{"id":2380,"date":"2012-11-30T16:24:35","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T16:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=2380"},"modified":"2012-11-30T16:28:02","modified_gmt":"2012-11-30T16:28:02","slug":"american-immigrant-story-1837-shipwreck-ruins-the-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/american-immigrant-story-1837-shipwreck-ruins-the-trip.html","title":{"rendered":"American Immigrant Story: 1837 Shipwreck Ruins the Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our ancestors have made the long trip to America starting with the days of the Pilgrims. These were not easy journeys and some ended in disaster. Here is a riveting newspaper account from an article written in 1837 showing just how brutal the trip to America could be.<\/p>\n

\"Disastrous<\/a>
Newark Daily Advertiser (Newark, New Jersey), 5 January 1837, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The barque Mexico<\/em> left Liverpool, England, in October 1836 with a 12-man crew and 104 passengers on board. Two-thirds of the passengers were women and children.<\/p>\n

Two months after departing, the ship made it to the coast of New Jersey on Saturday, December 31, 1836. But, like an airplane waiting for the designated gate to open, the Mexico<\/em> had to sit offshore with another \u201cthirty or more square rigged vessels\u201d waiting for a guide ship to pilot them in to the docks.<\/p>\n

The sea was rough that day, and a gale-force wind blew them fifty miles from the port. It was now January 1837, the weather was not cooperating, and half the crew \u201cwere badly frost-bitten.\u201d They could only remain above deck for 30 minutes at a time.<\/p>\n

Soundings were taken but were not accurate. As the newspaper article explains: \u201cThe event has shewn that the information given by the mate as to the depth of water was incorrect; his error probably arose from the lead line being frozen stiff at the time it was cast.\u201d<\/p>\n

The captain, thinking that the water was deep enough for him to remain in place, dropped anchor. But as the tides shifted the ship \u201cstruck the bottom, 26 miles east of Sandy Hook at Hempstead beach, and not more than a cable\u2019s length from the shore.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bad situation for the ship out at sea was growing worse\u2026 \u201cThe scene that ensued on board, we leave to the reader\u2019s imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mexico\u2019s<\/em> life boats were deployed, but they were quickly smashed by the pounding waves. Finally a rescue boat came out from the shore to help the stricken ship and eight men\u2014including Captain Winslow\u2014jumped in and headed back to shore, escaping the Mexico<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What? The captain was one of the first to desert the ship?<\/p>\n

The remaining ship passengers and crew, despite the fierce cold, gathered on the deck\u2014watching the shore to see if more rescue boats would come out to save them.<\/p>\n

None did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they perceived that no further help came from the land their piercing shrieks were distinctly heard at a considerable distance, and continued through the night until they one by one perished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their remains were found in the morning \u201clashed to different parts of the wreck embedded in ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNone, it is believed, were drowned, but all frozen to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Newark Daily Advertiser<\/em> published the Mexico\u2019s<\/em> sad shipwreck story, including a list of the passengers who died.<\/p>\n

GenealogyBank gives you the news as your ancestors\u2019 lived it.<\/p>\n

\"list<\/a>
Newark Daily Advertiser (Newark, New Jersey), 5 January 1837, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our ancestors have made the long trip to America starting with the days of the Pilgrims. These were not easy journeys and some ended in disaster. Here is a riveting newspaper account from an article written in 1837 showing just how brutal the trip to America could be. The barque Mexico left Liverpool, England, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[2736,5302,682,1658,2233,2738,465,2556,5354,2739,5355,760,432,1839,5366,2020,27,836,2737,1850,5495],"class_list":["post-2380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-captain-winslow","tag-death","tag-england","tag-family-history-2","tag-family-research","tag-hempstead-beach","tag-historical-newspapers","tag-immigrants","tag-life","tag-liverpool","tag-long","tag-mexico","tag-new-jersey","tag-newark","tag-news","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-newspapers","tag-nj","tag-sandy-hook","tag-shipwrecks","tag-the-pilgrims"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}