by Liz Mechem
When a ship is lost at sea, it leaves behind a void, as loved ones, property, and hopes disappear into the deep. In the case of the New Haven Colony, the void was large and terrifying. In this smallest of independent New England colonies—New Haven wouldn’t be incorporated into Connecticut Colony until 1665—trade wasn’t going so well. The struggling settlers had to filter all their trade with England through the ports of their wealthier neighbor to the north, the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1646, the people of New Haven pooled their meager resources and contracted a 150-ton (136 metric ton) cargo vessel from a Rhode Island shipyard to carry a load of goods to England.
The Puritans who settled the New Haven Colony faced many hardships and had placed a great deal of hope in the successful journey of the “Great Shippe.”
UNDER FULL SAIL
On an icy January day in 1647, the “Great Shippe” finally departed New Haven. The ship was towed out into open water with great effort; men had to manually break the ice for a three-mile stretch. Finally she got underway, loaded with animal pelts and hides, wheat, peas, important documents, and some of the highest-ranking citizens of the community—the colonists’ last great hope.
Spring arrived, but without any word of the ship from any quarter. Weeks turned to months, and all began to despair. The colony’s spiritual leader, Reverend John Davenport, prayed for a sign from God. Six months after her departure, in June 1647, a great thunderstorm blew in from the northwest. Before the air cleared, a mysterious sight appeared at the mouth of the Quinnipiac River—a ship half there and half not there. With all sails set, she proceeded upriver, sailing directly into the wind as if under full sail. Crowds gathered to watch her ghostly progress. According to a contemporary report, the ship was “of like dimensions” to their own, leading all to surmise that their ship had met a tragic end. As spectators watched in awe, the ship’s sails appeared to shred and dissipate, her masts toppled, and finally she heeled over and “vanished into a smoky cloud.” Here at last was the closure they desired, even if otherworldly.
The legend of New Haven’s ghost ship has lived on through the centuries. In 1858, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captured the story in his poem “The Phantom Ship,” which ends: “And the pastor of the village Gave thanks to God in prayer, That, to quiet their troubled spirits, / He had sent this Ship of Air.”
Woodcut of New Haven colonists watching in awe as the phantom ship evaporates in the fog. Thirty minutes had passed from the time the ship first appeared on the horizon to its seeming disintegration before their eyes.
ON GOOD AUTHORITY
THE REDOUBTABLE PURITAN MINISTER Cotton Mather (1663–1728) had no truck with the supernatural. Witches, ghosts, and apparitions were the work of the devil, as Mather repeatedly asserted during the Salem Witch Trials. Yet in his Magnalia Christi Americana, Mather reprinted a glowing account of the New Haven phantom ship, exhorting the reader to believe the story word for word. He pointed to the “many credible gentlemen that were eyewitnesses of this wonderful thing,” and called the account “as undoubted as ’tis wonderful.”
Cotton Mather: an unlikely supporter of the ghostly vision of the “Great Shippe”
The Flying Dutchman
GHOST SHIP
T he Flying Dutchman is perhaps the most famous of history’s many spectral vessels, and the most terrifying. As early as 1795 the Dutchman appears in print, and sightings of her have continued up to the present day. The ghost ship is said to sail forever with a crew of dead men. Their captain is a wraith who made the mistake of cursing the winds that beset his ship. Thus our piteous captain (variously known as van der Decken, van Dam, or van Straaten) was in return cursed to roam the seas for all eternity.
The legend tells of an unfortunate ship, plagued by an all too common storm while trying to get around the Cape of Good Hope, the treacherous point of land on the farthest southern tip of Africa. The passengers and crew pleaded with the captain to turn the ship around. As the crew came to mutiny, the captain shot and killed the ringleader of the rebellion, tossed his body overboard, and continued his mad journey into the maw of the storm. Just as all appeared lost, the captain cursed the storm, the winds, and the very sea, and swore to continue to sail around the Cape until judgment day.
Suddenly the sea calmed and a ghostly figure appeared on the deck. With a withering glare, the ominous spirit damned the captain and his crew for all eternity to ride the stormy seas off the Cape. Furthermore, the spirit continued, “gall shall be your drink, and red-hot iron your meat.” And so the Flying Dutchman (it’s not clear whether the name refers to the ship itself or the Dutch captain) is said to haunt the stormy seas off the Cape of Good Hope. Woe betide any who spy her—a glimpse of her is enough to curse a hapless sailor to death.
The HMS Bacchante. For three years, Prince George and his brother Albert served as midshipmen aboard the Bacchante. In July 1881, George noted in his diary: “At 4 AM the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows.”
George V
FLYING THROUGH FICTION
The Flying Dutchman legend has inspired artists and has appeared in many fictional forms. It was captured in a painting by Albert Pinkham Ryder, now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and in a painting by Howard Pyle, known for illustrations of pirates. Richard Wagner’s 1843 opera, The Flying Dutchman, was the most famous fictional adaptation of the tale until 2006, when the legend was given modern prominence when it appeared as a central plot element in the immensely popular Pirates of the Caribbean film series.
The Flying Dutchman makes an appearance in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
APPARITIONS ON THE HIGH SEAS
The roll of witnesses to the Flying Dutchman includes a king of England, who saw the ghost ship in 1881 while serving aboard the HMS Bacchante as midshipman. While coming around Cape Horn, the future King George V stood on watch as the Dutchman crossed ahead of their bows. The poor soul who first spotted the ghostly ship fell from the rigging and died hours later. George never forgot the sight, and wrote of the “strange red light, as of a phantom ship all aglow.” As recently as March 1939 the Dutchman was sighted from land, fighting a gale off the Cape of Good Horn. When the ship turned to seek the shelter of Table Bay, it is said to have sailed into a cloud bank and vanished.
Scientists have offered a plausible explanation for the legend, positing that the apparition is an artifact of light and water. Those who have seen her eerily glowing rigging and ghostly
full sails bearing down upon them in a storm off the tumultuous tip of Africa, however, will tell a very different tale.
The Flying Dutchman by Albert Pinkham Ryder. In ocean lore, the sight of this ship spells doom.
SUPERNATURAL AT SEA
T he sea can be one of the most terrifying places on earth. Thus it comes as little surprise that it has inspired a long and colorful history of supernatural events and tales. Men—and, historically, nearly all sailors were men, because women were once considered bad luck on ships—who braved the daunting mountains of wind and water in tiny wooden vessels can perhaps be forgiven for ascribing supernatural causes and motivations to natural events.
An illustration of a ship beset by St. Elmo’s Fire. The phenomenon is unusual but natural, caused by a grounded object (like a ship) entering an electric field, such as those that thunder storms can create.
When confronted by an eerie glow in the rigging, miles from nowhere, on the dark and lonely dog watch, who wouldn’t think first of St. Elmo’s Fire? Sitting in our comfortable, dry chairs ashore it is easy to talk of static electricity, relative humidity, and atmospheric anomalies. But when glowing balls of light creep down the rigging, and then detach themselves to bob about the deck, emitting naught but a slight buzzing, well, it takes a strong and emotionless man to remain calm in such straits. Combine the wondrous mysteries of the sea with the imagination of men cooped up in a cramped ship for months on end and one is bound to encounter the supernatural.
V
ISIONS IN THE WAVES
St. Elmo’s Fire is a well-known example of a natural phenomenon with supernatural elements ascribed to it. Other common nautical legends, including sea serpents and mermaids, may also have natural antecedents. Giant squid or oarfish may have supported tales of ocean monsters, while manatees may have done the same for mermaids—although anyone who has seen the fat, wrinkly, porcine mammals must wonder just how desperate these sailors were. Confronted by scurvy, hot days in a tropical sun, and months of a monotonous landscape, however, imaginations might well run wild. Whatever factors combined to push sailors’ visions into the fantastic, it is probably not surprising that those who ply the seas construct and reinforce a belief structure that makes sense of the events they witness.
Mermaid legends usually describe the creatures as beautiful but deadly, enchanting sailors with loveliness or with song in order to drown them.
The manatee, a large, herbivorous marine mammal that favors shallow, tropical waters, is a far cry from the stereotypical image of the lithe and lovely mermaid.
VERY SUPERSTITIOUS
A COROLLARY OF SUPERNATURAL BELIEF is superstition. Sailors might be the most superstitious lot ever to walk (or rather, sail) the earth. If one chooses to violate a set of seemly random proscriptions, one should be prepared to endure the wrath of one’s shipmates, if not Mother Nature herself. Bad luck might be the most feared phenomenon aboard ship. The following (partial) list delineates some of the most popular omens of such a catastrophe: sighting a cormorant or curlew, killing an albatross, starting a voyage on Friday, carrying a black sea bag, stepping aboard left foot first, and, finally, and perhaps most perilously: allowing a woman or a banana onboard.
Northern royal albatross
THE FINAL WORD: LOST AT SEA
Widow’s walks were a prominent feature of coastal New England architecture during the Age of Sail. This small deck, often precariously perched on the highest point of a house’s roof, afforded a view of the harbor and the sea. Here, those with loved ones at sea could scan the horizon for a glimpse of a returning ship, hoping that it carried beloved seafarers safely home. As the previous pages attest, many watched in vain.
Although the term widow’s walk may give the impression that only men died at sea, this is certainly not the case. It is true that in ancient and early modern times, most seafaring identities—fisherman, sailor, or explorer, for example—were the province of men. During the Age of Sail, though, when many European powers established colonies all over the globe, and the transatlantic slave trade was a harsh and flourishing business, increasing numbers of women and children joined the ranks of those lost at sea. The great passenger liner disasters claimed the lives of thousands of families collectively. As these losses remind us, the sea is a vast and dangerous place. It has carried men and women to the farthest corners of their known worlds, but it has also claimed its share of life.
A widow’s walk. Many houses in old seafaring and coastal towns still feature these seemingly quaint additions. But, far from quaint, they are reminders of the anxiety felt by many families as they waited for the return of a loved one at sea.
We may admire the stark beauty of a stormy sea, knowing full well of its awesome power. Throughout history, the sea has claimed untold lives.
A legend persists that on the night of the Titanic’s sinking, the ship’s orchestra played the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.” This is, in fact, not true, but it points to a common response across cultures to loss at sea—grief commingled with faith. Against such an inexorable foe as the sea, our schemes and dreams can seem but small and insignificant. And yet, undaunted, we continue to take to the sea.
THE SEA GIVETH
Shipwrecks destroy lives and property, but they give back as well. In many coastal areas, from Southeast Asia to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the detritus of wrecked ships is turned into building supplies for locals. It is not uncommon to see houses constructed entirely of shipwreck timber in some parts of the world, sometimes incorporating porthole windows and pieces of rigging. The landlocked wreck of the USS Wateree in Peru became an inn.
Underwater, wrecks often become rich habitats for wildlife, and those in shallow water are favorite dive spots. Sunken ships can be well preserved when they are finally located, sometimes emerging nearly intact from the undersea silt, as was the case of the Mary Rose and the Vasa. Such discoveries rank with the best archaeological finds on terra firma, offering a window into a vanished world.
Shipwreck on a beach in Norway. Often, locals will make good use of timber salvaged from a beached wreck, using it to build houses and other structures.
A MILLION UNTOLD WRECKS
These pages have focused on grand and glorious ships and disasters of great magnitude, but there are untold numbers of those lost at sea in small boats. In every ocean, river, and lake of the world, the fisherfolk, the casual sailor, the worker on a coal barge, the couple out for a paddle—these too have lost their lives. It happens every day and goes largely unnoticed. Statistics are hard to come by, but it is a safe bet that the numbers of small or single losses around the world and throughout the years add up to a larger number than all the dramatic disasters combined. Each of these small tragedies leaves behind a circle of mourners for whom the scope is irrelevant. Whether lost on a Waratah or a Wee Lass, such a death still leaves an irreparable hole in the lives of those left behind.
Lionfish swim around a submerged shipwreck in Egypt. Wrecked ships often form artificial reefs that form thriving habitats for marine plants and animals.
FURTHER READING
BOOKS
Ballard, Robert D. Ghost Liners: Exploring the World’s Greatest Lost Ships. Boston: Little, Brown, 1998.
Ballard, Robert D., with Malcolm McConnell. Adventures in Ocean Exploration : From the Discovery of the Titanic to the Search for Noah’s Flood. Des Moines, IA: National Geographic Books, 2001.
Bass, George F. Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas: A History Based on Underwater Archaeology. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1996.
Bonansinga, Jay. The Sinking of the Eastland: America’s Forgotten Tragedy. New York: Citadel, 2005.
Bonsall, Thomas E. Great Shipwrecks of the Twentieth Century. Baltimore: Bookman Publishing, 1988.
Bound, Mensun. Lost Ships: The Discovery and Exploration of the Ocean’s Sunken Treasures. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
de Kerbrech, Richard. Ships of the White Star Line. Hersham, UK: Ian Allan Publishing, 2009.
Field, Greg. Great Ship Disasters. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks, 2003.
Fine, John Christopher. Treasures of the Spanish Main: Shipwrecked Galleons in the New World. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2006.
Flayhart, William Henry III. Disaster at Sea: Shipwrecks, Storms and Collisions on the Atlantic. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
Hoehling, A. A. Lost at Sea: The Truth Behind Eight of History’s Most Mysterious Ship Disasters. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999.
Horner, Dave. Shipwreck: A Saga of Sea Tragedy and Sunken Treasure. New York: Sheridan House, 1999.
Kinder, Gary. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea. New York: Vintage, 1999.
Konstam, Angus. Ghost Ships: Tales of Abandoned, Haunted, and Doomed Vessels. London: PRC Publishing, 2005.
Konstam, Angus, and Pennington, Claudia. The History of Shipwrecks. New York: The Lyons Press, 2002.
Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. New York, Basic Books, 1999.
Lee, Robert E. Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1984.
Lord, Walter. Day of Infamy, Sixtieth Anniversary: The Classic Account of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor. New York: Holt, 2001.
Lyon, Eugene. Search for the Motherlode of the Atocha. Florida: Florida Classics Library, 1989.
Marx, Robert, and Jennifer Marx. New World Shipwrecks 1492–1825: A Comprehensive Guide. Garland, TX: Ram Pub Co., 1994.
Marx, Robert F. In the Wake of Galleons. Flagstaff, AZ: Best
Publishing Company, 2001.
———. Shipwrecks in the Americas. New York: Dover, 1987.
McKee, Alexander. Wreck of the Medusa: The Tragic Story of the Death Raft. New York: Signet, 2000.
Miller Jr., William H. Doomed Ships: Great Ocean Liner Disasters. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2006.
Pelta, Kathy. Discovering Christopher Columbus: How History Is Invented. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1991.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. New York: Viking Penguin, 2000.
Pickford, Nigel. The Atlas of Shipwrecks and Treasure. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1994.
Platt, Richard. Eyewitness Shipwrecks. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2005.
Quinn, William P. Shipwrecks Along the Atlantic Coast: A Remarkable Collection of Photographs of Maritime Accidents from Maine to Florida. Orleans, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2004.
Ratigan, William. Great Lakes Shipwrecks and Survivals. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1960.
Ritchie, David. Shipwrecks: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Worst Disasters at Sea. New York: Checkmark Books/Facts on File, 1999.
Seibold, David J., and Adams, Charles J. III. Shipwrecks and Legends ’Round Cape May. Reading, PA: Exeter House Books, 1987.
Spignesi, Stephen J. The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 2002.
Stick, David. Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1985.
Ulloa, Francisco de. The Voyage of Francisco Ulloa, 1539. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 2003.
Walton, Timothy R. The Spanish Treasure Fleets. Sarastoa, FL: Pineapple Press, 2002.
White, Jefferson. Evidence and Paul’s Journeys. Hilliard, OH: Parsagard Press, 2001.
Wilson, Neil. Great Sea Disasters: The World’s Worst Sea Accidents. Bristol, UK: Paragon, 1998.
WEB SITES
DEATH ON THE DARK RIVER: THE STORY OF THE SULTANA DISASTER
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genepool/sultana.htm