Coffin Ship (10 page)

Over the following days a constant vigil of the shoreline was maintained in the hope of recovering more bodies. Numerous bodies were still drifting off-shore and over time many of them were recovered. During the following weeks forty-five bodies in total were buried in the mass grave. These burials must have been spread out over a number of days or indeed weeks, with a section of the mass grave being left open to allow for the addition of new bodies. While some sources state that none of the forty-five bodies were identified, this cannot be true given Henry Thoreau's eyewitness account in which he mentions the names of some of the victims being recorded in red chalk on the lids of their coffins. The fact that the coffins were opened to allow the survivors to view their relatives would also indicate that some of the victims were identified.

On 4 November 1849, almost a month after the disaster, Fr Roddan returned to Cohasset to celebrate the first Catholic mass to be held in the town. It took place in the local high school hall and was attended by Irish and Portuguese fishermen and their families who were living in the area at the time. The mass was sponsored by relatives of the
St. John
survivors and was dedicated to the memory of the victims. Mass has continued to be held in Cohasset every year since the catastrophe to commemorate all those who lost their lives.

Over the years many ships had been lost in the dangerous waters of Cohasset Bay but the tragedy of the brig
St. John
was the worst to befall the area. In 1847 plans for a lighthouse for Minot's Ledge had been drawn up in an effort to prevent tragedies but it was New Year's Day 1850 before its light finally shone down on the bay. However, the lighthouse proved unstable and in 1860 it was replaced by a new structure that took five years to complete. A lady from Cohasset, Mary Barnes, later wrote the following lines of poetry in commemoration of the tragedy:
[1]

What think ye, as ye stand there where rises this shaft of stone?

The dreams and hopes of fellow men facing the land of light.

What think ye, oh Spirit Survivor as ye stand there all alone?

Elizabeth Lothrop was later sent a sum of $10 by the L.T. (benevolent) Society for the kindness she showed the survivors. She returned the money, saying that ‘it might be better employed' elsewhere. In the days following the disaster, she confided in her diary that so great was the tragedy's effect on her that she feared her life would never be the same again. She would never be as ‘happy and carefree' as she had been before that dreadful day. She wrote of a profound sadness that never seemed to abate. The following extracts from her diary indicate how the tragedy affected her. They also reveal that the bodies of the brig's victims continued to wash ashore for some time after the disaster:

I attended church today after a long absence, but my mind is so full of everything, I cannot pay much attention to the disclosures. A dancing school has commenced I do not attend it but my mind runs the way; then this horrible shipwreck, and the continual picking up of dead bodies on our beach, has so excited my mind that I tell them I shall never get over it.

I took a walk on the beach after meeting, and there I saw two or three bodies stretched out. I did not approach very near to them, as I was told, they looked like anything but human beings. Last Wednesday I called at the poor house to see those two who were taken from here a day or two previous. Mrs Quinlan and Mrs Burke, I found they had improved rapidly. I should judge they had good care taken of them. I found but twelve paupers in the poor house, and some curious looking objects …
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A week after the tragedy Captain Oliver and his first mate were called before the local authorities to give their accounts of what had happened. Captain Oliver stated that his ship had passed ‘Cape Cod Light at about 5 p.m. on Saturday' and reached ‘Scituate Light at 1.00 a.m. on Sunday'. He told them that he had ‘stood northward for about three hours to clear land. As daylight approached, he tacked the ship and stood South, South, West. The weather was very thick.' Coming inside of Minot's Ledge, he caught sight of another brig anchored inside the breakers. At Hocksett Rock he had tried to ‘wear away up to the brig, but found he could not fetch up'. He dropped both anchors in the hope of holding the ship in position and avoiding a collision with the rocks. Captain Oliver informed the inquiry that the anchors had dragged. He recalled instructing his crew to cut the masts away but the ship had continued to drift and was eventually forced onto Grampus Ledge and destroyed. The authorities did not hold Captain Oliver accountable for the tragedy. However, a report from the
Galway Vindicator
argued that the captain should have been held accountable for at least some of his actions:

From further conversation with the passengers and people of the town, it is certain to mind that Captain Oliver is liable to severe censure for some parts of his conduct. We would be the last to say one word that would add to the poignancy of his feelings in view of his great disaster; but, in a question involving the lives of more than one hundred fellow beings, we are bound to speak faithfully, the truth, as it has been presented to us.

It seems that on the afternoon of Saturday 6th inst., he numbered his passengers. Upwards of one hundred names were borne upon the manifest, or list, as two passengers called it who answered to the call. A line was then drawn across the deck, and between twenty and thirty other names were borne upon a small memorandum book. If the consignee has a duplicate list of passengers he or they should produce it. Unless a complete list can be produced we can never fully ascertain the exact number who perished on board this vessel on the fatal morning of October 9
[sic].
[3]

On 1 January 1979, the curator of the Maritime Museum in Cohasset recorded further criticism of Captain Oliver's actions. He stated in a letter that when the Cohasset lifeboat encountered Captain Oliver in the
St. John
longboat, the captain allegedly shouted, in reference to the wreckage, ‘Don't bother wasting your time. There is no one left alive.' However, shortly after the disaster Captain Lothrop gave a written statement that said that on approaching the longboat neither Captain Oliver nor his crew showed ‘any intention of communicating with us which they might easily have done being directly to windward of us'. A degree of doubt exists as to whether Captain Lothrop was in fact on board the lifeboat, but this first-hand statement strongly indicates that he was. In any case, both of these statements are damning insofar as Captain Oliver either gave his rescuers incorrect information or none at all.

The crew of the lifeboat were later astonished to discover that there had been so many fatalities. Had they known that survivors were still clinging onto the wreckage of the
St. John
they could have tried to rescue them as they were closer to the brig than to the
Kathleen
at the time. Regardless of what Captain Oliver did or did not say to his rescuers, he must undoubtedly have had a difficult time trying to explain to the authorities how it was that he and so many of his crew had survived when so many passengers had died. Little is known of what happened to Captain Oliver following the disaster. Some say that he went out west and simply disappeared. There are also some conflicting records that do not list Martin as his Christian name. However, the majority of sources state that his name was Martin Oliver.

Reports indicate that the
St. John
was an ‘aging and somewhat unseaworthy craft' at the time of its fatal voyage. It was also noted that the timbers were ‘rotten'. However, the owners of the ship do not seem to have commented on its tragic end and its questionable state of repair, though it is possible that their reaction was simply not recorded. Both Henry and Isaac Comerford later became justices of the peace in Galway. Henry Comerford died on 6 September 1861 at Ballykeale House in his sixty-seventh year. According to one source, three of
St. John
's cabin passengers were nieces of Henry Comerford. With the exception of the Sweeney family, the only other three sisters recorded among the victims are Honora, Mary and Margaret Mulkenan, but they were listed as steerage passengers. Nevertheless, it is my opinion that these three sisters were the nieces of Henry Comerford.
[4]

All of the survivors of the
St. John
eventually returned to Ireland, with the exception of one woman, Mary Kane Cole, who settled in Cohasset. In 1868 she married a local man. Ironically, his name was James St John. Twenty-four-year-old Mary was already a widow when she sailed to America on the
St. John
. Her husband, Charles Cole, had died in Ireland and Mary had boarded the ship in the hope of starting life anew in America. James St John was a tailor and store-keeper in America. A father of five children, James had also been widowed. James and Mary had no children of their own. Mary died in 1917.

According to local sources in Lettermullen, some of the
St. John
survivors, who had not been recorded on the ship's manifest, also returned home. They included Martin and Patrick Flaherty, who were brothers, and a second Patrick Flaherty, who was seemingly not related. One of the sailors who survived was James Flaherty, also from Lettermullen. Today, descendants of these survivors still live in the Lettermullen area. The baby girl rescued from the sea by Captain Lothrop was adopted by a family named Norwell. She later married into an Irish immigrant family from Boston. They became wealthy land dealers in the Dorchester Bay area. This baby was not included on the original list of survivors.
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In the aftermath of the tragedy, rumours surfaced of certain individuals profiting from the ship sinking; all of these rumours are unfounded. In 1984 a newspaper published an account, or more correctly a rumour, that accused the captain of trying to flee west with the passengers' gold, which had been hidden in a wooden box or chest which the newspaper identified as ‘the captain's strong box'. This is highly unlikely considering that the captain would have been preoccupied with saving his own life when escaping from the doomed ship. It is also highly unlikely that his passengers would have possessed nearly enough gold to fill such a box. These poor, unfortunate, starving people were fleeing from famine and had hardly enough money to feed themselves.

Another account indicates that the chest was actually owned by one of the survivors. He supposedly left it at the Lothrop house in Sandy Cove after he had recovered from his ordeal and moved away. However, there is yet another story concerning the captain's strong box to consider. In an undated letter, a local woman named Lucy Treat writes that her father had once told her of a strange scene he came upon the day after the
St. John
tragedy. He had been walking along the beach when he encountered a neighbour hauling a chest after him. The neighbour hid this chest near Sandy Cove. Shortly afterwards this man was said to have become ‘conspicuous by his ability to afford unusual luxuries and also paid off a mortgage on his house within the year'. According to the letter, two generations later the neighbour's grandson gave Lucy's brother a small portable chest, saying that it belonged to the captain of the
St. John
. Whether this story is true or not, both the chest and letter are now on display at the Maritime Museum in Cohasset. The chest has a secret compartment and looks authentic. Other items from the
St. John
are on display in the Cohasset Museum, including Captain Oliver's writing desk, a limestone ballast and a masthead truck.
[6]

Another story surrounding the
St. John
claims that there was a curse on the ship and its fate was sealed long before it set sail for America. The story goes that Colm Conneely, a brother of Tony Conneely from Lettermullen, the reported first captain of the ship, wanted to join the priesthood, but he either failed the entrance exam or was unable to raise the necessary college fees. So great was his disappointment that he renounced the Catholic faith and became an Anglican minister in England. He became acquainted with many influential people in England and it was through these connections that the finance to build the
St. John
is said to have been raised. At the time of the
St. John
's fatal voyage, Tony Conneely was unable to sail as his wife was ill. Many conjectured that the sinking of the brig was God's way of punishing Colm Conneely for abandoning the Catholic religion. This story was recorded in an Irish book called
Stories of the Islands
, written by Peter Dirrane and published in 1929. However, another source states that Colm Conneely was not an Anglican minister and there are also those who believe that there was another ship named the
St. John
which may have been the ‘cursed' ship; this was smaller vessel, supposedly built in Galway, but again this has never been proven.
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