1881 – March 4, bark Ajace, NYC bound, grounds, storm, Rockaway Reef, Queens, NY– ~13

–~13 NYT. “The Wrecked Bark Ajace. One Body Washed Ashore on Coney Island. 3-6-1881, 2.

Narrative Information

Berg: Ajace. “Also known as the Italian Wreck, the Ajace, a 566 ton bark, was sunk at 4:00 AM on March 4, 1881….While bound for New York from Belgium, the Ajace was caught in one of the worst storms of the year and ran aground off Rockaway beach….The Ajace now rests in 25 feet of water, 300 yards west of the Granite Wreck and inshore from the Warrior buoy. Shifting sands have almost completely covered her…” (Berg, Daniel. Wreck Valley Vol. II: A Record of Shipwrecks off Long Island’s South Shore and New Jersey. 1990, p. 3.)

Newspaper

March 6. NYT: “Pietro Sala, the sole survivor of the crew of the Ajace, was taken from the Coney Island life-saving station yesterday, where he had been most comfortably provided for, tot eh office of the Italian Consul-General, No. 62 Cedar-street. Sala is an Austrian, and while he shares all the excitability of the Italian he gives way to no such frenzied feelings as possessed his shipmates. To Consul-General Giovanni B. Raffo he told a story of the disaster which varies only in a few particulars from that given in yesterday’s Times. At 4 o’clock Friday morning, he said the Ajace was sailing close to the wind. At 8 o’clock the gale grew so violent that Capt. Morice put the vessel about, and she was scudding before the wind when she struck two hours later. Half the crew were washed overboard by the heavy sea which poured over her almost simultaneously with the shock. The four sailors who with him clung to the after part of the vessel when she broke up were George, the cook, a Greek, 50 years old; three Neapolitans – Giovanni, 25 years old; Michael, 35 years, and a boy, David, aged 20 years. They had been floating about on the piece of wreck some hours, and were beaten, bruised, half drowned, and well-nigh frozen to death. Finally Michael, the carpenter, drew his knife and shouted to his comrades, ‘Come, let us die together.’ Sala attempted to dissuade them from doing themselves injury, and urged them to hope for relief, though from what quarter it might come he had no idea, for they were enveloped by a thick fog and could see nothing. The carpenter shook his head mournfully saying ‘No, no’ me rather die than drown.’ At this he whipped his knife across his windpipe, and loosening his hold on the timbers, was washed into the sea. Sal pulled out his own sheath-knife, and, flourishing it, with a short illustrated to the Consul-General, in pantomime, the carpenter’s movements and those of the three others who followed his example. Their knives, he said, were like his own – an ugly looking blade, seven inches long, sharpened on both edges, with a carved handle of horn. The men, he insisted, talked after their throats were cut, and said ‘they wanted to die.’ Sala…thought the crew numbered 14 men, all told, instead of 15. On this point, however, he was not positive. The names of the other members of the crew, so far as he knew them, were two Genoese boys, Carlo and Luigi, each aged 15 years, and two Austrians – Giovanni, aged 30, and George, aged 25. Sala himself is single, and has followed the sea since he was 11 years old, a period of 35 years. He will be cared for by the Italian Consul.

“The Ajace was consigned to Seager Brothers, shipping merchants, of No. 63 Beaver-street. By them she was loaded with 86,428 bushels of grain and was sent to Antwerp, ailing from this port [NYC] on the 31st of August. She was on her way back to receive another cargo of grain when she was wrecked. She had on board 2,049 empty petroleum barrels, valued at about $8,000, which wre owned by Gustave Heye, on No. 138 Pearl-street, and a small quantity of railroad iron, worth about $2,000. The Ajace was valued at about $15,000. Capt. Frederich Morice was a native of one of the suburbs of Genoa, and was about 42 years old. He had been a commander 26 years. He leaves two children at his native place, a boy and a girl.

“Only one body was found yesterday. It was cast up on the Coney Island beach about half-way between the Brighton Bathing Pavilion and the eastern end of the Marine Railway, and was first discovered about 3 P.M. by a wrecker named Stephen Williamson…The body was that of a man about 60 years old, and was clothed in the garb of a common sailor. His jack-knife was still in its sheath at his belt. The body bore no cuts or bruises, death seeming to have resulted from either drowning or exhaustion….Although men, singly and squads were patrolling the beach all day long, from one end to the other, no other body had been found up to 6 o’clock last evening. The part of the wreck upon which Pietro Salas floated until he was taken off by Capt. Bebensee and his crew, of the life-saving station, is the poop-deck, which appears to have been torn violently and entirely from the main deck. The stout timbers to which the flooring is clinched are ragged and torn at either end as if they had been riven from their fastenings by a thunderbolt. The section of the mizzenmast, still standing, but careened over toward the south at an angle of 45 degrees, was snapped off from its base even with the under side of the poop deck. The frame and roof of the cabin are yet standing in their original positions. This fragment of the wreck lies deeply imbedded in the sand, high upon the beach, less than a hundred yards from the east end of the Brighton Bathing Pavilion, the starboard side of the cabin forming an acute angle with the line of the Marine Railway.

“Another fragment, a part of the deck over the forecastle, with the capstan attached, drifted ashore about 200 yards west of Manhattan Beach Hotel. Half way between these pieces of the wreck is the principal part of the mainmast – about 40 feet of the lower part – lying high and dry at the base of the Marine Railway road-bed. The bulk of the wreck, half buried in the sand upon the extreme point of Rockaway Reef, could be distinctly seen with the naked eye at low tide yesterday from the door of the Life-saving Station. Several sloops were anchored near by and by the aid of a glass swarms of wreckers could be distinctly seen stripping it of everything of value. A large number of wreckers – members of the independent brigade – were also busy all day stripping the fragments of the wreck upon the Coney Island beach of every piece of metal exposed to view. Half a dozen of them pried the capstan from its fastenings and carried it away. Nothing else of value except the capstan is yet known to have drifted ashore….Some fragments of sails and rigging were also picked up and carried off by the land pirates. Hundreds of people went down to the beach during the day, many of them from this City and Brooklyn. The number of ladies and children was remarkable….‘We have had a good deal of travel to-day,’ said Conductor Hemstead, of the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad, to a reporter of The Times, ‘and tomorrow we expect to have a good deal more, and will run special trains.’” (New York Times. “The Wrecked Bark Ajace. One Body Washed Ashore on Coney Island. 3-6-1881, p. 2.)

Sources

Berg, Daniel. Wreck Valley Vol. II: A Record of Shipwrecks off Long Island’s South Shore and New Jersey. Wahoo Edition. East Rockaway, NY: Aqua Explorers, Inc. 1990.

New York Times. “The Wrecked Bark Ajace. One Body Washed Ashore on Coney Island. 3-6-1881, p. 2. Accessed 4-10-2021 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1881/03/06/109301531.html?pageNumber=2