1880 — Aug 29, Steamer City of Vera Cruz Sinks, Hurricane off Mosquito Inlet, FL –64-69

*Blanchard note on fatalities: We note sources showing a range of 57-71 deaths. While we are of the opinion that the number of deaths shown by the U.S. Life Saving Service as well as the U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service (68) is probably the most authoritative, we are not comfortable in dismissing the New York Times report of about sixty-nine deaths. Thus we make sixty-nine the high-end of an estimated death-toll range. We have not been able to substantiate another source for the Nash report of seventy-one deaths, nor have we located a report for even seventy deaths, thus we choose not to use seventy-one as the high end of our estimated death toll. The report of fifty-seven deaths was found in a newspaper we note below, though the same report was repeated in other papers, without any additional detail. Thus we choose not to use fifty-seven as the low-end or our estimated death toll. This leaves us with an estimated death-toll of 64-69. We do not purport that this is authoritative – lower or higher numbers are possible. It is, though our best estimate of the number of lives lost.

Date of loss: While the loss of life due to crew being washed from the deck by the storm could well have started before midnight of August 28, the ship did not sink until after midnight in the early morning hours of the 29th, occasioning the greatest loss of life.

— 71 Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours. 1977, p. 688.
— ~69 NYT. Foundering in a Storm. The Vera Cruz Lost With Nearly All on Board.” 9-4-1880, 1.*
— 69 Spence, E. Lee. “Wreck of the SS City of Vera Cruz sunk in 1880.” Shipwrecks.com.
— 68 Berg, Dan and Denise. Florida Shipwrecks. 1991, 25.
— 68 Berman. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 113.
— 68 New York Times. “The Wrecked Steam-Ship. The List of the Saved,” Sep 5, 1880, p. 1.
— 68 Rappaport/Fernandez-Partagas. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1994. 1995.
— 68 Simonds. The American Date Book. 1902, 102.
— 68 Springer, Adele I. “Principal marine disasters since 1831.” 1952, p. 248.
— 68 US Life-Saving Service. Annual Report…June 30,1881. 1893, p. 295.
— 68 US Steamboat Inspection Service. Annual Report of… 1881, p. 14
–57-68 Wrecksite.eu. “SS City of Vera Cruz (+1880).” Accessed 3-6-2021.
— 67 Jarmusz. “Curious Coast: Burial site…City of Vera Cruz…” Daily Commercial, Leesburg, FL. 9-21-2018
— 64 Boston Sunday Globe. “The Bad News Confirmed…Vera Cruz Lost…” 9-5-1880, p. 1.*
— 57 Titusville Herald, PA. “The Foundered Steamer…Vera Cruz,” Sep 6, 1880, p. 1.*

*Boston Sunday Globe: “…of the seventy-three persons on board tat the time of the disaster but nine persons have escaped.”

*New York Times: “There were 79 persons on board, including the crew. According to the latest dispatches, seven are known to have been saved, and there is a report that three others have reached the shore, making ten in all.” We subtracted ten from seventy-nine to derive sixty-nine.

*Titusville Herald: Notes 70 onboard, of whom thirteen survive.

Narrative Information

Berg, Dan and Denise: “The City of Vera Cruz was built by John English, Greenport, Long Island, NY. She had a composite hull: wood planked and iron framed. She was 286 feet long, had a 37 foot beam and was powered by a single steam engine. On August 28, 1880, while en route from New York to Havana, she was caught in a heavy squall. Around 3:00 PM the Captain and a few officers of the ship were washed overboard. By 5:00 PM the vessel had gone down off Mosquito Inlet with the loss of 26 passengers and 42 crew members. The only officer saved was Charles Smith who was the second assistant engineer. Today, the scattered wreck sits in 80 feet of water 25 miles off Port Canaveral.” (Berg, Dan and Denise. Florida Shipwrecks. 1991, p. 25.)

Nash: “1880….Sept. 4 [sic]. Vera Cruz…71 [deaths]. The American steamer foundered in a hurricane in the North Atlantic.”

Springer: “Aug. 29, 1880…City of Vera Cruz…68 [lives lost]…Foundered…Florida Coast…American.”

US Steamboat Inspection Service: “Second District….August 25 [sic]. – The steamship ‘City of Vera Cruz’ foundered at sea near Mosquito Inlet, Florida, by which disaster twenty-six passengers and forty-two of the crew were lost.”

Newspapers

Sep 3, NYT: “Fears For A Ship’s Safety. Suspicions That The City Of Vera Cruz Is Lost.” 9-3-1880, p. 8, col. 1. Accessed 3-6-2021 at:
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1880/09/03/98626086.html?pageNumber=8

Sep 4, Associated Press: “New York, September 4 [Associated Press]. The Steamer City of Vera Cruz foundered 5:30 Sunday morning [Aug 29]. Of seventy persons only thirteen are known to be saved. Few details can be given, as the survivors are too exhausted to describe the disaster, but the following is known: Saturday the steamer encountered a strong gale which soon increased in fury. The Vera Cruz labored heavily for some hours. It was found necessary at 1 o’clock Sunday morning to throw out the drag to keep her head about. The gale had now grown to a hurricane, and immense waves began breaking over the doomed steamer, until her deck was finally swept clear, even the rigging being torn. The drag ceased to fulfill its functions, and the seas deluged the decks and soon reached the furnaces and extinguished the fires, the hatches having been torn from their fastenings. The fires being out soon put a stop to the engines, and the Vera Cruz lay at the mercy of the storm. Not even donkey pump could be worked to relieve the vessel of the water she was rapidly making her hold. Captain Van Sice ordered the men to throw overboard the deck load, but the sea was too heavy, and several men were carried off their feet and many washed overboard. Captain Van Sice and the officers acted courageously but were one by one washed overboard. The captain perished fully on hour before the vessel succumbed. Every boat and life raft was stove in. The sailors and passengers seized fragments of spars, stateroom doors or other movable articles and awaited the end. The vessel was about thirty miles off shore. With one awful lurch the steamer suddenly sunk like a swivel, carrying down many of the living. The thirteen survivors are all men — three passengers, eight deck hands, one engineer and one oiler. They were all in the water buffeted for from twenty-four to twenty-six hours. There is no doubt but for this ordeal many more would have been saved….

“The bodies of the victims come on shore thirty miles south of this place…The bodies of two steerage passengers, four other men, probably sailors, and three females have been recovered….

“The lost ship Vera Cruz was a sister ship the City of Havana, lost on a reef off the Mexican coast in 1875. The steamer New Orleans reports that she was in the same cyclone off the Florida coast as that in which the Vera Cruz foundered. The captain of the New Orleans says he never before witnessed anything like it. One of his best men was washed overboard while trying to adjust the wheel gear. The sea at some moments was as high as the top of the smoke stack. It was feared every moment that the machinery would be over-flooded and put of order.” (Titusville Herald, PA. “The Foundered Steamer…Vera Cruz,” Sep 6, 1880, p. 1.)

Sep 5, NYT: “The dispatches of yesterday made no addition to the list of the rescued men. The previous dispatches reported 7 certainly, and 3 probably, safe, or 10 in all. A dispatch to the Board of Underwriters places the number saved at 11. Assuming this to be correct, 68 of the 79 persons on board the Vera Cruz are probably lost.” (New York Times. “The Wrecked Steam-Ship. The List of the Saved,” Sep 5, 1880, p. 1.)

Sep 13, NYT: The New York Times, p.1 devotes almost two columns to two survivor accounts. Accessed 3-6-2021 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1880/09/13/issue.html

Sources

Berg, Dan and Denise. Florida Shipwrecks. East Rockaway, NY: Aqua Explorers, Inc., 1991.

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

Boston Sunday Globe. “The Bad News Confirmed. All But Nine of Those on Board the Vera Cruz Lost. And Only One Passenger Among Those Who Escaped…Terrible Gale.” 9-5-1880, p. 1. Accessed 3-6-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/boston-sunday-globe-sep-05-1880-p-1/

Jarmusz, T. S. “Curious Coast: Burial site of those killed in City of Vera Cruz shipwreck remains a mystery.” Daily Commercial, Leesburg, FL. 9-21-2018. Accessed 3-6-2021 at: https://www.dailycommercial.com/news/20180921/curious-coast-burial-site-of-those-killed-in-city-of-vera-cruz-shipwreck-remains-mystery

Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages.

New York Times. Foundering in a Storm. The Vera Cruz Lost With Nearly All on Board.” 9-4-1880, 1. Accessed 3-6-2021 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1880/09/04/98626150.html?pageNumber=1

New York Times. “The Wrecked Steam-Ship. The List of the Saved,” 9-5-1880, p. 1. At: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=980CE5D9143FEE3ABC4D53DFBF66838B699FDE

Rappaport, Edward N. and Jose Fernandez-Partagas. The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1994 (NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-47). Coral Gables, FL: National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, January 1995, 42 pages. Accessed 8-20-2017 at: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NWS-NHC-1995-47.pdf

Simonds, W. E. (Editor). The American Date Book. Kama Publishing Co., 1902, 211 pages. Google digital preview accessed 9-8-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=JuiSjvd5owAC

Spence, E. Lee. “Wreck of the SS City of Vera Cruz sunk in 1880.” Shipwrecks.com. Accessed 3-6-2021 at: https://shipwrecks.com/wreck-of-the-ss-city-of-vera-cruz-sunk-in-1880/

Springer, Adele I. “Principal marine disasters since 1831.” United States Congress, House of Representatives. Hearings Before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, United States Congress (74th Congress, 1st Session). “Safety of Life and Property at Sea.” Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935. Accessed 8-9-2020 at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Safety_of_Life_and_Property_at_Sea/l9xH_9sUuVAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq

Titusville Herald, PA. “The Foundered Steamer…The Steamer Vera Cruz,” September 6, 1880, p. 1. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=102899074

United States Life-Saving Service. Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1881. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1881. Google digitized. Accessed 3-6-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=6oADAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

United States Steamboat Inspection Service. Annual Report of the Supervising Inspector-General of Steam-Vessels to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1881. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1881. Accessed 3-6-2021 at:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015073739321&view=1up&seq=33&q1=vera%20cruz

Wrecksite.eu. “SS City of Vera Cruz (+1880).” Accessed 3-6-2021 At: 3-6-2021 at: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?182186