Shipwrecks on Cape Cod

by Isaac M. Small

Wrecked on Cape Cod. Now Highland Golf Club House

Soon after clearing the outer roadstead at Bangor, the weather, which had been fine, became overcast and threatening, but the wind, though strong, was fair, so that sail was made on the barges and the tow made good progress. The captain of the tug hoped to pick up the Highland Light in a short time, but on the morning of the 4th snow began falling, the wind swung out to the northeast and soon increased to a gale, and the tow was soon wallowing in a rapidly rising sea. At six o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th suddenly, right under the bow of the tug, came great rolling waves, breaking white capped over the sand bars, only a hundred yards from the tug. The captain immediately realized that unless his boat could get away from this danger the tug would be smashed to pieces on the sands of the bar. The only safe thing to do was to cut away from the barges. This was done; then by all the power in the tug’s engines he was able to pull away, round Race Point and anchor in Provincetown Harbor. Hardly had this been accomplished when the propeller of the tug dropped off. Had this happened when the tug was attached to the barges or was battling the sea outside of Cape Cod, it is quite probable the tug would have foundered and her entire crew lost.

The barges left to the fury of the storm drove rapidly towards the sand bars and on towards the beach. In this encounter with the sea the Tunnel Ridge and the Coleraine were so badly smashed that they were not worth any attempt to float them, and it was only by the prompt action of the Highland Coast Guard crew that those on the barges were brought safely to shore.

Capt. George Israel of the Manheim, a man of many experiences in shipwrecks, believing he could save his vessel, dropped both anchors off the bow of the barge. This only checked for a short time the onward drive of the barge. Capt. Israel had mistaken the force of the sea on the outside of Cape Cod in a storm, and his barge dragging her anchors was forced nearer and nearer the shore, until he and his crew of four men had to be brought ashore in the breeches buoy by the Coast Guard men.

The fury of the gale and the high and rising tide soon forced the barges well up on the beach, so that on the following morning one might walk dry footed entirely around them. The Manheim escaped serious injury. Then began an effort to float her. Soon it was found that the action of the sea and tide was building up a great breakwater of sand around the Tunnel Ridge and Coleraine which were stranded one on each side of the Manheim. There could be no hope of floating the latter until these hulks were removed. Kerosene was liberally poured over them and on a dark night a torch was applied, and the burning hulls lit up the sea and shore for many miles around. When it was decided to burn the barges, Capt. Israel told E. Hayes Small if he would send a gang of men on board and remove the deckhouses from the Coleraine he could have them; he did so, and a few days work landed the houses on the sands of the beach, where they were cut into three pieces. Some planks were laid on the slope of the 100 feet high cliff, and with four horses the three parts were skidded to the top of the cliffs; then on trucks the parts were drawn to a point on the south side of the town road leading to Highland Light, there put together and converted to a three-room cottage. Later on, with a small addition on the south side, made the club house of the Highland House golf links.

Capt. Israel, with two of his men, lived on the Manheim all winter, and on the 4th day of April, 1916, just a year to a day from the time the Manheim stranded, she was floated off and entered the coal transportation business again.

THE JOHN TRACY MYSTERY

On the 9th day of January, 1927, the big 2000 ton freighter John Tracy of the M. & J. Tracy Transportation Line, with some 2500 tons of coal for Boston, steamed out of the harbor of Philadelphia, but she never reached her destination, and from that day to this no word has come to land to tell what befell her. Every effort by search in every port on the coast, by telephone, by wireless, and the hunt through every possible avenue for information, failed to obtain the slightest clue to the missing boat. Another tragedy of the sea had been added to the long and ever increasing list of sea tragedies of lost ships that have dropped beneath the sea.

Knowing the usual speed with which these ships move along the coast and knowing the conditions which prevailed, it is estimated that this ship would have been in the immediate vicinity of Highland Light on the night of January 11th, when conditions on the sea were dark and stormy, with a gale-driven fog over all the sea.