by Charles Harry Whedbee
One of the things for which the Outer Banks are famous is the mildness of the climate. Influenced by the nearness of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, there islands are usually pleasantly warm waters of the Gulf stream, these islands are usually pleasantly warm in the winter and pleasantly cool in the summer. But, as is the case with most rules, there are exceptions to this general statement. When it does become cold on the Outer Banks, it can be a bone-chilling cold. |
| When one of these unusual spells of frigid weather sets in, especially if it is complicated by a storm with gale force winds, you are likely to hear reference to an event which has long been remembered. The story has been told and retold until it has become a part of the very language of the region. Thus, when you hear anyone around Harker's Island, Beaufort Town, or Morehead City remark, "It's as cold as the night the Crissie Wright came ashore," you know he is speaking about a regionally famous historical event. This disaster took place almost a hundred years ago. It was so horrible that the very phrases "Crissie Wright time" or "when the Crissie Wright came ashore" have burned themselves into the everyday speech of the people. |
Our story begins in mid-October of the year 1885 when it was actually spring in the lovely capital of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Already, the days in that South American metropolis were getting longer and people were looking forward to the long, lazy summer days to come in December, January, and February. The sun was "moving south" as old earth began it's annual tilt to divide the seasons between the hemispheres. Securely moored to one of the docks in the broad mouth of the "River of January," which makes up a good portion of the splendid Rio Harbor, was the American sailing ship, the Crissie Wright. The vessel was a thing of beauty as well as utility, a three-masted schooner of some eight hundred tons burden. She was a fine representative of the growing fleet of American sailing ships which was already dominating international trade. |
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The ship's seven crewmen whiled away their time in Rio by the sea, while their good ship was loaded with a full eight hundred tons of phosphate for delivery to New York. It mattered little to them that they would be sailing northward into the approaching winter, of that they would be passing the North Carolina coast, with its dreaded Graveyard of the Sea, at a time when they could expect the worst possible weather. After more than a year, they were going home! Every man jack of them was anxious to see the loading completed, the lines that bound them to this foreign shore cast off, and the native pilot dropped off into his little pilot boat as they passed the Rio Harbor bar and made their way into the South Atlantic. |
Departure day finally arrived in mid-October. The Crissie Wright, loaded to her full capacity and completely stocked with provisions. took her leave of Rio de Janeiro. Captain Jeb Collins ordered the graceful. long blue pennant called the "Blue Peter," which signified that a ship was homeward bound, run up to the masthead. There it immediately began to snap and pop in the brisk. favorable breeze. It seemed a goof omen for a fast and safe trip. |
Captain Collins was a typical Yankee skipper in his mid-forties, born to the sea, he had made sailing ships his life's vocation, and he was a very competent mariner and skipper. Normally mild mannered, he was, nevertheless, very strict when his ship was under weigh. He brooked no delay in carrying out his orders for the safety and well-being of his ship and crew. All things considered, Captain Collins was one of the best in the business. His spirits were high as the Crissie Wright made her way out into the blue Atlantic. It had been a profitable voyage for the owners, with cargoes both on the trip out and on this return voyage. If all went well, the crew could count on a bonus; but, above all else, each man just wanted to be back home. |
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They ran northward under fair skies and with favorable winds, and the temperature grew hotter and hotter as they approached the equator. As they passed into the Northern Hemisphere, the days gradually became colder, as they raced to meet winter head-on. The weather held generally good for sailing, though, until they picked up the Gulf Stream off Cuba and added the northward thrust of that mighty river in the ocean to their own sail power. She was a good ship, the Crissie Wright, and she made good time, even though she lay low in the water from the weight of her capacity cargo. |
By the time they were off Charleston, South Carolina, the weather really began to worsen, and Second Mate Sam Grover sounded the warning of foul weather conditions ahead. Though Mister Grover's specialty was navigation, he had also developed a very keen sense of the weather and could predict it with remarkable accuracy. His mates called him the ship's second barometer, and he took a great deal of pride and pleasure in the title. "It's going to be bad, mates," he growled. "There's something real big brewing between us and Home." |
As they arrived off the coast of North Carolina and passed Cape Fear, they were still making fairly good speed. The wind, while nearing full gale strength, held fair for them, and they boiled along at a good rate. It was only when the huge Welsh First Mate, John Blackman, alerted the skipper to the fact that the entire bow was disappearing beneath the increasing ocean swells that Captain Collins began to ease his ship to take the strain off her. Blackman's seamanship and judgment were impeccable and tempered by years of experience and a deep love for the sea. The skipper, after consulting Mister Blackman, decided to press on, making as much "northing" as possible under shortened sail. After all, they had all been in much harder blows than this and had come through all right. Their ship was sound and seaworthy, and the crew was experienced, even to the young ship's carpenter, James Boswell, and the cabin boy, Chester Simmons. If necessary, even Cookie Johnson, the rotund ship's cook, could be counted on to do the work of two good able-bodied seamen. though he was "encased in blubber," according to his mates, he was a powerfully built man and a knowledgeable seaman. |
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Some miles to the south of Cape Lookout, the Crissie Wright was running under shortened sail before a very strong and gusty wind out of the south-southeast. A glance at a chart of the North Carolina coastline reveals that Cape Lookout, on the extreme tip of Core Banks, extends in a huge hook landward, toward Shackleford Banks, creating what is called Lookout Bight and forming an almost landlocked shelter from the wind and weather. For the schooner, of course, the wind was directly "on-shore" for Shackleford Banks, behind which the broad, calm waters of Back Sound formed what has been called one of the greatest natural harbors in the world. |
The Crissie Wright was just eighty-four days out of Rio and well ahead of schedule, so Captain Collins decided to make a run for the shelter of Lookout Bight and there ride out the worsening storm. Seeking the advice of his first and second officers, Blackman and Grover, Captain Collins called a hurried meeting. The alternative, they knew, would be to "wear ship," head out into that screaming wind and cold in an effort to gain sea room, and try to make passage around the dreaded Cape Hatteras in the middle of a winter storm with a ship already low in the water. The vote was unanimous in favor of a run for the safety of Lookout Bight; it was obviously the prudent thing to do. |
But fate stepped in, and one of those totally unforeseeable quirks took place which, all too frequently, alter the fortunes and rule the destinies of seafaring men. The Crissie Wright was running for her life, with the howling gale almost directly on her starboard beam. She was handling well and was standing about easterly on the starboard tack. Her sails were drawing beautifully and she was headed straight as an arrow for Lookout Bight when, suddenly, the wind became baffling and variable and even more blustery. As though slapped by a huge hand, the gallant vessel groaned in her travail and lay over almost on her starboard beam ends. Then, as the wind flawed again, she shifted the other way until she was almost lying on her port beam ends. As the schooner righted most lying on her port beam ends. As the schooner righted herself the second time, the full force of that gale caught her sails aback. The main brace supporting the large main-mast snapped like an over tightened violin string, and the huge mast came toppling down on the deck, bringing a welter of sails and standing and running rigging with it. |
The beautiful Crissie Wright was doomed. She lay dead in the water with that huge mast trailing over side, and she would not answer her helm. The only hope now was to drop both anchors and pray that they would hold the ship off that lee shore. This was promptly done. The anchors bit into the ocean bottom all right and brought the stricken vessel's head up into the gale wind. For a short time the anchors held, and a flicker of hope arose. They might, yet, manage to survive. Then, to his horror, the Captain discovered that the sight-bearing he was taking on various points ashore were changing . The ship was moving! The anchors were dragging, and the Crissie Wright was being driven, stern first, toward the raging surf of Shackleford Banks. |
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On the second sand reef, which was about two hundred yards offshore, the Crissie Wright finally ran aground. Then, like a tired old lady, she gradually broached in the direction of her port side and lay grounded on that reef. Every wave breaking over her decks, from starboard to port. The sea water was actually freezing, and each breaker added to the sheet of ice steadily forming on the portions of the schooner still above the water. |
With hope all but gone, Captain Collins ordered his crew to take what refuge they could find by climbing partway up the foremast and lashing themselves to what rigging was left. Obedient and well-disciplined to the end, they obeyed his order without hesitation or question. Up the slippery foremast all seven of them climbed, in an effort to get above the reach of the icy waves. They lashed themselves with rope as securely as numbed fingers would allow and waited for they knew not what. The sea was a boiling cauldron of mad waves under the lash of that ever-changing wind. |
Ashore, the plight of the desperate seamen had not gone unnoticed. From the little fishing and whaling villages of Wade's Shores, Windsor's Lump, and Guthrie's Hammock, the Bankers congregated on the beach and built a huge bonfire to give what cheer they could to the shipwreck victims. It is told that, three times that afternoon and early evening, they tried to put a pulling or rowing boat through the raging surf. All three times, the angry ocean literally threw boat and oarsman back onto the beach. ON the third try, the boat was stove in by the force of the blow as it hit the sand. One of the would-be rescuers suffered a broken leg, and two other were nearly drowned . It was hopeless. |
All night long, the Bankers kept that bonfire going. Hour after freezing hour, they shouted words of encouragement into the gale and sang hymns at the tops of their voices. They prayed to Almighty God for help, some kind of help , for the stricken seamen out there in the darkness. Seafaring people themselves, they knew the terrors of the deep. |
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That night the wind shifted abruptly to the northwest and increased in velocity, and it became even colder. The lowest recorded temperature in nearby, sheltered Beaufort Town that night was exactly eight degrees. God alone knows what it dropped to on that exposed beach at Shackleford Banks. |
The next day the wind increased still more. Finally, the watchers on the beach saw Captain Collins apparently lose his grip on the foremast and fall headlong into the raging sea. His body was never found. Soon after, First Mate Blackman and Able Seaman Dozier untied themselves from the mast and made a dash for the forecastle, obviously in the hope of finding some warmth and shelter from the killing cold. They ran awkwardly on numbed legs and made no more than half the distance they hoped to go when a huge comber swept them both off the wreck to instant death in the raging, freezing sea. The other four managed to get forward, somehow, as the ship's stern began to settle lower into the sea. They huddled together and wrapped themselves as best they could into the stiff folds of the jib sail. |
The frantic people on the shore could stand it no longer. They resolved to try, yet again, to get to the ship, even though they well knew the attempt to be apparently suicidal. In times of crisis, real men seem to gather added, almost superhuman, strength to meet seemingly impossible tasks. But to launch another boat through that surf gone mad, when three former attempts had failed, seemed little short of insanity. But try they did. And They succeeded, though to this day no one can say how they did it. |
Captain Seef Willis had come over during the night, and at first light he sent back for his whaling boat and crew at Diamond City. In a very short time, the seasoned whaling crew came, dragging with them the surfboat used to pursue and kill the giant whales offshore. In the face of impossible odds and with practically no chance of success, those unsung heroes put that whale boat through the surf and were able to pull alongside the wrecked Crissie Wright. |
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Only the fat cook, Johnson, was still alive. The other three, Grover, Boswell, and Simmons, were literally frozen stiff. To this day, it is claimed that, if Johnson had not had such a thick layer of fat over most of his body, he too would have frozen and died. It is believed that his obesity actually saved his life. |
The three bodies and the half-frozen cook were brought back to shore in another miracle of seamanship. Cookie was wrapped in blankets and thawed out very slowly right there on the beach. He was not allowed too near the bonfire, because his rescuers knew that too much heat, too quickly, would prove fatal. |
The story goes that Cookie had to be forcibly restrained from throwing himself into the warmth of the leaping flames. It is certain that , for a long while there on that exposed beach, he was out of his mind and raving. They held him and turned him slowly like a huge roast before the fire, until feeling began to return to his limbs and sanity to his mind. To ease his torture and stop his screaming, they plied him with rum, until he was finally led away, almost anaesthetized, and put to bed under a mountain of blankets. But he alone, of the entire ship's company, survived that terrible ordeal. |
Down to this point, the tellers and the retellers of this familiar story are in substantial agreement as to the facts. from here, the accounts differ somewhat. B.M. C. Eugene Pond, U.S. Coast Guard, Retired, and a native of this region, says that the three bodies were buried there in the sand on Shackleford Banks and that Cookie Johnson recovered completely, went back to Boston, and probably shipped out again as cook on another vessel. |
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Graydon Paul, another knowledgeable native, insists that the three bodies were brought back to Beaufort and were buried there in an unmarked common grave not thirty feet from the spot where the British naval officer was buried standing upright. Mr. Paul also says that the ship's cook never completely recovered either in mind or in body. He says that Cookie went to Charleston South Carolina, but very soon returned to Shackleford Banks, where he died of a heart attack. |
Well, whichever of these fine gentlemen has the true facts, the fate of the Crissie Wright and the manner of her dying are matters of history. down to this very day, when a coastlander tells you "It's as cold as the night the Crissie Wright came ashore," you can very well know that he is telling you that it's just about as cold as it can possibly get. thus have the tragic deaths of those brave seamen burned (or frozen ) a new expression into the very language of a people. This, too, is part and parcel of the wonderful heritage of the Outer Banks. |
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 RETURN
TO THE SPIRIT OF CAPE HATTERAS |
 Midi
Enhanced |