Barkentine Walter S. Massey ~ 18 January 1889

Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889:

The barkentine Walter S. Massey, of Philadelphia, from Pernambuco, Brazil, on her way to Hampton Roads, VA, for orders ran upon the Outer Diamond Shoal off Cape Hatteras, NC, at half past 4 o’clock in the morning of the 18th during a very dense fog, and soon filled with water. She carried a crew of 10 men and a valuable freight of sugar. As the accident occurred some 9 miles southeast of the Cape Hatteras Station (6th District) the thick weather prevented the vessel’s being seen until half past 10 o’clock, when the fog lifting the surf man on the lookout discovered her situation. He at once notified the keeper. The latter telephoned to the neighboring stations—Big Kinnakeet on the one hand and Creeds Hill and Durants on the other—for assistance, then made preparations to go to the rescue as soon as the two surf men who had been sent on patrol because of the storm, should return and give him a full crew. It was therefore nearly noon before a start could be made. The keeper of the Durants Station now arrived with the Creeds Hill crew and boat, and the force was shortly further increased by the arrival of the Big Kinnakeet crew with their boat. The three surf boats were now launched and pulled out through the heavy surf, shipping several seas in the attempt, but getting safely across the bar. They proceeded toward the wreck and upon reaching the outer slew met the bark’s crew making for the shore in their own boat. The station man hitched their boats together and taking the other in tow, set out on the return. Getting inside the outer bank, 5 of the sailors were taken into the Cape Hatteras boat, the others into the Big Kinnakeet boat, and the third life-saving crew took charge of the ship's boat. The landing through the surf was affected shortly after dark without greater mishap than the over ending of the empty boat, though not without difficulty and danger. The captain was sick and exhausted and all the men were wet. They were conducted to the station, provided with dry clothing and made as comfortable as circumstances permitted. The storm continuing for several days, the vessel went to pieces and became with her cargo a total loss. On the 20th shipwrecked people desiring to proceed to their homes were put on board a wrecking steamer bound to Norfolk. The captain, before his departure, wrote to the general superintendent of the service as follows:

CAPE HATTERAS LIFE-SAVING STATION, January 20, 1889

SIR: I wish to tender my thanks to Capt. B.B.  Daily and crew, of this station, Capt. Z. G. Burris, of Durrants, the surf men of Creeds Hill, and Capt. D. M. Pugh and crew, of Big Kinnakeet, for their prompt assistance rendered to me and my crew of nine men wrecked on Hatteras Shoals January 18th. We struck the shoal at 4.30 a.m., the vessel breaking up. It being thick, we could not be seen from the shore. We had to leave the ship and a long-boat, and were taken up at sea by the above named live-saving crews, taken to the station, cared for, and treated with the greatest respect. We lost everything we had, and without the assistance of the lifesavers it is more than likely we would have been lost, leaving no one to tell the tale; but by their hard work our lives were saved. Very respectfully, THOS. P. PHELAN, Master of Barkentine Walter S. Massey

Schooner William H. Sumner ~ 1919

The William H. Sumner was a 489 ton, 165-foot, three-masted schooner owned by a New York company. She was making her way from South America to New York by way of Puerto Rico with a hold laden with 850 tons of phosphate rock, 58 tons of mahogany logs and 30 tons of iron wood. The vessel and cargo were valued at $20,000 in 1919 dollars.

She was captained by 24-year-old Robert E. Cockram. This was his first command after a promotion only two weeks before the incident. Immediately under him was ship’s mate Charles L. Lacey, a black American man who spoke French and Spanish. Newspapers at the time described him as “unusually intelligent” and indicated he was well versed in several languages and seamanship.

The rest of the crew was made up of six men from the West Indies, two of whom spoke English. Two others were only 17 years old. It was this group of men that sailed the Sumner by Wrightsville Beach on the afternoon of September 7, 1919.

Although large sailing ships were still common sights soon after World War I, swimmers and sunbathers stopped to notice the ship sailing perilously close to shore. Its sails hung sloppily and untrimmed as it made its way north. “Everybody who saw this thing going up the shoreline realized it was too close to shore to be able to get around the shoals,” said Nathan Henry, North Carolina Underwater Archeology Branch conservator at Fort Fisher. “Apparently it maneuvered around Rich’s Inlet shoals but ran aground at New Topsail Inlet shoals. And right now, the rest of the wreck is still out there.”

According to Ship’s Mate Lacey, it was 8 p.m. that night, a Sunday, that the Sumner accidentally ran aground. At 6 a.m. the following morning, two shots were heard and the captain was found dead in his cabin. Lacey did not travel to Wilmington until Tuesday, September 19, to telegraph company officials and to report the suicide of Captain Cockram.

One day later he and the crew were jailed. Lacey was charged with mutiny and murder and sent to Federal Court to defend his life. His trial was set for November 19. Newspapers described the unusually large amount of blood that remained in the cabin just before the ocean washed it away. One bullet went through the cabin’s window. Another was lodged in a bulkhead.

Much scientific evidence was removed by nature. Ocean water washed away the blood and moved the captain’s body. The day after his body was moved the ship broke in half. Salvagers began to recover the cargo, and locals removed much of the rigging. Soon after that, the Coast Guard, which considered the Sumner a “menace to navigation,” blew up the wreck.

During the fist-degree murder trial, some of the crew said the mate and captain were friends. Others said the mate was jealous of the captain’s recent promotion. Morale was low. The main staples of beans and rice had been exhausted several days before the wreck occurred. A sign saying, “If you want to know who’s boss, start something,” hung over the captain’s door.

Three days after the trial, the jury voted seven to five for conviction. Lacey had his choice of accepting a lesser charge or waiting in jail for an appeal. His decision to wait meant the crew also had to be jailed until the next court date, in May 1920.

There, prosecutors argued there were no powder burns on the captain. And two shots had been fired. The mate’s attorney countered that the death was by suicide, and many captains throughout history have chosen to go down with their ships. After a 10-minute deliberation, the jury declared Lacey not guilty.

As he left the courtroom, Lacey told a reporter he intended “to catch the first thing that smoked for Alabama.”

In September 2009, the wreck of the William H. Sumner, or what’s left of it, slowly revealed itself on the beach near 730 N. Topsail Drive in Surf City.

Information about this schooner was found at www.starnewsonline.com / Amy Hotz

Schooner Whitney Long ~ 20 December 1879

Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Services for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880:

The schooner Whitney Long, of Saint George, ME, bound from NY to Port Royal, laden with guano, sunk on Hatteras Shoals at 1 p.m. in 5 fathoms of water, the crew of 7 men escaping in their boat. At 2:30 p.m. the crew of Station No. 22 (6th District), North Carolina reached the shipwrecked men with the surfboat and took them and their boat ashore. They were succored at the station three days and nights. The vessel and cargo were totally lost.

Schooner Western Star ~ September 11, 1877

The Observer, Raleigh, Sept. 12, 1877

Schooner York ~ 9 August 1861

The Schooner York was a Confederate privateer schooner of 72 tons. She was fitted out at Norfolk, VA and commissioned 9 July 1861. 

She was chased ashore near New Inlet by the USS Union, (commanded by Commander J.R. Goldsborough). To prevent capture the vessel's guns were thrown overboard by her crew before she was set on fire.

The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships that were authorized by the government of the Confederate States of America to attack the shipping of the United States. Although the appeal was to profit by capturing merchant vessels and seizing their cargoes, the government was most interested in diverting the efforts of the Union Navy away from the blockade of Southern ports, and perhaps to encourage European intervention in the conflict.

Learn more HERE.

Schooner Zaccheus Sherman ~ 28 February 1913

Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913:

The case of the schooner Zaccheus Sherman, set forth here, furnishes a good illustration of the difficulties sometimes encountered by the crews of the service in establishing and maintaining communication with wrecked vessels lying several hundred yards offshore.

     Caught in a fierce southerly gale while beating up the North Carolina coast from Port royal, SC, for New York, with a cargo of lumber, the schooner named, a 767ton vessel, carrying a crew of 8 men, was swept ashore on the night of this date 2 miles south by east of the Gull Shoal (NC) Station, taking bottom in the breakers 400 yards from the beach. She was discovered by the south patrol from the station named, and three life saving crews—from the Gull Shoal, Chicamicomico, and Little Kinnakeet stations—went to her assistance with breeches buoy gear.

     After much difficulty, due principally to the darkness of the night and to the swiftness of a longshore current, which interfered with the work of getting lines to the vessel, the apparatus was set up.

     Owing to the distance at which the schooner lay from the beach, the three station keepers present decided that the life car offered a better means of effecting a rescue than did the breeches buoy. Accordingly, some time after the corps arrived abreast of the vessel a team was dispatched to the Gull Shoal Station for a car. As a measure of precaution—well taken, as it proved—the Gull Shoal surfboat was also brought to the beach.

     Two trips between ship and shore were made by the car without accident, three sailors coming in on the first trip and two on the second. As the car was traveling seaward for the third time the whip line was parted by the strain of current and surf.

     Convinced that the three men still on the schooner would not be equal to their part of the task of putting the lines again in position, the life savers now launched the surfboat and completed the rescue.

     The keeper of the Gull Shoal Station, who was in charge of the corps at this wreck, was called upon to explain why the ship’s crew were not all landed in the two trips made by the life car, which would have obviated the use of a boat, and avoided subjecting to extra hazard both those who manned the boat and the men still on the vessel when the whipline parted. In his letter of explanation the keeper says:

     “I wrote on the car for four men to get into it, and the message was understood by the wrecked crew, but not being in the habit of coming ashore in a boat like the life car they decided that three men was a load. I made signals for four, but the only reply was to haul away. This we did. When the car reached the beach I was informed that three men were all that would get in it at one time. The captain—a very large man—was barefooted and suffering so much from swollen feet that he could not help himself very well. So he and one man got in the car for the second trip. I again signaled for more men to get in, but they again signaled to haul ashore, which we did.”

Salisbury Evening Post 

STORMS & SHIPWRECKS

Ocracoke Island Journal

A Daily Journal of Island History & Culture / Monday, September 14, 2016

Storms & Shipwrecks

According to Richard W. Lawrence in his Research Report accompanying the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project, "The most continuously stormy period for the North Carolina coast is in the winter and early spring when well developed high and low pressure cells pass through the area with frequently shifting wind direction often of gale force. March is usually the month with the greatest number of storms with wind speeds over 45 miles per hour..."

Detail, Rembrandt
Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee

Lawrence gives the total number of shipwrecks on the North Carolina coast as 2,482. In a table listing shipwrecks by month, he notes "a noticeable correlation between the storm seasons...and shipwreck loss." Here are the figures for shipwrecks on our coast by month:

January / 300
February / 203
March / 273
April. / 219
May / 110
June / 100
July. / 108
August / 197
September / 261
October. / 239
November / 228
December / 244

Posted by Philip