The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-12-08
And Wild the
Scene
ALONG BRANT ROCK.
Worcester Party Returns
From its Forced Visit.


found Tuesday when a party of twelve
who have formed the local colony at
this well known resort for Is years
made their trip Of inspection to ascer- |
tain how their cottages had Jared in
the terrible storm which sent to a
watery grave nearly two hundred hui
man souls on the Inflated Portland.
The party of twelve who are regular
visitors at Brant Rock and have been
for many years, were Webster Thayer.
Esq, Mr.. and Mrs. Waldo Sessions, Mr..
and Mrs. E. ]. Watson Mr.. and Mrs.
c. NJ. Booth, Edwin P. Pevey Capt.
George L. Allen, William Allen, Will
liam Mcclure, and Prof. James Smith
of Boston.
The party left by an early train and
upon their arrival at the rock, where
they have enjoyed such delightful
bathing and rambles during the sum-
mer season, they found the scene which
was unfolded to their view one of
wreck ruin and general chaos. Even
the oldest visitors who had passed their
summers at the beach for 16 years,
We're unable to identify the surround
ings, and some could barely establish
the SPOT where their cottages had once
stood. Far and wide were the evid-
ences of the great disaster of the
storm. and the debris of shattered cot
tages covered the beach with its mantle
OF destruction and waste.
Lawyer Webster Thayer, when seen
yesterday afternoon upon the impress
| sion of his visit to the coast, gave
very vivid and picturesque description
o. the scene Such violent, tangible re-
suits of old Neptune's wrath at the
world in general he had never before
| bebeld Cottages We're literally taken
from their foundations and borne hun
| drcds of feet away to the marshes.
| Railroad ties were bodily picked from
the sieepers, seized by the mighty tide
and on the crest of the majestic waves
carried inland into the marshes, where
| they were deposited, and We're to be
seen above the general level of the
marsh as if they had been laid there
| by human agency.
Where there had been a row of IA
cottages in line, the waves had raised
them up all together, and then crashed
them together, as if they had been
swallowed up in a mighty maelstrom
NO shape was left to the houses, and
all that could be found in some instan-
ces TO denote that cottages had once
existed, " as the mass of timbers, boards
and woodwork, which had been raised
in pile as If for some solemn funeral
pyre to commemorate the death of the
sailors at sea during that awful day
The tide had penetrated fifty feet fur
Their inland than the ordinary high tide
extends. ana where the line Of cottages
had been near the beach crest, the
foundations had been literally scooped
1AoY
feet in height literally swept away,
leaving in its place only an irregular
ditch. with it's gruesome debris, broken
t1mbers. twisted steel, and an inter
minSlinG Of stones and small-sized
boulders, monuments as they were. to a.
dead prosperity which had gone down
with the ships at sea.
Waldo Sessions was unable to locate
the site of one of the cottages which
had been familiar to him, and he and
Mr.. Thayer had an argument at law
whether the boundaries of such and
such a lot were at a certain point or
not When such a man as Mr.. SEES
slons, who has been at the place for IL
years, is unable to identify the old
landmarks of the locality the average
reader Will wonder in a mild Way at
the tremendous Transformation which
the storm wrought at Brant Rock.
manly VI IilG pEUplG VINO nave lived
at the Rock have been ruined. One
man who owned five cottages lost the
entire number, and now is having a
ditch to ditch canvas to identify even
a part of the property, which is streWn
all over the beach like so many mani
mate bodies. In one instance a mans
cottage, which had faced the broad ex-
panse of the ocean, commanding a fine
view, was turned completely around bv
q NO nd Ii
back side of the house.
In another case the cottage was lifted
with little damage from it's site and
carried to the marsh, where it now
stands above the general level. as if
an abandoned hut of Alexander Sell
kirk. This is one of the numerous
phases of the scene, and in other por-
| tions of the marsh are stoves, with long
iron tunnels penetrating above the
general surface, as If there were a Iiv-
ing, throbbing city beneath and the
smoke were seeking an outlet through
| the marsh from it's entombment be-
| low.
A large vessel. about ITO feet long
as seen by Mr.. Thayer,, now stands 30
feet on shore from the point reached
by the average high tide. There the
vessel stands, without a sign of, its
former prowess, the symbol of the
WISHING g
stroy it, it sent it inshore high and
dry The IA sailors who We're on board
Stuck to the ship to the last and landed
safely when the mighty wave drove it
on the beach. Another ship was also
driven on the sands. On this boat there
We're Is sailors. Five jumped into the
breakers, hoping to reach shore. but
they were lost. The sailors who re-
NAMED with the vessel and were car
o. m hn hno nh,
Even the government life-saving Sta
ton, which was built according to mod
ern engineering methods, was damaged,
ana the entire front was drifted with
sand, rocks and debris.
Old residents of the place told Mr.
Thayer that the tide was nine inches
higher than that of 1851, when the fam
Gus Minot's Ledge Lighthouse was de-
stroyed and when hundreds of sailors
went down to their watery death in the
aWIulness of the tempestuous night.
Several cottages of the Worcester
party We're entirely destroyed, and 9th
ers We're damaged, and still others un-
Iouched. Capt. Aliens cottage has dis
appeared, and with it his new, attrac-
i've sallboat, which is now scattered in
spllnters along the beach.
owing to the fact that the highway
Whch is situated a long distance from
lne ocean has been filed with stones
ana debris and as the railroad has been
oorne away in some of it's parts to the
nielghDoring marshes, the beach itself
Is not reached with the ease Of former
times However, the Worcester party.
aIlef arriving at the place and view
ing the scene enjoyed the visit as best
they could, and returned with a feeling
OF inconsistencies in their hearts, as thew
thought Of the wonderful change
wrought in two hours on the memorable
sunday morning when the Portland
wen Went down, with every life, off Peaked
Hoods Pills cure bIliousness NTailod
No. I2a 20 cents by c. !. Hood & Co., Lowell, |