The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-10-30
FATAL SHIPWRECKS.
A Record of Maritime Disasters, In which
Many Lives were Lost, during tho Past


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that has taken place in British waters
during the period in question, was the
running down of the Northaeet emigrant
ship, while at anchor off Dungeness, on
the night of January %, 1873, by the
Spanish steamer Murillo, when 293 per-
sons were drowned. A collision almost
equally disastrous, and strongly recall.
ing in some respects that which has just
occurred on the Thames, took place on
Lake Michigan, on September Z, 1868.
The steamboat Lady Elgin, which had
started from Chicago on pleasure trip,
with nearly 400 e1cursionists on board,
was run into by schooner, and sunk
within quarter of an hour with 285
people. The year 1854 was marked by
series Of fatal collisions. The Italian
mail steamer Ercolano left Genoa on
April "a, with a number Of passengers,
including several English, French and
Italian families, and at midnight was
cut down to the waters edge by the
Stella. Only fourteen of the passen.
gers escaped, among them being Biz
Robert Peel, whose secretary and MIR.
Charles Halsey, the member for Hert.
fordshire, were among the drowned.
On April %, the emigrant bark Favor
ite, from Bremen, was run into off the
Start by the Hesper, and went down like
stone with POI of her passengers and
crew; six of the crew only saving them
selves by clambering over the Hespers
bows. On September 81. the Arctic, q
splendid ship of the Collins line, came
into collision with the screw steamer
Vesta in O fog off the Banks of New
foundland, and out Of the 1868 persons
on board, 1928 perished, among them the
Due de Grammont and the Duo de Guy
mes. The same year was also rendered
memorable in maritime disaster by the
disappearance of the City Of Glasgow,
screw steamer, which left the Mersey
for Philadelphia, on March l, with 4a0
persons on board, all told, and of the
Lady Nugent, transport, which sailed
from Madras, on May 10, with re-
Inducements for the army at Rangoon,
forming with her crew total of some
400 persons. Neither of these vessels
was ever heard of again-a fate shared
BY the Pacific, which left Liverpool on
January %, 1856, with 1856, and the City
of Boston, which sailed from Halifax
on January %, 1870, with 19l persons
on board. The mail steamship Europa,
on her way to England, in July. 1849,
ran down the emigrant bark Charles
Bartlett, causing the death of 1872 per-
sons and the Irish steamer Mangerton
blundered into the New Zealand clipper
Josephine Willis, just off the South
Foreland, aud sent her and si1ty-nine
people, mostly passengers, to the bottom.
The laundering of the Captain off
Cape Finisterre on the night Of Sep
tember 6, 1870, with Captain Burgoyne
and 500 officers and seanen, remains the
heaviest calamity that has befallen the
navy during the last half Of the present
century. The severest loss suffered
sea by the army was from the contin-
gent furnished by the Twelfth Lancers
and Forty.third and Ninety second
Foot, through the 438 lives lost with the
Birkenhead off the Cape OF Good Hope
on February 26, 1852. The American
army sustained an almost equal loss
when about 300 of the troops on board
the San Francisco were washed over
board or cied from exhaustion and e1-
posure during her passage from Cali
fornia in December, 1853. The most
aisasterous confsgration in British
waters was that which caused the deaths
of 178 people on board the emigrant
packet Ocean Monarch, in Abergele
bay, on the afternoon of August "a,
1948. But it's horrors were even eclipsed
by those attending the burning of the
steamship Austria, between Hamburg
and New York, on September 13, 1858,
when 461 out of 528 persons on board
were burned or drowned. A like fate
overlook 204 OF 338 persons on board the
Golden Gate on her passage from San
Francisco to Panama on the 9th OF
July, 1852; while the number who per-
ished in a similar manner, with Eliot
Warburton, on board the Amazon, In
the bay of Biscay, on the 4th of January,
1852, amounted to 102 out of 161 per-
sons, The author of "The Crescent
and the Gross had written that "since
the days OF steam navigation the bay Of
Biscay was no longer formidable" yet
the London steamship went down IN it
on her way to Australia on the 11th OF
January, 1866, carrying with her 239
out of her complement of 258; and
among them G. Y. Brooke, the actor.
Two most disastrous shipwrecks OF re-
cent date were those of the Atlantic and
and the Royal Charter. The latter, a
homeward-bound Australian clipper,
was crushed like an egg.shell on the
rocky coast off Anglesea, just before
dsybreak on October 26, 1859, and 459
men, women and children were drowned,
some forty or so managing to scramble
ashore. The number Of lives lost with
the Atlantic, one of the White Star line,
was even more appalling. She struck
on sunken rock off the coast OF Nova
Scotia, on April l, 1873, with 931 pas
sengers on board, and the breakers
swept away 4S1 OF them. The Anna
Jane of Liverpool, bound for Canada,
with $50 emigrants and crew OF forty
five. was driven on shore on Barra
island, one of the Hebrides, on Septem-
Der %, 1853, and 1913 persons perished.
The Pom Ona, anOtner eml9[aub Sill
from the same port, was suffered,
through au error in her reckoning, to run
on the Wexford coast during the night OF
April %, 1859, the result being the loss
of 1856 lives. In 1854 the Tsyleur, an
other Liverpool emigrant ship, ran
on to Lambay island, near Howth, on
January 81, when 290 lives were lost
and a similar fate overlook the Powhat-
tan, from Havre, on the coast of Barne,
gat, on April Is, not a soul of the 25o
on board escaping. In the terrible gale
of April 80, 1850, the Royal Adelaide
steampacket, from Cork to London
went on to the Tongue Sands. near Mar
gate, and out of 26O persons forming he5
passengers aud crew not one survived
| to give the details Of her fate.
fhnfY Fh1rSf-