On this date in 1854 the sailing vessel Orline St. John encountered a severe gale and heavy seas in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was dismasted and sank off the coast of Hatteras Island. The captain's wife and several crew members drowned or died of exposure as the derelict vessel wallowed in the surf for a week and a half.
According to David Stick in The Graveyard of the Atlantic (1952), the remaining crew members who "suffered constantly from cold and exposure" survived only by eating the body of a sailor named Douglass who had died in the rigging, and whose body was left hanging there.
Stick says this is the only case of cannibalism on the North Carolina coast that had come to his attention.
Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter is the story of the "Joe Bell" flower. You can read it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news012112.htm.
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enjoyed this story with my coffee.
ReplyDeleteI think we have that book, though I'm not sure I've read it. If I'm right, its in my daughters room....
ReplyDeleteI don't believe any thing David Stick writes.
ReplyDeleteAnon 4:11 -- I am curious. Why are you so skeptical of David Stick?
ReplyDeleteI betcha the David Stick stickler has issues due to Sticks efforts in environmental and conservation of the North Carolina shoreline. His efforts resulted in legislation and from what I read individual property owners could be more proactive in protecting the coast -- perhaps more them an owner thinks is necessary but for the benefit of the future it is.
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