Thomas Dresser - Disaster Off Marthas Vineyard: The Sinking of the City of Columbus

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2012 by Thomas Dresser

All rights reserved

Front cover courtesy of James Claflin of LighthouseAntiques.net..

First published 2012

e-book edition 2012

ISBN 978.1.61423.457.9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dresser, Tom.

Disaster off Marthas Vineyard : the sinking of the City of Columbus / Thomas Dresser.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

print ISBN 978-1-60949-510-7

1. City of Columbus (Steamer) 2. Steamboat disasters--Massachusetts--Marthas Vineyard. 3. Shipwrecks--Massachusetts--Marthas Vineyard. I. Title.

G530.C52 2012

910.916346--dc23

2012009490

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is dedicated to the young children who perished in this tragic shipwreck. Their memory shall be preserved.

I also dedicate this book to two new grandchildren, Jocelyn Sage Smyth and Henry Richard Held. May their lives be full and happy.

The following recipe appeared in the Vineyard Gazette shortly after the shipwreck, on February 29, 1884:

A prize problem in navigation. Given: One Devils bridge, one cold captain, one lookout who doesnt look out, a mate who does not comprehend an order, and a warm state room; mix three lighthouses, one steamship and one hundred twenty passengers; add a fresh gale and a supply of ignorance or stupidity, or both; sift out the intelligence supposed to exist in every pilot house, head for the nearest reef, and calculate the result.

Contents

Forewords

There are limits to this kind of shipwreck book, or any disaster-specific book for that matter. Yes, shipwrecks are fascinating topics. Yes, they offer a unique window into the past. Yes, they sell. But few answer the so what question. Why, besides bearing witness, should we care about this or that particular wreck? Most shipwreck monographs are insular texts; or, to borrow a phrase from my dissertation advisor, they are conversation enders rather than conversation starters. The former are important for populating the past with names, dates and facts, but they too often veer toward chronicle rather than history. Conversation starters, however, are the stuff of historybooks that suggest new ways of conceiving the past; books that raise more questions than they answer; books that make an argument that grates against others conceptions of the past.

Shipwrecks were everyday disasters along the coast during the nineteenth century. Few claimed as many lives as the City of Columbus tragedy, but every wreck altered, if only slightly, the social, cultural and economic landscape of industrializing America. What can these shipwrecks tell us about our past? How can they shed light on our understanding of the development of the coast or the role of disasters in history? For as thrilling as the stories of individual shipwreck are, its the questions they raise rather than the answers they give that make shipwrecks truly fascinating conversation starters.

Jamin Wells

ShipsontheShore.com, 2011

From the time thousands of years ago when Wampanoag tribal members first traveled on it and continuing to today, Vineyard Sound has been a useful highway for vessels voyaging up and down the coast. However, because of currents, shoals and rocks, it is also a potentially dangerous passage, as the wrecks that lay beneath its waters starkly testify.

In the nineteenth century, before the Cape Cod Canal or major highways existed, it was the second-busiest waterway in the world behind the English Channel. In 1870, the Gay Head lighthouse keeper recorded that 26,469 vessels passed by his station bound either up or down the sound. Though dangerous, it was surrounded by the lighthouses, lightships and buoys that this volume of traffic required.

While there have been many wrecks around the sound, the City of Columbus is perhaps its most famous, most tragic and, in many ways, its most inexplicable. A contemporary account of the tragedy in Harpers Weekly called it cruelly causeless. Even those of us accustomed to twenty-four-hour instant news outlets have to be impressed with how quickly the newspapers of the day covered the story and how widely it was reported, complete with dramatic illustrations of the wreck and the heroic efforts to rescue those on board.

The ship was relatively new, equipped with the latest equipment, commanded by an experienced master and sailed by an experienced crew on a familiar route, and the night was clear. What happened? Despite the fact that an official inquiry looked into the incident and rendered a judgment, questions about what wasor perhaps more importantly, was notdone that night and why have been the basis for countless discussions among mariners ever since that fateful night.

Those who go down to the sea in ships know that, even in seemingly tranquil conditions, the sea is always dangerous, and regardless of how new and well-equipped, the most critical component of any vessel and voyage is the crewthe human beings aboard and what they do or do not do. This lesson, in spite of GPS systems, autopilots and alarms, is still as true today as it was in 1884, as the recent wreck of a huge cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, off the coast of Italy dramatically demonstrates.

Thanks to Tom Dressers careful research, we can return to 1884 and try to understand the cruelly causeless story that captivated the country.

Matthew Stackpole

Former Executive Director, Marthas Vineyard Museum

Historian, Charles W. Morgan Restoration Project, Mystic Seaport

Edouard Stackpole, Matthews father, wrote the introduction to George A. Hough Jr.s Disaster on Devils Bridge (1963) about the wreck of the City of Columbus.

Acknowledgements

I credit three generations of the Hough family for inspiration and information in writing this book. George A. Hough Jr. (18941976) was the publisher of the Falmouth Enterprise and wrote Disaster on Devils Bridge in 1963. (His brother, Henry Beetle Hough, edited the Vineyard Gazette for years.) George A. Hough Jr.s work was thorough and thoughtful. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his efforts. My advantage, nearly a half century after his book was published, is that I have access to the Internet. Much of my research was conducted within the confines of the computer.

George III, son of George Jr., says, My father was a good reporter, you know. I dont think theres a piece of information he didnt pursue in writing that book. Mr. Hough and his wife, Mary Lu, invited us to photograph an artifact his family had retrieved from the City of Columbus.

John Hough, George Jr.s grandson and nephew of George III, suggested I write this updated version of the story of the City of Columbus. John has been a good friend and taught me a great deal in his (fiction) writing group. I try to apply his myriad writing techniques to my nonfiction efforts.