Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1907-02-16

rovidence.-Horrible almost be-
yond relief are the stories told by the
survivors of the ill-fated Joy line
steamer Larchmont, which was sunk
off Watch Hill Monday night by a
collision with the coal-laden schooner
Harry Knowlton.
NO more tragic tale of shipwrecK
in the sound has ever been related,
but the narratives are so circumstan-
tial as they are told by those whose
feet have trod the very threshold Of
the great unknown, persons stunned
to condition of calmness by the
great calamity, that their words carry
conviction to all who hear them.
At Block Island and on the steamer
Kentucky of the Joy line, which went
to the island Tuesday to bring back
the recovered dead and the manned
living survivors of the awful catas-
trophe, the stories of the awful ex-
periences of those left to speak were
IOlu, dlCS IhClS MNlN VI AANA S@N'AAA
and Of the noblest selfsacritice in the
actual presence of death, but in none
of those tales of heroic conduct did
the writer hear the name of officer or
man of the ships company mention
ed.
There were few words OF bitterness
or of condemnation spoken by any OF
those saved, for men and women who
have been drawn back from the por-
tails of death, as have these unfortu-
mates, feel like extending charity and
mercy to all their fellow men as Provi-
dence exten led it to them in their time
of peril, and for the most part they
refrain from all uncharitableness OF
speech.
Still, the survivors point out that
of a total of $50 or more souls aboard
the Larchmont, a considerable num-
Der of the passengers being women,
only 10 were saved, and that of this
number but two were women, and
that of the II men saved, eight were
officers or members of the ships COM
pany OF the 40 frozen, distorted hui
man bodies which were brought into
this port in the evening, five were wo-
men.
How many more bodies of what on
Monday evening were well, happy,
courageous human beings, with ambi-
tions and aims in life, are now floating
about in the waters of the Sound or
MI In nd tufict-
ed hull of the Larchmont probably
never will be known, but there seems
little reason to doubt that the number
is at least 100, and perhaps consider
ably more.
Oscar A. Young, who was purser of
the Larchmont, and who had in his
keeping so much of a passenger list
as was required, said that he thinks
there were about 105 passengers on
the steamer when she went to destruc-
tion, and that the crew numbered 43,
all told. or total, as he fixes it, of
148 persons aboard.
Other steamboat men who ply their
calling on the Sound and are familiar
with conditions which maintain in that
business say that Monday night is
one of the nights Of the week when pas
senger traffic to New York from New
England points is at it's highest, and
that it is a common thing for one
man to hire a stateroom and then take
one or more of his friends into 1t to
spend the night, so that so far as the
stateroom count goes there is nothing
very certain as to how many there
may be abroad
If the wreck of the Larchmont, the
exact location of which is not yet
known, is never found, there will be
no possible way in which even an ap-
proximately accurate estimate of the
loss of life can be made, and some
steamboat men do not think that even
If the steamer could be located and
diver could reach 1t and get the
passenger list that it would supply
all the information desired by the
general public, and especially by those
who may have friends missing coin
cidently with the date of the sinking
of the Larchmont.
Although Capt.George w. McVey of
the Larchmont thinks he knows with
in mile or so the place at which his
steamer foundered, sailormen of many
years of experience in these waters
doubt very much if it will be possible
definitely to locate the wreck, as the
water all through that portion of the
entrance to the sound where the dis.
aster occurred ranges from 20 to 80
fathoms, a depth in which almost in.
surmountable difficulties beset divers.
One thing on which practically all the
sound shippers agree Is that the wreck
of the Larchmont presents no meance
to navigation, lying, as she must, in
so great a depth of water.
D. Il