Immigrants
suffered many dangers when crossing the Atlantic. This included ships
catching fire. In August, 1848, a sailor searching for stowaways on
board the Ocean
Monarch,
left a burning candle unattended. The ship carrying immigrants from
Liverpool to Boston,
caught fire and 176 lives were lost. The following year 101 emigrants
were killed when the Caleb
Grimshaw
caught fire and soon afterwards 51 died on board the St
George
in another blaze. As ships got larger so did the deaths from fires.
In September, 1858, an estimated 500 immigrants died after a fire
on the steamship Austria.
Another 400 died on the William
Nelson
in July, 1865.
Passengers had more chance of survival if their ship hit the rocks.
When the Jacob
A. Westervelt
bound for New York foundered off the
coast of Newfoundland in December, 1853, all 700 passengers survived.
However, when the same thing happened to the Powhatan
at New Jersey, over 200 German immigrants
drowned before they reached the shore.
In 1834 seventeen ships sunk in the Gulf of St Lawrence and 731 emigrants
lost their lives. In a five year period (1847-52) 43 emigrant ships
out of 6,877 failed to reach their destination, resulting in the deaths
of 1,043 passengers. In 1854 the steamship City
of Glasgow
carrying 480 emigrants went missing after leaving Liverpool
and was never heard of again.
The introduction of large steamships to transport emigrants did make
the journey safer. However, when these ships did go down the death
toll was much higher. In April, 1873 The
Atlantic
hit Meagher's Rock, on the coast of Nova Scotia. It quickly broke
up and 546 out of the 862 passengers on board lost their lives.
On 10th April 1912, the Titanic,
the largest ship in the world (46,300 tons), started her maiden voyage
from Southampton to New
York. Four days later it struck an iceberg and sunk. A large number
of the 825 passengers who died were immigrants on their way to America.
Drawing of the Atlantic on Meagher's Rock, Nova Scotia in
April, 1873.
(1) Thomas Littledale, was
on one of the rescue boats trying to help passengers on the burning
Ocean Monarch in August, 1848. The disaster caused the death
of 176 emigrants on the way to Boston.
The flames were bursting with
immense fury from the stern and centre of the vessel. So great was
the heat in these parts that the passengers, men, women and children,
crowded to the fore part of the vessel. In their maddened despair
women jumped overboard; a few minutes more and the mainmast shared
the same fate. There yet remained the foremast. As the fire was making
its way to the fore part of the vessel, the passengers and crew, of
course, crowded still further forward. To the jib-boom they clung
in clusters as thick as they could pack - even one lying over another.
At length the foremast went overboard, snapping the fastenings of
the jib-boom, which, with its load of human beings, dropped into the
water amidst the most heartrending screams both of those on board
and those who were falling into the water. Some of the poor creatures
were enabled again to reach the vessel, others floated away on spars,
but many met with a watery grave.
(2)
Patrick Leahy, a young Irish emigrant, was on board The Atlantic
that Meagher's Rock, Nova Scotia during a gale in April, 1873. He
managed to hold onto the rigging but he saw many washed away.
A
large mass of something drifted past the ship on the top of the waves,
and then was lost to view in the trough of the sea. As it passed by,
a moan - it must have been a shriek, but the tempest dulled the sound
- seemed to surge up from the mass, which extended over fifty yards
of water; it was the women. The sea swept them out of the steerage,
and with their children, to the number of 200 or 300, they drifted
thus to eternity.
Available from Amazon
Books (order below)
