1858 — Feb 20, Ship John Milton grounds in snowstorm, Montauk, SE Long Island, NY–26

— 26 Blanchard. We take the Kirtley account as authoritative. He was a passenger who had
disembarked at Hampton Roads, VA, on the trip up the east coast. He gives a detailed
breakdown of the crew onboard, including their positions and many of their names.

–32-33 DeWan, George. “The Wreck of the John Milton.” Newsday.com, 12-15-2007.
— 33 Rattiner. “Our Amazing History: The Wreck of the John Milton.” Danspapers.com, 10-30-2021.*
–21 (Those buried in the South End Burial Ground, the inscription of which notes 21.)
— 2 Captain Ephraim Harding and son, buried at Martha’s Vineyard.
— 4 “And four more bodies, which washed up later on as far west as Mecox, were added
to the common grave as they were brought in.”
–20-30 New York Herald. “The Disaster to the John Milton.” 2-25-1858.
— ~29 Pelletreau, William S. A History of Long Island. 1905, p. 25.
–26 Captain and crew
–~3 “…a number of passengers” (three is our minimum estimate of “a number”)
— 27 Sheard. Lost Voyages: Two Centuries of Shipwrecks in the Approaches to New York. 1998, p83.
–22 Crew bodies found washed ashore frozen
— 1 Boy; captain’s son, found washed ashore frozen
— 4 “…four other bodies disappeared in the sea, never to be found.”
— 26 Marker at East Hampton’s South End Burying Ground. (In Sheard, p. 83.)
–21 Buried in the cemetery (“three mates and eighteen of the crew”)
— 5 Captain Harding and four others who “were drowned in the waves.”
— 26 Indiana Reveille, Vevay IN. “Disaster at Sea.” 4-21-1858, p. 3.
— 26 Kirtley account (passenger who disembarked at Hampton Roads, VA):
–14 seamen
— 4 boys
–1 William Cotrell, brother of First mate John Cotrell
–1 Lunscomb from New Bedford
–1 W. R. Taylor, about 21, from New Haven or Bridgeport
–1 Wallace (“a boy sent by his friends with Mr. Cotrell home to Wisconsin.”)
— 1 carpenter
— 1 cook (John Brown, from New Bedford)
— 1 steward (Austin, man from Aspinwall, N.G.?)
— 1 First mate John M. Cotrell of East Boston
— 1 Second mate John Wilson
— 1 Third mate; man named Murry from New York
— 2 Captain and son Rodolphus

*Blanchard note on Rattiner’s number of thirty-three deaths. While Rattner writes that there were thirty-three fatalities, our reading of his narrative seems to indicate that there were twenty-seven.

Narrative Information

DeWan: “….At the South End Burying Ground in East Hampton, there is a marble monument to the two dozen sailors whose frozen bodies were cast up on the Atlantic shore five miles west of the Montauk Lighthouse on and after Feb. 20, 1858….According to contemporary accounts, as many as 33 persons died, including the captain and his teenage son, Francis, with no survivors. It was one of the worst maritime disasters in the treacherous waters off Long Island’s East End.

“The 1,444-ton John Milton, built in Fairhaven, Mass., in 1854, was captained by 43-year-old Ephraim Harding, who was born in New Bedford, the ship’s home port. The ship, which had left New York Dec. 6, 1856, was returning from the Chincha Islands, off the Peruvian coast, loaded with guano, valuable as fertilizer, presumably to be offloaded in New York. On its return from South America, the John Milton stopped on Feb. 14, 1858, at Norfolk, Va. Two days later, with good weather, it sailed northeast.

“Soon, however, the weather began to change. The logbook, found among the wreckage, indicated increasingly strong winds, then gales and thick snowstorms. The last entry was Feb. 18: “Strong gales are still prevailing and thick snow.” Other ships reported gale and snow conditions worsening, with the temperature dropping to 8 degrees above zero. The morning of Saturday, Feb. 20, 1858, found the ship in the Atlantic, close to the end of Long Island, in what by all reports was a blinding snowstorm.

“At the time, Abel Huntington was the teenage son of East Hampton’s Dr. George Huntington, who was then the Suffolk County coroner (and also the doctor who first identified the malady that was later named Huntington’s chorea). Abel Huntington in 1890 wrote a reminiscence of the shipwreck. ‘I recollect how a messenger came on horseback [the 21st] bringing from Montauk news of the fearful wreck and loss of life,’ Huntington wrote. ‘And later, just as the dusk of twilight gathered round, how two farm wagons rolled slowly through the snow up to our home and fourteen frozen corpses were lifted out and laid side by side in the carriage house … For days afterward the remaining bodies of the crew were brought by twos and threes as they were found along the shore.’

“When the body of Capt. Harding was identified, he was missing his pea jacket, but his gold watch was still attached by a fob to his pantaloons. It had stopped at 12 minutes before 10. ‘The bows, bowsprit, head gear, &c.; was discovered one-third of a mile from shore, probably held there by her anchors,’ the Sag Harbor Corrector reported on Feb. 27. ‘The rest of the wreck was scattered along the beach; heavy masts and spars came ashore, broken and twisted up in several pieces … The bodies are bruised, and features so distorted that it is next to impossible for one to recognize even his brother, unless by some private mark upon the person. They have been lashed by the heavy breakers, tossed upon the rocks, banged about in such a manner, that their countenances reflect nothing of their former looks.’

“Various accounts disagree on the number that died, as well as the number whose bodies were actually recovered. If we accept the latest of the contemporary accounts, that in the March 27, 1858, Corrector, 24 bodies were recovered, 18 of which were buried in East Hampton on Feb. 28. Three others found after the interment were buried at Montauk, and the bodies of the captain and two others were taken home for burial.

“”If there were passengers on board, none have yet been rescued, nor has the body of the captain’s son been found,” the Corrector reported. ‘There were, undoubtedly, thirty-two or thirty-three persons on board at the time of the disaster, leaving some eight or ten yet to be accounted for.’ [Blanchard: sounds speculative.]

“For years, there was discussion in East Hampton about what caused the accident. In 1927, local historian William D. Halsey, writing in The East Hampton Star, concluded that Harding made a deadly mistake when he saw what he thought was the steady light of the Montauk Lighthouse. Steering a course beyond the light and then heading left into what he thought was Block Island Sound, Harding instead ran aground off the shore at what is today known as Ditch Plains. Unknown to Harding, because he had been away at sea for more than a year, the lighthouse at Montauk had been changed to a flashing light. And, more important, on Jan. 1, 1858, the fixed-beam Shinnecock Lighthouse at Ponquogue Point in Hampton Bays had just gone into operation. Surely, Harding must have reasoned, this was Montauk Light. It was not….” (DeWan, George. “The Wreck of the John Milton.” Newsday.com, 12-15-2007.)

Pelletreau: “The ship John Milton, of New Bedford, returning from the Chica Islands [Chincha Islands, Peru] February 20, 1858, went ashore on Montauk, in a snow storm. She was a vessel of nearly fifteen hundred tons… and was loaded with guano. The entire crew, composed of the captain, three mates and twenty-two seamen, and a number of passengers — all on board — perished.” (Pelletreau 1905, 25)

Rattiner: “On February 20, 1858, John Stratton, whose family operated the Inn in Montauk, rode on horseback down to the beach near Ditch Plains [southeast Long Island near the tip at Montauk Point] in that town. It was a bitter cold morning, but the sun was shining now. Gone was the brutal gale that had pummeled the East End with blinding snow, wind and rain for three days…. Stratton came upon one of the most horrible sights imaginable. The wreckage of a 203-foot-long three-masted schooner lay before him, bow in, as if it had come ashore at full speed. The tattered sails were still up. The force of the wreckage had split the wooden ship in two and scattered parts of it all over. Among the wreckage were the dead bodies of more than a dozen seamen, all frozen solid by the ice, some separate, some clinging together, all having washed up. Stratton galloped home.

“Later that day, a rescue party arrived at the scene, together with the county wreckmaster, man whose job it was to guard whatever cargo had been onboard from looters until the proper owners would arrive. The ship was the John Milton out of New Bedford, Mass. Its cargo was barrels of guano, used back then as fertilizer on farms. But most of the barrels had split open in the crash with the contents washed away. And none of the 33 crew members and passengers onboard survived.

“The townspeople of East Hampton — Montauk was pastureland back then except for three inns — were stunned by this tragedy. They wrapped the bodies in shrouds and by horse and wagon took them to the East Hampton Town green where they were laid out in rows. The town’s Presbyterian minister officiated at the funeral service. All except the captain — to judge by his uniform — and his teenage son were buried in the South End Burial Ground in a common grave with a marble marker atop it. The captain, identified as Ephraim Harding, and his son were taken away and buried in Martha’s Vineyard. And four more bodies, which washed up later on as far west as Mecox, were added to the common grave as they were brought in. A use was found for the ship’s bell. It was hoisted up into the sessions house of that church where it remained for a hundred years, clanging every hour.

“Days later, the ship’s log was found. Out of New Bedford, it had gone into the Pacific where, at one of the Chincha Islands off Peru, it had taken onboard the guano. It then rounded the Horn, came north through the Caribbean and into the approach to New York City where the barrels were to be delivered. Encountering the storm, the captain decided to turn the ship east to get away from it, then, traveling along the shoreline of Long Island, get guided around Montauk from the lighthouse there into Long Island Sound for a safer approach to Manhattan.

“Just seven weeks before, a new lighthouse at Shinnecock had been activated, its light lit by oil. The captain had not known of this. Through the storm, sailing west along the coastline, he’d seen the welcoming light of the Fire Island Lighthouse. The next light, or so he thought, would be at Montauk. What he rounded, however, was the new Shinnecock Light, which was midway between Fire Island and Montauk. As a result, when he ordered the John Milton north under full sail, he came roaring ashore into Ditch Plains and destruction….” (Rattiner, Dan. “Our Amazing History: The Wreck of the John Milton.” Danspapers.com, 10-30-2021.)

Sheard: “The Bitter Cold Fate of the Ship John Milton

“…many wrecks involved a large loss of life — sometimes there were no survivors at all. The first sighting of the wreck of the sailing ship John Milton was not encouraging. A member of the Stratton family, who operated the Third House Inn at Montauk, was the first to notice her shattered hulk lying on the rocks on the morning of February 20, 1858. The weather was bitter cold and a blinding snowstorm had been raging sine the previous day. The ship had apparently run headlong onto the rocky beach under full sail, unable to discern the low lying shoreline through the heavy snow.

“Frozen solid in blocks of sea ice, the men who had brought the John Milton safely around treacherous Cape Horn, up the Easter Seaboard and within a few days sail of home, began to wash ashore that evening. Some were entombed alone, lying stiff on the beach as the howling winter winds froze ocean spray over their lifeless bodies. Others washed up in ghastly embraces with shipmates, or frozen in a jumbled heap with oars, timbers and assorted debris.

“Riding his horse along the beach that afternoon, the keeper of the Napeague Life-Saving Station came across the only survivor of the vessel capable of telling her tale: inside the wreckage of the ship’s long boat he found a seaman’s chest containing the John Milton’s logbook. The John Milton had cleared Hampton Roads, Virginia on February 16th, bound for her home port of New Bedford after having rounded Cape Horn from a trading voyage through the Pacific. Her logbook told of ‘strong gales and thick snowstorms’ for several days preceding the wreck. She had last obtained a navigational fix on February 18th, recording her latitude as 36⁰ 56’N. Thereafter she had groped along using only dead reckoning as the gales and snowstorms grew worse. The remainder of her story remains a mystery, frozen in time much as her crew were frozen in blocks.

“Twenty-two men and one boy, the captain’s son, were found frozen and washed up on the beach – four other bodies disappeared in the sea, never to be found. Two weeks later a beachcomber, Mr. Aleck Gould, found a heavy pea jacket half buried in the sand – in the pocket he found $400 in gold coins! This honest soul turned the money over to the coroner’s office in the hope that its rightful owner might be found. The jacket belonged to none other than the Milton’s captain, Ephraim Harding; the coins were returned to his widow….

“A single marble stone in East Hampton South End Burying Ground marks the common grave of the John Milton’s crew. The marker bears the following inscription, written by Mr. John Wallace of East Hampton:

This stone was erected by individual subscriptions from various places to mark the spot where, with peculiar solemnity, were deposited the mortal remains of the three mates and eighteen of the crew of the ship John Milton of New Bedford wrecked on the coast of Montauk, while returning from the Chincha Islands on the 20 February 1858 where together with those who rest beneath, Ephraim Harding, the Captain, and four others of the mariners, being the whole ship’s company, were drowned in the waves. The way, O God, is in the Sea.”

(Sheard, Bradley. Lost Voyages: Two Centuries of Shipwrecks in the Approaches to New York. NY: Aqua Quest Publications, Inc., 1998, pp. 82-83.)

Newspapers

Feb 25, NY Herald: “From Twenty to Thirty Lives Lost – Twelve Bodies Found on the Beach – Total Destruction of the Vessel – Description of the Dead – The Coroner’s Inquest, &c.

“We published in the Herald of yesterday some additional information in regard to the wreck of the ship John Milton, off Montauk Point, Long Island, Immediately on receipt of the intelligence we sent a reporter to the scene of the disaster, for the purpose of obtaining all the particulars, and of presenting an accurate and reliable account of the facts and circumstances attending the disaster, so far as they could be ascertained. The following is the result of his inquiries among the people living near that part of the Long Island coast where the disaster occurred. It may be well to state, however, that as not a single individual of the whole crew escaped from the wreck of the ill fated ship, all the particulars of the wreck will never be revealed: —

“The ship John Milton, Captain Ephraim Harding, it appears left New Bedford, to which port she belongs, on the 8th of December 1856, for San Francisco, where she arrived on the 17th of June, 1867. From San Francisco she proceeded to the Chincha Islands, and after receiving her cargo of guano started on her return voyage. On the 13th inst. she sighted Cape Henry and came to anchor at Hampton Roads. Here Captain Harding went ashore and proceeded to Norfolk, it is presumed….” [End of the photo copy shown on rarenewspapers.com webpage.] (New York Herald. “The Disaster to the John Milton.” 2-25-1858.)

April 15, New York Herald: “The Wreck of the John Milton.
“A Letter From One of the Surviving Passengers – Names of Some of the Crew – Two Other Passengers Saved, Etc.

“S.W. Carey, Esq., has furnished us with the following extract from a letter just received from Edwin R. Kirtley, late passenger per the ill fated John Milton. Till now we have between ignorant of the fate of the other passengers, also the number of the ship’s officers and crew. It is now certain that all the bodies save one have been recovered and appropriately interred: —

St. Louis, April 9, 1858
S. W. Carey, Esq:–

Dear Sir – I received yours of March 26 today and hasten to reply. It has been my intention since I first heard of the loss of the ship John Milton to write to someone in New York, giving them what little information I could in regard to the captain and crew. There were aboard the ship, when I left it at Hampton Roads, twenty-six persons all told, viz.: — Fourteen seaman, four boys, carpenter, cook and steward, three mates, the captain and his son Rodolphus. The first mate’s name was John M. Cotrell, whose residence was 135 Webster street, East Boston; one of the boys, Wm. Cotrell, was his brother. The second mate, John Wilson, was formerly from Louisville, Ky., but has been living in Chile and California for the last fourteen years. His father, Dr. Wilson, formerly of the navy, still resides in Louisville. The third mate was named Murry; he was from New York, but has been in Oregon and California for the last five or six years. One of the boys, Lunscomb, was from New Bedford. W. R. Taylor, a young man about twenty-one years old, was from near New Haven or Bridgeport, I forget which; his father resides near one of those places. Wallace was a boy sent by his friends with Mr. Cotrell home to Wisconsin. The cook, a black man, named John Brown, was from New Bedford. The steward, Austin, was a black man, from Aspinwall, N.G. The names of the balance of the crew I do not remember, or where they were from.

“There were two other passengers besides myself, a Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. They left at the same time that I did, and reside in the wester part of the State of New York, but I do not know at what place.” (New York Herald. “The Wreck of the John Milton.” 4-15-1858, p.3.)

April 21, The Indiana Reveille: “….The Herald has a letter from Edwin R. Kirtley, of St. Louis, who was passenger on the John Milton, wrecked some seeks ago on the Jersey [sic.]coast. Mr. Kirtley left the ship in Hampton Roads, together with two other passengers, a man and wife named Thomas. Those remained on board; twenty-six persons forming the crew, all of whom were doubtless lost.” (Indiana Reveille, Vevay IN. “Disaster at Sea.” 4-21-1858, p. 3.

April 24, The Polynesian: “Loss of Ship John Milton. – The clipper ship John Milton, of New Bedford, Capt. Ephraim Harding (well known in Honolulu as formerly master of the whale ship Saratoga), from the Chineha [sic.] Islands for New York, was wrecked on Montauk Point, L.I., in a gale and snow storm, on February 20, when all on board perished.” (The Polynesian, Honolulu, HI. Loss of Ship John Milton.” 4-24-1858, p. 8.)

Sources

DeWan, George. “The Wreck of the John Milton.” Newsday.com, 12-15-2007. Accessed 7-5-2022 at: https://web.archive.org/web/20071215131056/http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-past411,0,4948852.story

Indiana Reveille, Vevay IN. “Disaster at Sea.” 4-21-1858, p. 3. Accessed 7-5-2022 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/vevay-indiana-reveille-apr-21-1858-p-3/

New York Herald. “The Disaster to the John Milton.” 2-25-1858. Accessed 7-5-2022 at: https://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/617032

New York Herald. “The Wreck of the John Milton.” 4-15-1858, p.3. Accessed 7-6-2022 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/new-york-herald-apr-15-1858-p-13/

Pelletreau, William S. A History of Long Island From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Vol. 2. New York: Lewis Publishing Co., 1905. Digitized by Google. Accessed 7-5-2022 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Y4c-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Rattiner, Dan. “Our Amazing History: The Wreck of the John Milton.” Danspapers.com, 10-30-2021. Accessed 7-5-2022 at: https://www.danspapers.com/2021/10/john-milton-shipwreck-hamptons-history/

Sheard, Bradley. Lost Voyages: Two Centuries of Shipwrecks in the Approaches to New York. NY: Aqua Quest Publications, Inc., 1998.

The Polynesian, Honolulu, HI. Loss of Ship John Milton.” 4-24-1858, p. 8. Accessed 7-5-2022 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/the-polynesian-apr-24-1858-p-8/