In the early morning of the 10th, the three masted schooner Charles
Whittemore, with a high deck load of piling (logs), bound from Portland
to New York, encountered a strong gale and rough sea when a few miles
east of Highland Light and her entire deck load of these big logs was
swept from her decks. It has been quite generally believed that the
Tracy, steaming up the coast in the darkness and storm, ran directly
into this mass of floating logs, and the fury of the sea drove one of
them through the steamer’s side and sent her to the bottom in a very
few minutes.
On the ship were thirty-one officers and men. No man or message ever
came back to tell how, why and where it happened. No wreckage came to
the surface or the shore, but this is readily explained because of the
fact that this was an iron ship, with very little material that could
be washed from her decks, so the ship carried everything with her when
she went to the bottom of the sea.
WRECK OF THE ROGER DICKY
On the first day of January, 1927, one of those fierce easterly gales
which frequently sweep the North Atlantic coast and the outside of Cape
Cod from Chatham to Boston Light, caught the fishing schooner Roger
Dicky in a dense fog and drove her hard and fast on the outside beach a
short distance beyond the Cahoon’s Hollow Coast Guard Station, within
the boundaries of Wellfleet.
[Illustration: ROGER DICKY
Wrecked on Cape Cod, January 1st, 1927]
She was coming in from the fishing grounds bound to Boston with 20,000
pounds of cod and haddock. The Coast Guardsmen from Cahoon’s Hollow
Station were promptly on hand and brought the entire ship’s crew of
fifteen men safely to shore.
The Dicky was a staunch craft, only a year old, but the terrific seas
soon made a complete wreck of her. She was a very modern boat and quite
up to date in equipment of electric lights, hot and cold water, and the
most valuable piece of her expensive furnishings was a $12,000 electric
engine.
When it was seen that the vessel must speedily break up, preparations
were made to strip from the hull everything of value that could be
moved.
This craft stranded directly in front of a hundred feet high cliff, and
the nearest place at which teams could approach the wreck was more than
two miles at Pamet River Coast Guard Station.
The rigging and sails were quickly taken off, but the great problem
which confronted them was how to land that engine.
At that time Mr. Hayes Small, of the Highland House Hotel, owned eight
powerful horses, and Capt. Pine, of Boston, who had been sent down by
the owners of the craft to take charge, made a contract with Mr. Small
to truck the engine along the beach up through the Pamet River valley
and on to Provincetown.
By lively work on the part of a gang of men the engine was removed from
the vessel to the waiting trucks and four horses pulled it quickly up
the beach and on to destination.
Three days later the Roger Dicky was only a mass of broken timbers and
twisted chains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account