Gerard Koeppel - Not a Gentlemans Work: The Untold Story of a Gruesome Murder at Sea and the Long Road to Truth

Men hold boats in the secret place of their mind, almost from the cradle to the grave.

E. B. W HITE , T HE S EA AND THE W IND T HAT B LOWS (1963)

I am thinking of going travelling for a year, and I expect to take a passage in this vessel to South America; what do you think of it?

The question was put by Lester Monks, age twenty, of Boston, to Thomas Bram, thirty-two, newly signed first mate of the Herbert Fuller, the sailing ship on which Monks expected to take passage. This was the afternoon of June 16, 1896. The Fuller was tied up along Mystic Wharf in Bostons harbor, loading in her holds and on deck a cargo of New England pine boards. The lumber was destined for Rosario, up the Parana River from Buenos Aires, six thousand ocean miles from Boston. The long voyage to Argentina was scheduled to begin early the following month. As first mate, hired six days earlier, Bram was overseeing the preparations.

Well, if I was a man with means, said Bram, eying the young gentleman, and intended to travel for a year, I would go in a steamer, because you would get better accommodations, it would be more pleasant, and you will have a great deal more to see and learn than you would on board a small vessel.

In 1896, Octave Chanute designed the glider that the Wright brothers famously adapted, Henry Flagler extended his Florida railroad to the settlement that would become Miami, the staged crash of two speeding locomotives in rural Texas drew forty thousand people and killed three of them, and Henry Ford built his first car. The Herbert Fuller also became famous that summer, quite unexpectedly, as it was an unremarkable ship.

The Fuller was built in Maine during 1890; the November launching was reported, briefly, in Boston and New York newspapers. The ship was named for one of its owners, a founder and vice president of the ships underwriter, Boston Marine Insurance Company, which was among the countrys largest insurers. The ships ownership was divided into 128 shares. The land-based Herbert Fuller owned 4 shares, which for some reason came with naming honors that he came to regret. The ships lasting infamy would substantially eclipse its namesakes good business reputation.

The Fuller, a sturdy barkentine, was 175 feet from stem to sternnot the greatest vessel, but one adequately sized for the intended voyage. The ship had sailed the route and many others without serious incident for six years under builder, principal owner, and captain Charles Nash.

And another thing, said Bram, we will be about 60 or 70 days on the passage. Bram assumed that Monks was an entire stranger, a young man of means visiting the waterfront for his amusement or distraction, engaging in idle small talk with men who were otherwise busy with work.

In fact, Monks replied, he wanted a sea voyage for my health because it would take so much longer. Thus, a sailing ship was preferred: I intend to go anyway in this vessel.

Monks made it seem that his voyaging was a matter of personal choice. It was not. This was the first time Monks had met Bram, but it was Monkss third visit to the Herbert Fuller in recent days, the prior visits having been with his father. Lester first met Nash in a shipping agents office. I wanted to look the captain over, Lester later said, and see if I thought I would like him before I engaged passage. Lesters preferences didnt matter. His father had arranged his sons meeting and his passage. Monks was going with Nash whether he liked the captain or not.

The senior Monks had already made careful inquiries about the ship and its master. He was told by a shipping agency he could rest easy, as the ship was safe, weatherly, and manned by a captain who knew his business and attended to it. Frank Monks felt comfortable that Nash was a very reliable man, had respectable connections in Maine, was in every way a capable navigator, and I could entrust my son to his care.

Bram didnt know that Lester was dissembling about his agency in his upcoming voyage. As Monks later acknowledged in a sworn statement, he took passage on the Herbert Fuller under the advice and at the request of my parents.

Lesters intentions were not relevant. Frank Monkss intention was that his son get as far away from Boston for as long as possible. A few months as a passenger on a sailing ship to Argentina was just the start. The expectation was that a voyage from South America to Europe would follow. A return to Boston might be arranged at some point, but there was no hurry.

Why did Frank Monks, respected Boston businessman, want his elder son gone? He committed no crime or dishonor. He had only, it seems, gotten himself thrown out of Harvard, for having done little work and much drinking. There was one element of truth in what Lester Monks told Thomas Bram: the sea voyage was for Monkss health, in that the long voyage was intended to sever his consumption of alcohol.

Unfortunately, Frank Monks did not inspect his sons extensive luggage, which included sixty bottles of beer and a quart each of whiskey and brandy: not fuel for a ten-week debauch but enough to ease withdrawal and arouse trouble, to which Lester was prone. His drinking supplies would be kept in the ships storeroom, directly across the main cabin from Lesters sleeping quarters. Aside from ship supplies and Monkss liquor, the storeroom featured an important emergency item, hung in brass fittings on the aft wall: a shiny new axe.

A sailing ships axe is rarely used, its primary purpose being to cut away rigging when a mast that could puncture the hull comes down in a storm. The axe is practically never used to kill people.