Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1914-02-06

IIl-Fated Passengers, Asleep When
Crash Came, Had No Chance For
Life-Disaster Occurred In Dense
Fog.
Forty-eight lives were lost in the Icy
waters of the Atlantic when the Ola
Dominion liner Monroe, from Norfolk
for New York, was rammed amldshlp,
overturned and sunk within ten min
utes, twenty-five miles southeast OF
Hog Island, by the Merchants ana
Miners liner Nantucket, bound from
Boston to Norfolk.
The forty-eight persons lost COM
prised twenty-three passengers ana
twenty-five members Of the crew, &C.
cording to official wireless reports to
the Old Dominion line.
Thirty passengers and fifty-tiVe or
the crew we're saved, making the list
of those rescued eighty-fve, who were
brought to Norfolk by the badly dam
aged Nantucket
CAPTAIN Johnson and all his officers
except one were among those saved.
Among the lost was Second Officer
Gately.
Captain Johnson was found in the
water clutching a piece of wreckage.
He was nearly exhausted when picked
up by lifeboat.
When the Monroe sank she disap-
peared completely, with no vestige OF
her rigging above the water. Only
scattered wreckage marked the YES
sells grave.
Among the rescued passengers Is
James OConnell, vice president Of the
American Federation of Labor.
The eighty-tive survivors picked up
from the sea and huddled on the Nan
tucket, which, with crumpled bow,
limped into Norfolk, were the only
ones who knew all the details of how
the two big ships, picking their way
through blanket of fog-one bound
north and the other bound south
met with a crash near the Winter
Quarter Shoal lightship. IS. o. S."
calls reaching out to the coast sta
lions started every available agency
of rescue into action, but not soon
enough.
The Nantucket was conveyed by the
steamship Hamilton to Norfolk. The
Nantucket was badly damaged IN the
bow.
While the Nantucket backed off, af-
the collision, lowered boats and began
sweeping the misty sea with her big
searchlights. the Monroe, her passen-
gers pitched out of their berths in
their night clothes. sank like plum
met.
In the swirling vortex of the sinking
ship men shouted and women scream
ed through the mist. The Monroe went
down SO quickly that there was little
time for launching boats and the only
ones saved were those picked up at
once by the Nantucket.
Those lost had scarcely chance to
realize that death was upon them be-
fore they we're struggling in the sea.
The doomed passengers of the Mon
roe, fast asleep in their cabins when
the two vessels came together, went
down to death with only time for a
shrek Of despair.
Only those kept awake by the snort
ing sirens thai were wailing their use
less warnings through the fog knew
when the vessels struck. The rest,
thrown from their berths by the force
of the collision, heavy with sleep, had
scarcely time to struggle to the deck
of the sinking vessel before they were
plunged into the water.
Not ten minutes interviewed between
the time the blunt bow of the lum-
bering Nantucket crashed its way into
the side of the Dominion liner and the
time the latter slid under the waves.
The eighty-five rescued huddled on the
Nantucket were lifted from the icy
water after their vessel had gone to
the bottom.
Thomas Harrington, of Bridgeport,
Conn, told a thrilling story of the
wreck. Harrington and his wife were
long in the water and the man was
swimming with his wife's hair between
his teeth when the two were picked
up. Mrs. Harrington died from ex-
haustion after being hauled aboard the