WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Shipwrecks on Cape Cod cover

Shipwrecks on Cape Cod

Chapter 23: THE JOB JACKSON WRECK
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A longtime marine reporting agent at Highland Light compiles eyewitness narratives and investigations of numerous shipwrecks and maritime mysteries along Cape Cod. The collection recounts individual losses, rescue attempts, weather- and navigation-related causes, abandoned or puzzling vessels, and large-scale disasters, while describing coastal observation, telegraph reporting, and life-saving practices. Personal recollections and practical detail are interwoven with thematic discussion of the sea’s hazards and local responses, producing a series of concise case studies that illustrate how storms, fog, shoals, and human error have repeatedly shaped the region’s maritime history.

THE JOB JACKSON WRECK

On the 5th day of January, 1895, the big coal laden schooner Job H. Jackson, in a howling northeast gale, went ashore on the outer bar between Peaked Hill Bar and Race Point Coast Guard Station, and was torn to pieces in the terrific gale that drove the great waves constantly over her.

Eight of her crew of nine men were rescued after much difficulty by the life savers of the two stations. She was deeply laden with coal and was so far from shore that no mortar lines could be shot over her.

The first attempt of the Coast Guard to launch a boat resulted in a capsize. On the second try the boat was successfully launched through the towering seas, but could not approach nearer than two hundred feet of the wreck.

In the meantime the entire crew of the vessel had climbed into the rigging, to prevent being swept overboard by the deluge of water that swept the decks of the fast breaking up craft.

Then the men one by one jumped from the rigging into the wild surf and were pulled into the surf boat; all but one man of the crew made it. Then the somewhat overloaded boat was headed through the breakers for the shore.

Just as the boat rode the last wave at the shore it was again overturned, but twenty men on the shore stood ready and the crew of the schooner and the Coast Guardsmen were snatched from the surf. By noon of the following day all that remained of the Jackson were broken spars and deck houses scattered along the sands of the beach.