one of them is supposed to be that of the captain ... the crew are all thought to have drowned. No assistance could be rendered on account of the high seas ... She is now a total wreck, broken entirely to pieces."

GALE OF OCTOBER 1878

While in the process of conducting a historical survey of damaging tropical storms for the state of Virginia, the authors ran across an intriguing cyclone from October 1878. It was a cyclone which developed in the western Caribbean and was not detected by the West Indies hurricane network before its movements west of the isle of Jamaica on October 18. Once its presence was known, the U.S. Signal Corps, a division of the War Department, tracked its progress northward just off the Florida coast into North Carolina and issued signals to warn of its arrival.  

This is a process the Signal Service had been tasked with since November 1870, and one in which it had enjoyed some limited success. The storm's similarities with other major storms of more recent decades, such as Hazel (1954) and Agnes (1972) led to a more exhaustive search for information about its impact on the Eastern seaboard. 

 

In North Carolina the cyclone was centered between Wilmington and Cape Lookout at 11 p.m. on October 22. At Wilmington, the storm began at 3 p.m. The maximum sustained wind of 36 mph was reached at 10:40 p.m., with the lowest pressure of 986.1 hPa (29.12") reported at 11:56. At Cape Lookout, the pressure fell to 983.8 hPa (29.05") at 11:02 p.m., when the wind went southeast at 68 mph. The highest winds in the last 5-½ hours reached 100 mph and a rain total of 4.06" was measured. In Portsmouth, winds reached 82 mph from the southeast at 11:04 p.m. Smithville peaked at 32 mph from the east during the day of the 22nd. Kitty Hawk greeted the storm at 6:30 p.m. on the 22nd. The winds reached 88 mph by 2 a.m. on the 23rd, just before the anemometer was blown away. The pressure fell to 984.1 hPa (29.06").

Seventy-one people perished due to the Gale of 1878 in the eastern United States. Those who were lost to the storm were taken due to shipwreck and river flooding. In North Carolina, the following narrative describes shipwrecks related to this storm:

Altoona

One mile south of Cape Hatteras, the schooner Altoona went ashore at 11:45 p.m., proving a total loss. The schooner Magnolia wrecked in the Albemarle Sound that night; its captain drowned. The first officer of the Mary A. Hood was washed overboard off Hatteras. At 1:30 a.m. on the 23rd, the steamer Florence Witherbee went ashore. The schooner William Collyer went ashore six miles south of Barnegat at 2:40 a.m. Two went overboard from the schooner Wyoming trying to enter Beaufort. The steamship Gen. Barnes foundered off Cape Hatteras on the morning of the 23rd, also a total loss. The steamship City of Galveston was reported lost in the storm on the 23rd.At the height of all this fury the A.S. Davis drove ashore. Of the 20 men on board, comprising her captain and crew, her wreck left only one survivor. The steamer City of Houston encountered the gale on the night of the 22nd, and was lost off Frying Pan Shoals after it was abandoned by her crew ($200,000).

City of Houston

Altoona