Re. my post for Sunday, Sept. 2 -- More from the Wilmington Gazette, October 14, 1806, as recounted in Sony Williamson's book Shipwrecks of Ocracoke Island:
"Occacock, September 30 -- The cutter DILIGENCE arrived from sea on the 28th inst [a common abbreviation of the time for "instante mense," meaning a date in the current month], in the evening about sun down anchored close to Shell Castle, bearing NE. A gale came on at NE about 10 o'clock and at twelve blew a most violent gale: The Cutter upon perceiving the violence of the gale and the sea flying over in such quantities as to endanger her foundering, threw her guns overboard and while in the act of cutting away her masts, she broke adrift and run foul of a small schooner on a shoal about a mile from the Castle bearing WSW and there sunk.
"The officers and crew retreated aboard the little schooner who survived the gale and were taken off as soon as the weather would permit by the humanity of governor Wallace and Mr. Tuck the only inhabitants of the Castle without being able to save the least article of clothing whatever."
Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter is the story of midwifery on Ocracoke. You can read it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news082112.htm.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This was the Revenue Cutter based in Wilmington and was the third to
ReplyDeletebear the name Diligence...known as
Diligence III. She was a topsail schooner with similar rig of Otway Burns' Snap Dragon. She was replaced by Diligence IV which served till the 1820's. The name Diligence was discontinued until the 1920's & has been carried on since.