The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-01-24
Those Who Hear are
PowerIess to Save.
EIGHT SOULS GOODWIN
The Augustus Hunt Stranding in Black
Midnight Off Quogue, Long Island,
is Broken to Fragments by
the Violence of the
Waves.
(By the Associated Press.)

New York Jan. 23.-Eight lives were
lest in the wreck today off Quogue, L. T.,
of the four-masted schooner Augustus
Hunt, coal laden, for Boston from Norfolk,
Va. OF the crew of ten, only two men
were saved, second mate George Ebert, OF
Cleveland Ohio, and a Swede, who was
unconscious when washed on the beach
and whose name could not be ascertained.
The vessel was in command of First
Mate Conary, who took charge of her in
place of Captain Robert Blair, when she
last left Boston Soon after midnight dur
ing dense fog the schooner stranded,
few hundred feet from the beach and
about mile west of the Quogue Life Saw
ing Station. A Life Saving patrolman
heard the cries for help on board and
summoned the station crew.
For hours the life savers were able to
hear the cries of the men on the vessel
which was near at hand but buried in
the fog They were absolutely unable to
help the men. Time and again they
launched their boat, only to have it
hurled back to the shore by the heavy
surf The life savers also had recourse
TO life lines, but the shots carrying the
lines either fell wide or short OF the in
visible mark.
Soon after daylight masses OF wreck
ae began to come ashore, indicating that
the vessel was rapidly breaking up About
noon spar with man clinging to it was
seen tossing in the outer line of break
ers. After line had been shot across it
and made fast by the man he was pulled
ashore and proved to be Second Mate
Ebert. few minutes later another sailor
was seen on the mass of wreckage and
half dozen life savers, forming a hui
man chain, dashed into the surf and drew
him ashore. He was unconscious and con
tinued in that condition at a late hour
tonight.
The cries of those remaining on the
wreck continued to grow fainter and faint
err during the afternoon and finally ceased
altogether One body drfted ashore, but
it was so disfgured as to be unrecogniza-
BILE. 1t is believed that only the bow OF
the vessel remains on the bar and from
this the exhausted seamen dropped one
by one until they all were swept away.
Mate Ebert, after being taken to the
Life Saving Station, said that the YES
sci stranded in the fog, having mistaken
the Shinnecock Light for the headlight
of steamer The officers believed they
were at least twenty-five miles off shore
and in no danger when the vessel sud
de My struck and began to pound 10 pieces
in the heavy sea that was running on
the bar.
Great waves swept the vessels decks,
the masts snapped off like pipe stems and
with the rigging were carried away by
the tremendous sea. As the hull began
to go to pieces the members of the crew
were driven forward where they hung as
best they could. Ebert was clinging TO
some wreckage on the deck when the
whole mass went overheard carrying him
with it. Ebert was unable to give the
names of any of the crew, most OF whom
were shipped at Norfolk.
The Augustus Hunt was 20S leet over
ALL 20 IL feet deep and 40.7 fee beam.
She was of LAO net tonnage and was
built in Bath, Maine, in 1882. She carried
a cargo of LIS tons of bitumln1us coal
which was valued at $4,000 and was in
sured. 1t was consigned to Cover & Son.
of East Boston. The vessel was valued
at O,OOO and is said to have been partly
insured.
The Augustus unit was one OF the fleet
of ten four-masted schooners built at the
Morse yards at Bath, Maine. All of these
vessels with the exception OF the Mary 2.
Morse were lost at sea, the previous one
being wrecked in the volcanic eruption at
Martinique.
The body of the man washed ashore
was tonight identified as that OF Charles
Hudson. of Maiden, Mass. The rescued
sailor revived sufficiently to be able to
saw that he was John Somer, native OF
Finland. who was one OF the survivors OF
the wreck of the schooner Joseph Pharo
near Cape Charles on January and who
shipped on the Hunt at Norfolk. Another
unidentified body came ashore tonight.