Wreck of the "T. B. Witherspoon"

W re c k o f t h e T . B . W i t h e rsp o o n January 10, 1886

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IN THE EXTENSIVE annals of Nantucket's shipwrecks there is none more grim than that of the big 3-masted schooner T. B. Witherspoon, lost during the great gale of January 8-10, 1886. Held fast in the sandy shore, within 100 yards of the beach near the head of Hummock Pond (off Little Mioxes), the big schooner was doomed the moment she struck during the night of the snow-filled gale. But what was heart-rending was the situation that next morning when the Life Saving crew and volunteers on shore were forced to watch helplessly as the ship-wrecked mariners, who had taken to the rigging to escape the onslaught of the seas, gradually froze to death and, one by one, dropped to their death into the raging sea and tide.

The story began on Friday, January 8, when a northeast gale, with a heavy snow, developed quickly to sweep the island. As the night wore on many residents left their homes to join the night watchmen, fully aware of the danger of fire in this wooden town. Soon after daybreak there was a brief lull, but the wind soon resumed its fury. Steamer Island Home ventured forth on its regular trip but before reaching Tuckernuck Shoal she put about and returned to her berth at Steamboat Wharf. As the day waned the temperature fell to 12 degrees above zero and the snow became sleet. Saturday dawned with the gale still raging.

It was during these two days that the schooner Witherspoon, bound up the coast from Surinam, South America, with a mixed cargo of molasses, sugar, limes, and cocoa, bound for Boston, was approaching the New England sector. With the onslaught of the gale Captain Alfred Anderson and Mate Burdick Berry took in sail and the schooner drove along under bare poles. Due to the thick snow any observations were impossible. The course was maintained throughout the morning of Saturday, the 9th, but when the wind veered into the north-northeast Captain Anderson tried to get some sail on so as to work to the eastward. At three o'clock on the morning of Sunday, January 10th, the snow lessened and a light was discerned flashing from a lighthouse. The snow flurries made it difficult to count the flashes and Captain Anderson and Mate Berry, after a conference, decided it was the light at Montauk Point. Unfortunately, this was not so - the light was Sankaty Head's flashing.

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It was only a short time later that the blinding snow began to lessen in its fall. The gale was still raging and the cold intense. At about 4:00 o'clock the lookout shouted "Breakers ahead!" Captain Anderson rushed to the deck and ordered the fore staysail loosed and the mainsail hoisted. But the ice forming in the blocks and on the lines prevented any quick action and while the crew worked frantically the big schooner struck, gave a convulsive series of shudderings, and her forward progress came to a frightening stop. She was fast aground, not more than one hundred yards off Nantucket's south shore.

At 6 o'clock that morning Patrolman Jonathan Freeman, of the Surfside Station, sighted the wreck from the beach. He alerted the Life Saving crew who hurried to the scene, dragging the life-boat behind a onehorse hitch, and arriving at the sight shortly after 7:00 that morning.

Soon after striking, the waves began to make a clear sweep of the schooner's decks and all hands were driven below, where they huddled in the main cabin. Mate Berry had brought his wife and 6-year-old son aboard for the voyage, and their terror at the situation may well be imagined as they huddled with the crew in the main cabin. The situation was desperate, and the hapless mariners knew it. What must have been their thoughts as they looked across the foaming surf at the men on the beach whose endeavors meant rescue or death. The wind at gale force was blowing directly on the beach, the temperature was at 16 degrees above zero; the rigging and deck was a mass of ice and snow; and the schooner was doomed.

The Life Saving crew found the task of firing a line across the schooner's deck a difficult one as the gale was right in their faces. After an hour's work they managed to get aboard two of the projectiles, with the shot-lrne attached, but the crew, numbed by the cold and clinging to a slanted and icy deck, was unable to pull the heavy hauser attached to the shot-line, and the ice forming on the line and in the blocks presented an impossible situation. The surf was a raging cauldron of twisting seas and every effort to launch the life-boat was thwarted.

As the morning dragged on hundreds of watchers on the beach were forced to watch the most heart-rending of sights. One of the strongest of the schooner s crew, named John Mettis, had managed to free one of the life-lines and was hauling in the hawser for the breeches buoy when the line suddenly parted. The sudden break caught him off-balance. He lost his footing, slipped along the canted deck and went over the rail into the sea to his death. Three of his companions who had taken to the rigging,

WRECK OF THE "T. B. WITHERSPOON"

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clung there for what seemed like hours, until, one by one they were overcome by the cold, lost their desperate grip and dropped into the sea.

Hidden from the view of the watchers on the beach an equally grim scene was being enacted in the cabin. Mate Berry had placed his wife and son on pieces of furniture afloat in the now flooded cabin, while he barricaded the port holes to keep the seas from washing his loved ones from their positions. The freezing cold was taking effect, however, and despite his exertions his wife gradually sank and soon expired in his arms as he tried to rouse her. His little son still managed to cling to life. In describing the terrible ordeal later, the Mate said: "The brave little fellow kept asking, 'Daddy, will God Save us?' All I could do was to hold him and assure him that God would, and he must hold on." When at length the end came, Mate Berry, overwhelmed by the double tragedy, stumbled out on the deck and making his way forward, met Captain Anderson and called to him that he had lost his loved ones: "Well, you can do no more for them," replied the Captain. "Now you must try to save yourself."

Having failed in repeated efforts to launch the life-boat, a group of volunteers obtained a life-raft and managed to get it through the surf. A third line had been shot over the Witherspoon, and the volunteers attempted to pull the raft out to the schooner. At a point mid-way the line parted and two of the crew fell into the sea, but were promptly pulled to safety and the men on the beach pulled the raft back to the safety of the beach. The nine volunteers - all veteran fishermen - were Captain Charles Smalley, Joseph M. Folger, Jr., Benjamin Beekman, Charles Cash, John P. Taber, William Morris, Horace Orpin, Benjamin Fisher, Everett Coffin. Two of these men, in later years, declared the effort was near success when the line parted by the surging of the big schooner, rolling in the seas.

It was past mid-day when the completely helpless watchers on the beach watched the storm claim three more victims. Captain Anderson, clinging to the lee shrouds of the foremast, at last lost his grip and fell into the sea. The ship's boy, Nicholas, was next to drop over the side, and a few minutes later a sailor named Norcross became the third to suffer a similar death. It was a sight so terribly fascinating that years later an eyewitness recalled:

"We were all horrified by the spectacle - the ship lying over on her beam ends, swaying as the seas made a clean breach over her - the men in the rigging slowly freezing to death and dropping into the sea, one by one. We were helpless and in a rage because of it, and I remember I was crying just like some of the women to whom I told the story afterwards."

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Finally, in the late afternoon, one of the lines shot over the big schooner by the Lyle Gun found a favorable position. The only two men left alive were Mate Berry and an active sailor named Charles Wulff, who made his way up the main rigging and secured the block which he had hauled from the shore. Then came the anxious wait while the two men on board slowly hauled through the seas the heavy breeches-buoy block from the shore. But the tension mounted again when the whip-line became snarled as the breeches-buoy itself was being hauled out along the hauser. Joseph M. Folger, Jr., volunteered to get into the buoy and pull himself to the schooner, hand-over-hand, along the hawser. He did reach the snarled whip line but was unable to free it and returned to the beach.

Darkness was in the offing when the frantic men on the schooner at last freed the line. By the time the breeches-buoy slowly found them hauling it across the intervening seas night had fallen on the scene. On the beach the Life-Saving crew became suddenly hushed. Had the buoy reached the schooner? They strained their ears and listened. At last, through the gale, came a faint call. With caution they took a strain on the line, and soon were hauling the buoy ashore. When it appeared in the mist eager hands lifted out the solitary figure and brought him to a waiting carriage. It was Mate Berry who was the first to be rescued.

Again the buoy was hauled to the wreck. Once more came the distant hail, and the men on the beach hauled with a will. As the human freight reached the breakers men rushed into the sea to pluck him from the sling and carry him to safety. It was the sailor Charles Wulff, and the man who had first secured the line in the rigging. He later stated he had insisted that Mate Berry get into the breeches-buoy first, as he believed the man would have remained on board with his wife and son had he been left behind by the first to leave the schooner.

But the men on the beach stood by in the darkness until well after midnight, hoping there might be one survivor on board who could haul the buoy out again. But Wulffs story precluded this possibility, and there was no one left alive on the Witherspoon. The night passed, with only the sound of the schooner's masts tearing out and crashing into the sea. The morning dawned and with it the gale lessened. All that remained of the big three-master was a portion of her mainmast still standing above the battered hull.

The wreck of the T.B. Witherspoon was only one of the many which occurred on and around Nantucket. But a half century later the story was still being recounted. And, on the mainland, one hundred miles away, a

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young minister read an account of the disaster in The Boston Globe, and was inspired by the account to write what has since become one of the best known of the old-time hymns: "Throw Out The Life Line!"

During the next few days six of the seven bodies of those who had met death during the shipwreck were taken from the waters along the south shore. Nothing of any great value was ever recovered from the cargo of the Witherspoon. The big schooner went to pieces quickly, and parts of ' her deck and her spars and broken masts strewed the beaches for miles.

What remained of her hull was sold at auction for $55, the purchasers being David W. and Richard E. Burgess, who also bought all rights to the cargo for which they paid $1.