THE LOSS OF THE SHIP PERUVIAN
Over the North Atlantic ocean and the coast of Cape Cod on the night of the 26th of December, 1873, swept a gale and storm so fierce and wild that even dwellers of the coast were surprised.
With almost hurricane force the wind-driven sea rushed in mountainous waves towards the outlying sand bar and hurled themselves with a terrific roar on the sands of the beach.
Many weeks before from the smooth waters of the harbor of Calcutta the American ship Peruvian had passed out into the deep sea and with a blue sky and favoring breeze had spread her white sails and headed for home on her long voyage.
Beneath her decks was stored a valuable cargo of sugar and block tin and Boston was her destination.
The ship was in command of Captain Charles H. Vannah. And she carried a crew of 24 men. With such a bright departure they were anticipating a quick and safe voyage. All had gone well with ship and crew until this fateful December morning. All day long the snow had fallen thick and fast, driven over the deck of the ship and through her rigging by the ever increasing gale. Riotous waves lifted the big ship to their crests only to plunge her the next moment into the depths of the deep hollows as they tore madly away in the approaching darkness.
Captain Vannah had been unable for 24 hours to obtain an observation, but he knew that his ship was approaching the coast of Cape Cod. Hoping every moment that some slight abatement in the storm might give him a chance to pick up some outlying beacon or the glimmer of some friendly lighthouse he kept the ship’s head to the north with all the sail upon the spars that they could stand without breaking. Higher and stronger ran the seas, wilder and more terrific blew the gale, often across the ship’s decks swept the huge waves, while all about them the dark skies lowered and the angry waters swirled when suddenly, just before midnight with a terrible plunge and an awful crash the ship struck the sand bars of the dreaded Peaked Hill Shoals, nearly a mile from shore; then utter confusion reigned on the ship. Up to that time only occasional seas had swept her decks; now the huge waves in torrents constantly swept her and pounded unceasingly her breaking decks. Boats, deck fittings and everything movable was swept away in the darkness and the turbulent sea; her crew driven to the rigging found there only a temporary place of escape; soon came a mountain-like wave, overtopping all those which had preceded it and thundered over the doomed ship, tearing away all of her masts and portions of her deck, hurling the entire ship’s crew into this mass of thrashing wreckage and churning sea, and their last sad cries were hushed in the mad seas that covered them.
With the first glimmer of approaching daylight men hurried to the outer beach, believing that some terrible disaster had occurred. They found the shore for miles covered with portions of the cargo and many broken timbers of the lost ship, but owing to the distance from shore to where the ship went down only three bodies were ever recovered and those only after many days of washing about in the surf.
Out there across yonder bar, where you see the waters curl and break into a ripple, forming a white line against the blue of the sea beyond, lies the sunken and sea-washed hull of the once stately ship; in that sparless hull and the rotting and sand covered timbers you cannot recognize the majestic vessel that only a few short years ago sat out there in all her splendor and with her strong sides seemed to defy the elements.
That blue water, so quiet now, and breaking with such gentle ripples on the shore, does not give you the impression, that in a few hours with a change of wind, it could be lashed into fury, and with towering foam capped waves dash upon the beach with the roar of a Niagara.
The storm is o’er and all along the sandy reach,
The shining wavelets ripple on the lonely beach,
Beneath the storm-washed sands and waves of blue,
There rests unclaimed, the members of the lost ship’s crew.
Captain Vannah had been a seafaring man all his life. In a pretty little town, nestling among the granite hills of New Hampshire, he had known and loved a dear young girl; for several years they had planned that when his sea voyages were ended he would come to claim his bride and would sail the seas no more. He had secured a fair competency and had promised her that this would be his last voyage. He wrote to her when his ship sailed out of that far eastern port, advising her of the probable date of his arrival at Boston. She had made all arrangements to go down to the city and meet him when his ship should be reported as approaching the harbor.
She daily scanned the ship news columns of the papers, and on this December morning she knew his ship must be nearing port, but in her sheltered home she did not realize what a terrible storm was sweeping the coast.
Only those who have been suddenly overwhelmed with a paralyzing blow can appreciate what, with ruined hopes, this young girl felt, when she opened the daily paper only to read in great black, cruel headlines these words, “Ship Peruvian goes down off Cape Cod, and all hands are lost.”
HIGHLAND LIGHT, CLIFFS AND BEACH, NORTH TRURO