BARK FRANCIS
The same storm that carried the Peruvian and her whole ship’s company to destruction drove the North German Bark Francis to the same fate only three miles farther down the coast, but though sad enough in some of its features this disaster was not attended with the appalling loss of life that accompanied the loss of the Peruvian.
These two vessels sailed from the same port in Calcutta only a few days apart, and had almost been in sight of each other during the long voyage.
The Peruvian was so unfortunate as to become involved in the shallows of Peaked Hill Bars, while the Francis, in the deeper waters to the south was driven by wind and sea over the outer line of bars and finally grounded within two hundred yards of the beach; her hull was of iron and she soon settled firmly into the sand.
Every avenue of approach to the beach was blocked with snow, huge drifts covering every highway and hollow. There were no mortar guns and no life saving crews then, and no boats of any kind on the outer beach available. At the shore on the bay side of the cape was a whale boat, a boat sharp at both ends and about eighteen feet in length; this boat might afford possibly safe means of reaching the imperilled crew on the ship, but to get it to the scene of the wreck was a problem. Finally, through the united exertions of twenty strong men, the boat was drawn to the edge of the pond in the village of North Truro, then dragged over the frozen surface of the pond to the highway near the Post Office, where a pair of horses was attached to wheels, the boat mounted on them and the journey to the outer beach and possible rescue was fairly begun; when snow drifts were not too deep horses and men hurried the boat along; when great drifts were encountered shovels were brought into use and a way broken for the horses; then on again, ever in the face of the storm swept moors towards the ocean, across the gale swept hills and snow covered valleys the party struggled, until finally, at ten o’clock in the forenoon, almost exhausted, they reached a point on the beach opposite the wreck.
A volunteer crew manned the boat, willing hands helped to push the boat through the foam covered surf, the men bent to the oars and the trip to the side of the bark was made in safety.
Captain Kortling, of the bark, had been ill in his cabin for many days and it was with no little difficulty that he was finally lowered helpless into the rocking and pitching boat, which the thrashing sea threatened every moment to dash to pieces against the iron sides of the ship. Brought to the beach and landed, Captain Kortling was taken in a farm wagon and hurried to the Highland House. Weakened by disease and worn out by the terrible exposure of the wreck and the storm, he lived but four days after reaching shore, and his remains lie buried in the Old Cemetery on the hill, near the west entrance. The other members of the crew, twenty in number, were rescued without mishap.
In a few days tugs and lighters were brought to the scene of the wreck and the work of attempting to save the cargo was begun. A large part of her cargo was sugar in great straw mats; these in the process of hoisting out of the hold of the vessel frequently became broken and the sugar sifted out upon the deck; some twenty-five men were required to assist in this work of hoisting out the cargo and placing it upon the lighters. As it was not practicable for these men to go ashore at noontime they were obliged to take their dinners with them to the ship; generally a small pail or basket sufficed for carrying the noon meal. When these men left their work at night the overseer in charge of the work of unloading would tell the workmen that they might fill their lunch baskets with the loose sugar which had sifted out of the broken mats and take it home. In the beginning their pails as a rule held two or three quarts, but when it became known that the dinner pails could be filled each night on leaving the ship the size of these lunch pails and baskets increased amazingly, from a receptacle with a three quart capacity they soon rose to twenty-five and even fifty pounds capacity, so that the boat in her last trip to the shore was in danger of being swamped with the great weight of lunch baskets. This abuse of a privilege resulted in the cutting off the supply, although many workmen had already secured a year’s supply of sugar for their families when the shut off edict was issued.
This vessel seemed to offer the wreckers a good proposition as an investment and a company was formed with the purpose of making an attempt to raise and float the vessel. They purchased her of the Insurance Companies into whose hands the ship had fallen; then they spent hundreds of dollars in trying to get her from the sand bar; finally after many weeks of preparation everything seemed ready, a powerful tug was engaged to stand by and be ready to pull the ship away as soonas she floated, big steam pumps were installed on board and all was expectancy; then after a full day’s steady pumping by the great pumps on her deck, suddenly the big ship stirred in her bed and rose to the surface with a bound; then a great shout went up from the assembled crowd on the beach and from the interested investors on the bark’s deck when they believed their venture was about to be crowned with success, but this quickly turned to dismay when the ship, as suddenly as she had come to the surface, sank back again beneath the sea, from which place she never moved again, and the shifting sands soon covered her.
The rocking of the ship by the waves and the storms that beat over her on the sand and coarse gravel of the bed of the sea had worn holes through her iron sides where her masts were stepped into her keel, and immediately the ship rose from the bottom a great torrent of water poured in through these openings, flooded the entire ship again and carried her back into the sandy bed where she had so long reposed. For many years in the ever changing sands the jagged sides of her ever diminishing hull would be exposed only to be buried by the next great storm that swept her.