Although the ship Sagunto was not stranded on Smutty Nose Isle, the wreck of a ship, either Spanish or Portuguese, with all on board, remains a terrible fact but too well attested by these graves.[119] The horror of the event is deepened and strengthened by the simple word "Unknown." When this ship crashed and filled and went down, the Sagunto was lying, after a terrible buffeting, within a safe harbor.
It was in a blinding snow-storm, and a gale that strewed the shore from the Penobscot to Hatteras with wrecks, that a ship built of cedar and mahogany was thrown on these rocks. Not a living soul was left to tell the tale of that bitter January night. The ill-fated vessel was richly laden, no doubt, for boxes of raisins and almonds from Malaga drifted on shore the next morning. On a piece of the wreck that came in a silver watch of English make was found, with the letters "P. S." graven on the seals; and among the débris was a Spanish and part of an American ensign, for it was war-time then between England and the American States. The watch had stopped at exactly four o'clock, or when time ceased for those hapless Spaniards. There were also found some twenty letters, addressed south of New York. Conjecture said it was a Spanish ship from Cadiz, bound for Philadelphia.
This is the story of this little clump of graves, and of the wreck, to this day unknown. It has been told many times in prose and poetry, but not often truly. Samuel Haley had been quietly lying in his grave two years. The reader may or may not believe he found the frozen bodies of some of the crew next morning reclining on his wall. Here is a wild flower of island growth, of a handful cast upon these fading mounds:
"O sailors, did sweet eyes look after you
The day you sailed away from sunny Spain?
Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew,
Melting in tender rain?"
I wondered that these fourteen the old sea had strangled and flung up here could rest so peacefully in ground unblessed by Holy Church. Perchance the spot has witnessed midnight mass, with incense and with missal: no doubt beads have been told, and a pater and ave said by pious pilgrims.
It is not pleasant to think that the island has become more widely known through the medium of an atrocious murder committed here in March, 1873. Formerly the islanders dated from some well-remembered wreck; now it is before or since the murder on Smutty Nose they reckon.
On the morning of March 6th the Norwegian who lives opposite Star Island, on Appledore, heard a cry for help. Going to the shore, he saw a woman standing on the rocks of Malaga in her night-dress. He crossed over and brought the poor creature to his cottage, when it appeared that her feet were frozen. She was half dead with fright and exposure, but told her tale as soon as she was able.
John Hontvet, a fisherman, occupied one of the three houses on Smutty Nose; the third counting from the little cove, as you look at it from Star Island. On the night of the 5th of March he was at Portsmouth, leaving three women—Mary, his wife; Annethe and Karen Christensen—at home. They went to bed as usual, Annethe with Mrs. Hontvet in the bedroom; Karen on a couch in the kitchen. It was a fine moonlight night, though cold, and there was snow on the ground.
Some time during the night a man entered the house, it is supposed for the purpose of robbery. He fastened the door between the kitchen, which he first entered, and the bedroom, thus isolating the sleeping women. Karen, having awoke, cried out, when she was attacked by the intruder with a chair. The noise having aroused the two women in the bedroom, Mary Hontvet jumped out of bed, forced open the door leading into the kitchen, and succeeded in getting hold of the wounded girl, Karen, whom she drew within her own chamber. All this took place in the dark. Mary then bade Annethe, her brother's wife, to jump out of the window, and she did so, but was too much terrified to go beyond the corner of the house. Mary, meanwhile, was holding the door of the kitchen against the attempts of their assailant to force it open. Foiled here, the villain left the house, and meeting the young wife, Annethe, was seen by Mary, in the clear moonlight, to deal her three terrible blows with an axe. But before she was struck down the girl had recognized her murderer, and shrieked out, "Louis, Louis!"