Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-04-03
climbed higher for safety The night

climbed higher for safety. The night
was SO dark and the spray blew 80
thiclxly, that we could not see well what
was going on around us. saw men on
the rocks, but did not know how they
| got there. All who were alive on board
were in the rigging. When daylight
came counted thirty two persons in the
mizzen mast rigging with me, including
one woman. When these saw there
were lines between the ship and shore,
many of them attempted to go forward
to the lines and in doings so were washed
overheard and drowned. Many reached
shore by aid of the lines, and the fisher
mems boats rescued many more.
AT last all had either been washed off
or rescued, except myself, woman and
boy. The sea had become so rough
that boats could not venture near us.
Soon the boy was washed off, but he
swan CALAMITY and reached one of the
boats in safety. | got a firm hold of
the woman and secured her in the
rigging. | could see peopleo on shore and
in boats, and could hail them, but they
were unable to help us.
AT two o'clock in the afternoon, after
we had been in the rigging ten hours,
the Rev. Mr.. Ancient, Church of Eng
land clergyman, whose noble conduct |
can never forget while l live, got a crew
of mo- 70 Al
wreck. He got into the main rigging
and procured line, then advanced as
far as he could toward me. / caught it,
made it fast around my body and then
jumped clear. A heavy sea swept me
off the wreck, but Mr. Ancient held fast
to the line, pulled me back and got me
safely in the boat. / was then so ex-
hausted and benumbed that / was hardly
able to do anything for myself, and but
for the clergyman's gallant conduct l
must have persisted.
The woman, after bearing up with
remarkable strength under her great
trials, had died two hours before Mr..
Ancient arrived, and her half nude body
was still fast in the rigging, her eyes
protruding and her mouth foaming. 1t
was terribly CHASTITY spectacle, render
ed more CHASTITY by contrast with the
numerous jewels which sparkled on her
hands. We had to leave her body there,
and it is probably there yet. The scene
at the wreck was awful, one such as
had never before witnessed and hope
never to witness again.
Comparatively few bodies drifted
ashore, most of them, with such articles
as came out of the ship, while was
on her, were carried to sea.
THE GREATEST WRECK FOR FIFTY YEARS.
NEW York, April l.
Themorning papers comment at length
upon the loss of the Atlantic, calling for
a searching investigation to fix the full
responsibility, and showing that it is the
great naval disaster of the half century.
No such loss of life since the British
frigates st. George and Defiance were
wrecked off the coast of Jutland in 1911,
and two thousand lives lost four hun
bred and forty-six lives were lost on the
Royal Charter, wrecked on Anglesea
/ Coast in 1859 three hundred and nine
/ ty-fve men were drowned in the Pemo-
ma cast away on BIackwater bank, the
the same year: four hundred and sixty
one persons were lost on the Austria,
burned il mid-ocean one hundred and
eighty-siX people on the Pacific, which
disappeared in 1856, and four hundred
and eighty on the City of Glasgow,
which also disappeared in 1854; three
hundred were lost on the Arctic the same
same year off the coast of Newfound.
land two hundred and twenty persons
were lost on the Hungarian off the same
coast III 1866, and three hundred and
twenty-five lives were lost by the wreck
of the Northfieet in the English channel
last January.
THE CAPTAIN.
Captain Williams has been in the
transatlantic trade for about a dozer
years. He formerly commanded the
Colorado, which was sunk by collision
in the MerseY leaving Liverpool forNeW
York about a year ago.