Captain Hallett took charge of the prisoners, marching them up the Cape to Barnstable, and later to Boston, Colonel Doane being left to look after the wrecked craft. There was much jubilation on Cape Cod and in Boston over the disaster. The bones of the Somerset remained buried for a century, when the shifting sands exposed them to view. Relic hunters soon carried away nearly all of the wreckage that could be obtained, and the shifting sands have again entombed what remains of the famous old frigate.
Another historic wreck was that of the pirate ship Widdah, which was lost near the site of the Cahoon’s Hollow Life-Saving Station in 1718. The ship was commanded by Captain Bellamy, and carried twenty-three guns and a crew of one hundred and thirty men. Captain Bellamy had captured seven vessels off the shores of Cape Cod, and on one of them had placed seven of his crew. The captain of the captured ship ran his vessel close to the shore, and the seven pirates were taken prisoners. Later six of them were executed in Boston. The Widdah soon after was driven ashore during a gale, and all hands, save an Englishman and an Indian, were lost.
A BAD WRECK.
A scene of awful terror occurred when the Josephus, a British ship, was wrecked on Peaked Hill Bars in the year 1842. She had a cargo of iron rails. Her crew had been driven to the rigging as soon as the vessel struck, and one after another they were seen to fall into the raging sea. Those who had gathered on the shore could hear the despairing cries of the imperiled crew, but were powerless to aid them. At last two of the spectators, Daniel Cassidy and Jonathan Collins, procured a dory, and against the earnest pleadings of their friends, and in the almost certain assurance that they were going to their death, pushed off from the beach, saying as a last farewell, “We can’t stand this any longer; we are going to try and rescue those poor fellows if it cost us our lives.” Half-way out to the wreck the two heroes successfully battled with the sea, then a giant comber, catching their frail boat, carried it along and buried it under tons of tumbling water. The gallant men were seen to rise and struggle desperately to reach the overturned boat, but perished in the attempt. The men remaining in the rigging of the Josephus were soon after swept to death by the monstrous waves that tore the ship to pieces.
In 1848 the brig Cactus was lost on the bars along the back of the Cape.
WRECKERS AT WORK ON KATIE J. BARRETT.
Along the shore near the Cahoon’s Hollow Station the immigrant ship Franklin was deliberately run ashore in 1849, and many of her poor, helpless passengers perished in the disaster. This was one of the most appalling disasters that ever occurred on Cape Cod. Speedy retribution came to the officers of the ship for their terrible crime, the captain and nearly all the others losing their own lives in the wreck. The late Capt. Benjamin S. Rich, afterwards of the United States Life-Saving Service, was the first to discover the wreck, and also found a box containing some papers that subsequently proved that the disaster was intentional.
