1835 — packet Sarah wrecks on island off Jonesport, ME — 16
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 8-27-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–16 Eckstrom and Smyth. “The Loss of the Sarah,” pp. 280-281 in Minstrelsy of Maine, 1927.
–16 Snow. “The Sarah.” Great Storms and Shipwrecks of New England, 1943, p. 190.
Narrative Information
Snow: “In the year 1835 the packet Sarah sailed from Boston to Eastport, Maine, on its regular run, but the master, Captain Pierce, mistook Mount Desert Rock for the gleam of Moosepeak Reach Light wrecking the vessel on one of the islands off Jonesport.
“Daniel Goulden, one of the young passengers, could not swim. A capable negro woman volunteered to get him ashore, and told the boy to climb on her shoulders after she jumped into the water. Goulden jumped and clung to her as she swam toward the beach. They both reached shore safely, but sixteen of the others were lost.[1]
“Some time later the ballad, The Loss of the Sarah, appeared, which had a substantial sale in Eastern Maine. In Fannie Eckstrom and Mary Smyth’s fine collection Minstrelsy of Maine, The Loss of the Sarah is quoted in full. We reproduce two of the verses:
Ye landsmen all, now pray draw near,
A lamentation ye shall hear;
A ship was lost on the sea,
It was the Sarah’s lot to be.
Thirty and two were the Sarah’s crew
And landsmen were all counted too;
Sixteen survived to reach the shore,
Sixteen are lost, they are no more.” [Full ballad in Eckstrom and Smyth, Sources, below.]
Sources
Eckstrom, Fannie Hardy and Mary Winslow Smyth. “The Loss of the Sarah,” pp. 280-281 in Minstrelsy of Maine: Folk-Songs and Ballads of the Woods and the Coast. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927. Accessed 8-28-2024 at: https://archive.org/details/minstrelsyofmain00ecks_0/page/n9/mode/2up?q=%22loss+of+the+sarah%22
Snow, Edward Rowe. “The Sarah.” Great Storms and Shipwrecks of New England. Boston: Yankee Publishing Company, 1943, p. 190.
[1] Cites as source interview with Captain Ernest Delesdernier Sproul.