The true Democrat., 1854-05-09
Disastrous Shipwreck!
Loss of the Powhataa-Iloo Hundred and Fyts
 Liyes Losti

Loss of the Powhatna-Iloo Hundred and FEtts
 Lives Lost!
 In the New York Herald, of the 21st, we find full particulars of the terrible catastrophes which attended the late storm on the Atlantic coast resulting in a loss of two hundred and fifty lives. The details of the sufferngs and hardships of the passengers on the Powhatan before they were overwhelmed by watery death, are enough to make the stoutest heart quail and the cheek blanch with horror:
 The Powhatan left Havre for New York on the lst, laden with passengers. While strug- gling against the furious storm, twelve miles below Barnegat, she was driven among the shoals. where she remained exposed to the fu- rious assaults of wind and waves until she went to pieces at five o'clock on last Sunday week. The situation in which the ship lay on strik- ing, precluded the possibility of escape by the passengers who were compelled to stare a cer- tain and frightful death in the face for twenty four hours, before they went down forever- During the long night of Saturday and the whole of Sunday, the unfortunates-iti is SUD- posed some two hundred and fifty in number were seen clinging to the leeward bulwark of the ship, with the sea continually washing owe, them, and expecting death at the rise of every succeeding wave.
 Between four and five o'clock on Sunday af- ternoon the ships bulwarks burst, and about fifty persons, at the same moment were washed overheard. Mir. Jennings, the wreck master, with others, made great efforts to save some of those who were Tn the water, but in vain. The Captain, too, was heard to cry from the shlp For Gods sake save some of those who are drowning" Every eXertion was made, put It was no use; and in all of the SIX bodies which the wreck master succeeded III rescurlng from the water life was extinct
 About five o'clock the vessel was completely broken up; most of her passengers and crew were drowned. but few still survied clinging to pieces of the wreck. The shrieks of the dying rose even above the roaring of the storm, which seemed to be increasing rather than sub- siding in fury. It was at this moment that a huge wave was noticed rolling nwards-the dead and the dying were alike engulfed within it-and when it had passed over them, there was not one left alive of those passengers and crew of the ill-fated Powhatan, who numbered two hundred and fifty souls that same morn ing.
 A few hours later the schooner Manhattan went ashore about mile distant from the ill., fated Powhatan. She had crew of nine men, only one was saved and he was washed ashore by the violence of the waves, where he was found perfectly insensible. Had the crew fol- lowed the advice of the captain, and leaped ashore from the b-boon, all might have been saved; but they were so utterly paralyzed by their appalling situation, that they shut them selves up in the after cabin, to be overwhelmed when the vessel wentto pieces. On the Brigan- tine beach, in the neighborhood of the disaster, one hundred and thirty bodies were washed ashore, all of which were rigid and lifeless- The passengers are supposed to have consisted almost entirely of German emigrants. The people on the beach humanely assisted in wash ing and dressing the corpses preparatory to bu- rial, several days being occupied in the sorrow full work. The bodies were carried to the dead house, where they were piled up in tiers, pre- senting shocking andsickening spectacle.