‘I Famous-Schooner Supposed to Have Been Battered to Pieces on the Reef of Norman’s Woe Some Eighty Odd Years Ago, According to the Immortal Ballad of the Poet Longfellow, Was the Night of That Terrible Storm on the Massachusetts Coast, ' Latest Researches Now Reveal By Eleanor Early ALMOST every one has read “The Wreck of the Hesperus.” It is generally conceded to be Longfellow"s best ballad. There's a swing and thrill to it that no one can deny. Eighty-six years ago it was written. and its popularity has never waned. The skipper’s blue-eyed daughter is as romantic a figure today as she was when Longfellow immortalized her so long ago. _ nd the poor old skipper, “lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, with his face turned‘lto the skies"—a more pa- thetic corpse there never was, with his . “fixed and glassy eyes." But weep no more, dear readers. For this that you're reading is an expose. Writing it is like telling the children that there is no Santa Claus. But the truth, it. is said, will out. And here it is. ‘ It wasn’t the schooner Hesperus that sailed the wintry sea. The skipper's blue-eyed daughter was a buxom matron of 55. And the Reef of Norman’s Woe has been getting a lot of undeserved attention. TH? 'gnodsrn urge for truth, let the l ols‘ or ideals fall where they may, plays h we with the grand old ballad. The schooner Hesperus, anchored at Rom Wharf, in Boston harbor, lost a bows rit when a fierce northeaster New England coast in De« . Only a bowsprit. And lashed 9 11% I hurt, at on that Same night there was a wild, Hid sea, and death and destruction in Gloucester harbor, in the famous Mause'hnletts fishing toWn. The Reef Norman’s Woe is 'ust off the harbor entrance, and'of slidiy vessels seeking shelter there, a third of them were driven on the reef. Next day soventeen bodies were washed ashore. ¢:‘Iflmong them,” reads the story in a y owed Boston paper, “was the body of I girl lashed to the Windlass bitts of a Castles schr.” There were water front reporters in those days as there‘are now, and the man who rushed that bit of news to his ofilce did not bother confirming the tale he had heard. For the argue-eyed investl stors have discovered that he was so ng. It was not the body of a girl, but of a woman—a women of 65. Mrs. Sally Hilton was her name, and she had not been on the Castine schooner at all, but ._\ “g a passenger instead on the schooner Favorite, of Wiscasset. And it was of her---gray-haircd and elderly—”hat Longfellow wrote: Blue were her (you as the fairy-flax, Her, checks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds \ That ope in the month of May. Poetic license you might call it. The good ship Hesperus, as a matter of fact, started on her next voyage. after the rigging had been repaired; the skipper‘s daughter was washing dishes in the scullery, if the hardy old salt had a daughter, and Mr. Long- fellow was misled as to the facts when he wrote the most beloved of all Ameri- can ballads. On Sunday night, December 15, 1839, a terrific storm swept the North Atlan- tic coast. “Boston chimneys,” wrote Henry Bes- ton, a Quincy man, "are toppling in a crash and a cascade of bricks, the great elms are swaying and groaning in the gale, and across the river, in Cambridge village, the snow and sleet strike at the windows of a famous old house in which- a pqet dwells." In Boston harbor ships strained at their moorings, dragged ' anchor and smashed against the docks. in the dark- ness they collided with one another, and the havoc and horror were greater than any tar had ever seen before. And off the coast of Magnolia, where millionaires and soci ty folk lived then, and where their chi! ran and their chil- dren’s children live today, there occurred 0 l - it 9 , e l'osr-g-c ill will: 2 per nonuio, m lul- ppr villus with the to next month - v fll'flllnllon. can'- nrlr-lv of political. sci-lancer): mat- omes—tho ag- aulrc, and l s cs of great in. r cvcrylmcth- 'ns prove huh. ; lory," and In :- topics. llnil is more par- ‘ deeply misr- Such we shall ope lorecclve c already on- ‘s'aqu of ‘ II X" 5-H“ consult-table damage. ”A lighter ac more Was wall "at Ccutfnl wharf, In consequence oi some other ves- acl’a ball‘fll'll enteringhcr rlcrh. ** Al If. P. M.Sumlsynlglu, the gels was as high as at any period sincous commenccmcnlmipl continued until. daylight, when. it semen-lustinbslcd. This second elm drohe the schooner Hesperus, at anchor lnlho stream. from he! moorings against ship \l’m. Bml:er.at the North side of‘ltou'e‘s wharf, which period he; fans,ond bolhulro'vo up the dock to- Father. The cchooncr huddle: bowsprit carried alloy; the shlp‘her side badly chafed.‘ hogan. nude, from Mallssmlls,drpge uplhe deck between Central and hubs whurm, stove pill '0th! Item. nml carried im-ay‘bowiprlt; Sloop Star. in some dock. filled and sunk. Fears are entertained for the loop .‘lnrlhn woodman. for Mobile; and, . or'l'rlnldad 1' ' ' l thegrentest disaster of all. Visitors to New England motor every summer day to the seaside there, where townsfolk point out the Reef of Norman‘s Woe. and recount the wreck of the Hesperus. And many a sentimental soul has shed a tour for the skippcr’s blue-eyed daugh- tor. There were wrecks there that wild Dot-ember night, but the good old Hes-' perus, riding at anchor in Boston har- bor, met the least disaster of them all. News traveled more slowly then than now, and it was not until the lllh that Boston papers printed accounts of the great storm. Tuesday dawned clear and cold, and Mr. Longfellow, at the break- fast table, ate his favorite dish of ham and eggs and spread the papers out before him. A Boston newspaper led with a stab tling story of the storm. “Seventeen bodies," screamed the head- lines, “have been washed ashore!" “And among them," read the first paragraph, “was the body of a girl lashed to the Windlass bitts of r. Gas. tine schr." ' The entire first page was devoted to' a resume of the horrors of! Norman's Woe in Gloucester harbor near Mag- nolla. “Dreadful, dreadful," murmured Mr. Longfellow. “I never read of anything so horrible." Another paragraph ca'hght his eye. “At 11 P. M. Sunday night," he read. "the gale was as high as at any period since its commencement, and continued until daybreak, when it abated some- what. . “This second gust drove the schooner Hesperus, at anchor in the stream, from her moorings against ship wrn. Badger. at the north side of Rowes Wharf. which parted her taste and both drove up the dock together. The schooner had Wont ”muffin-ml to friend no pay hlsrllmriol' nasgulliuglouu oyslu shop In Ann slrcoi, pin lloy momma. Contrary Iql hlv. lllc complainant, Moore, pledmnt cross-examination being lo the oyslchouIn :l hour, and. his answers were was misty about will time. , 'l‘hrco old settlers in the l abut back through the kl Med. who took especial car they llsd’becn there by "are. inconsequcnce of dh‘ u ' polo yesterday, under the n.” which altered the sons her bowsprit carried away; the ship herself badly chafed." Her bowsprit carried awnyl A tri- fling misfortune that won the Hesperus eternal fame. A slight collision and the old schooner became an epic~matcrinl for a ballad that will never die. THUS it would appear that the veneb - able poet was guilty of an uninten- tional mistake. An entry in his journal for December 17 seems to indicate that the two events become confused in his mind, for there we find this item! “11th: News of shipwrecks horrible of! the coast. Twenty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one female lashed to a piece of wreck. There is a reef Ill Oil 0' That sailed And t daught r, Her chee thorn bud Thatope in And heywat flaw did,b Then up and ‘5 Had sailed t ring, W' THE wascx or rue HESPERUS. IT was the schooner Hesperus, J c ski per hadtaken his 2 little To bearhim company. Blue‘were er'e es’as’the fat dist, ‘lcs ii e the dawn 3" day. And .' her bosom white . as .the . haw- The’ skipper he stoodl aside the helm, His pipe wag in his mouth, c Thesmoke now West, new South- “I pray thee,"put into yonder post. For I fear a hurricane; “ Last night, the moon hadialgolden the wintry sea; 5the monthéof May. ed how the 'veet'lng low (1‘ pake an'old‘Sailor, he Spanish Main, onw N As every schoolboy orator knows, the poem by Henry W. Longfellow, entitled “The Wreck of the Hesperus,”'tella how ' a fine ship was battered to pieces during a gale that swept the North Atlantic on a bleak ' December night in 1839. According to the poem, the skipper went down with his ship, and next morning the body of his daughter, lashed to a spar, was washed up on the strand. But now the “wrecking crew” has dug up facts to prove the Hesperus was anchored safe in Boston harbor during all that storm and, as soon as the gale had passed, sailed sway called Norman's Woe where many of these took place, among others the althooncr Hesperus. Also the Sea Flower on Black Rock. I must write a ballad upon this; also two others—the Skele- ton in Armor and Sir Humphrey Gil- llt‘l‘t.” And here is his journal for Decem- ber 30: “I wrote last evening a notice of All- ston's poems. After which I sat till 12 o'clock by the fire smoking, when suddenly it came into my mind to write "l‘ho Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus,’ which I accordingly did. “Then I went to bed, but could not sleep. New thoughts were running in my mind, and I got up to add them to In Cambridge, Mass” lives today Mrs. J. G. Thorp, the youngest daughter of the great American poet, and she maintains'the name of the ship had little “to do with the poem- inasmuch as the poet was moved to verse by the gale itself, the ship’s name being a matter of minor concern Here, in the etching at the left, is a reproduc- tion from a Boston newspaper of nearly a hundred years ago, telling of the storm and how the Hesperus suffered only a broken bowsprit while moored to her dock the ballad. It was three by the clock I then went to bed and fell ssleeP- I feel pleased with tho ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It. did not come in“ ,my mind by lines, but by stanzas.” 'Two days later, well satisfied with hls efforts, Longfellow wrote his friend. George Greene, who was at that time in Home: . “I have broken ground in a new field: namely, ballads;- beginning with "The Wreck of the Hesperus,’ on the Reef of hormsn's Woe, in the great storm of a fortnight ago. I shall send it to‘soms newspaper. I think I shall write more. The national ballad is a virgin soil here in New England, and there are great materials. Besides, I have a notion of working upon the people's inclines. I am going to have it printed on 3 sheet, With a coarse picnire' on it. I desire a new sensation and s new set of critics. . “Nat Hawthorne is tickled with the idea. Feiton lsn ' ‘ wouldn’t.”’ ghs ”Ed u". ‘1 And in his diary on January 4 the poet wrote: ' ‘ “Hawthorne came to the eventua- We had a long converse a on liter» ture. He means to write I ohlld’l k. I told him of my ballad and th I meant to have it~prlnte on a With a picture on top, like other ballads. "He is delighted with the idea, and says he will distribute them to every skipper of every craft he boards in his ehftom-house duties, so as to hear that! criticisms. Hillard and Fallon came late and we had a pleasant supper." A3 11' happened. the scheme of dis- tributing the ballad was new car- ried out. But very shortly it was printed, and the acclaim with which it was re- eeived must have filled the poet’s heart with joy. . Mrs. J. G. Thom. at Wed. Mam,yeungest decanter of the "laughing Aliens“ of the whim; Hour”—hutons to the defends of her isther's masterpiece. "But poets," she cries, “in“ to set down more facts. And it's otiful, beautiful thing. Isn’t that . ugh? “Critics attacked ‘Hlawsths' on the ground that his name came from One tribe of Indians and his characteristics from another. Well, why not? It is as poetry that ‘The Song of Hiawatha' is appreciated rather than as the legend of a tribe. “And father couldn't help it if the Hesperus was in Rowes Wharf the night of the storm. It mightn't have been much of a schooner—I don’t know, I'm sure—but it had a beautiful [name—s much nicer name than any of the ships that were wrecked off Norman’s Woe. And a name means» much!” Cour-UM to Public Indoor Company 5 L.
Norwalk Chronicler