The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-23
THE GAYHEAD DISASTER.
The Steamer Wrecked on the "Mussel Bed"
and Not on Devils Bridge.

Boston, Jan 22.-Fishermen say the City of
Columbus did not strike on Devils Bridge at all,
but on the unused bed" mentioned yesterday,
situated three hundred feet outside of the buoy,
off the bridge. They say further that there is
but fifteen feet of water there, and all contend
that Captain Wright correct when he said
he saw the buoy on the steamers port bow at
the time she struck. Quartermaster Mcdonald,
the man at the wheel when the catastrophe oc-
Cured, has been reported having said that
when off Nobska light, Captain Wright gave
him the course to follow as southwest by west,
and he held that course until the vessel struck
the rocks. Captain Wright admits he was cor
rectly quoted as far as changing the course at
Nobska is concerned, but also says before enter
ing his state-room in the pilot-house he told the
second mate to change his course to west south
west, when the ship should be off Tarpaulin
cove light, and, i'll his opinion this was not done,
hence the wreck
The tug Nellie going to the wreck of the City
OF Columbus returned, the sea being so rough
that she could not land at Gayhead. The body
OF Edward /. hutchinson, of Cape Elizabeth,
Me-, has been identified Another body has been
identified as Augustus Pearson, of Taunton.
A Syracuse N. " dispatch says Elizabeth
H. Beach, lost in the City of Columbus, was the
organizer of the famous Neal mission bands in
this country, an auxiliary to the religious work
of Paris, France, under the name of the McAll
mission"
THE GAYHEAD ''NATIvEs."
The inhabitants of the neck of land brought
into prominence by the disaster to the steamer
City of Columbus and who are said to have
charged cash for the recovered bodies of the
dead before delivering them, are thus described
by D. Fl. Strother (''Porte Crayon~ in an arti-
ole Aod
ago: ''We visited the Indian reservation at Gay
head, so called from a remarkable headland that
forms the western extremity of the island of
Martha's Vineyard. Here, on a dreary point,
nearly cut off from the main body of the island
by couple of fresh-water ponds, dwells the
scanty remnant of the aboriginal inhabitants of
the land. The moment we enter the reserva-
ton the appearance of everything indicates
thriftleSs and inferior people. The
hills are treeless and shrubless; num-
Der of ordinary cattle may be seen browsing
upon the luxuriant grass but no signs of culti-
walton or improvement are vsi BILE. We resolved
to see something of the Indians, and started out
on tour of observation. The only roads in the
reservation except the main road to the light
house, are narrow footpaths through the grass,
leading from house to house Visiting the school,
we found some twenty-five younglings of both
sexes, and of mixed blood. where negroes, Indian,
and white ancestry were jointly represented.
Some were pure African. and two or three only
untainted aboriginals The school-mistress was
good-looking mulatto girl of twenty years old,
or Whereabouts. The population of the Gay
head reservation numbers about 300, great and
small Very few of them are of pure Indian
blood, as they have intermarried with negroes
and mulattoes of every grade, who, in pursuit of
that life of equality and lazy independence which
they have sought in vain among the whites,
readily associate themselves with these remnants
of the aboriginal tribes Notwithstanding these
casual additions to the community. its numbers
diminish from year to year, and in few more
decades nothing will remain of them but the
name,n