Shipwrecks on Cape Cod

by Isaac M. Small

The ship was in charge of Monks, a young Harvard student who was taking this trip on the Fuller for his health, while the first mate, Thomas Bram, a colored man, and a seaman named Charles Brown, were in irons.

The Halifax authorities locked up Monks and the entire crew. Monks was the son of fine people, respected and well-to-do ship owners, and he was quickly given his liberty on parole, but the other members of the crew were held until an investigation could be made.

It appeared that upon the night of the murders only six persons were aft. On deck were Bram, the first mate, in charge of the ship, and Brown, the helmsman. The other four were below, only half a level lower than the after deck. They were Captain Charles I. Nash, asleep in the chart room; Augustus Blandburg, second mate, in his bunk in the room adjoining the chart room; Mrs. Nash, in her stateroom leading from the main cabin; and Monks, whose room was between the chart room and the captain’s cabin.

In the middle of the night, Monks testified that he was awakened by a woman’s scream, loud and piercing. Dressing as quick as possible, he seized his revolver from the table—and it was discovered later it was the only one on board—and rushed up the companionway stairs to the deck. In doing so he had to run through the chart room, and on the floor he saw the body of the captain. As he reached the deck he said he saw Bram at the head of the stairs holding in his hand a heavy piece of board which he threw at Monks. Bram said afterwards that seeing the passenger rushing up the stairs with a pistol, he became frightened and threw the board as a matter of protection.

The entire crew was then aroused and the cabin inspected. The second mate’s body was found on his bunk and Mrs. Nash’s body in bed in her cabin.

Monks’ escape was considered miraculous in view of the fact that he alone of the four persons below decks at the time escaped the slaughter. All of the rooms here practically opened into the main cabin.

In the panic which followed the finding of the bodies, Monks and the cook, Jonathan Spencer, took charge. Every man, particularly Bram and Brown, were watched. On the morning of the fourth day Spencer became suspicious of Bram and had him put in irons.

After being ironed, Bram declared that on the night of the murders, he had, through a window of the chart room, seen Brown murder the captain. Brown in turn accused Bram of the killing. There was considerable doubt whether Brown could have left the wheel, committed the murders and returned to the wheel without the course of the ship being very evident to the others of the crew.

For a few days after the murders the bodies were lying in the cabin where they fell. Then they were sewed up in canvas, placed in the ship’s jollyboat and towed astern.

About this time some member of the crew found the blood-stained axe, with which the murders were committed, hid away in the lumber of the vessel’s deckload, and it was thrown overboard, fearing that some person on board might get it and use it as a weapon for further killing.