This article was originally published in May 1960 as part of the Falmouth Enterprise mail-away edition. It was written by publisher George A. Hough Jr. and has been edited for clarity and brevity.
On Cuttyhunk in the early 1890s there was a rivalry to dare and do between the fishermen volunteers who manned the Massachusetts Humane Society lifeboat in times of shipwreck and the men of the US Life Saving Service stationed on the island.
That rivalry to see which crew would be first to the rescue of vessels stranded on the dangerous shores of Cutttyhunk was an important factor in the Aquatic tragedy. Five Cuttyhunkers lost their lives when the British brig ran ashore on Sow and Pigs reef.
The Aquatic tragedy wouldn’t have happened if men had been as patient as they were brave.
Rockets Interrupt Snowballs
Two small boys tossed snowballs at each other in the yard of a home on Cuttyhunk at 8 PM on Friday, February 24, 1893. The house stood on the exposed western bluff of the island so that the boys fought to stand against an ocean gale as they pelted each other with snowballs. The only explanation of their fun is that they were hardy kids, true sons of seagoing Cuttyhunkers and inured to the bleakness of their sea-battered island. They were Willie Black and Willie Eisner. Willie Eisner was the son of Captain A.G. Eisner, keeper of Cuttyhunk Light.
Between snowballs Willie Eisner glanced out into the moon-pierced darkness toward the shoreline of tumbling breakers and the white combers piling in across the rocks of Sow and Pigs reef—graveyard of many ships. The red light of rockets streaming into the air caught Willie’s star-lit eyes. Both Willies ran for the house. They didn’t know it but the patrol which the US Life Saving Service maintained along the Cuttyhunk cliffs was changing as the rockets flashed skyward. For a moment there was no surfman to see the distress signals. Two boys were to be the first to tell Cuttyhunk of the disaster.
The British brig Aquatic had loaded raw sugar for Boston at Sagua La Grande in Cuba and sailed up the coast to make Cape Hatteras in seven days. On Friday evening, February 24, 1893, when the Aquatic approached the entrance to Vineyard Sound her captain, Lawrence A. Halcrow, was confused by the moonlight bathing the snow-covered bluffs of Gay Head and Cuttyhunk.
“It was a little difficult for me to calculate the distance to Sow and Pigs,” Captain Halcrow explained afterward. “I could see the long low banks of the shores and covered as they were with snow in the moonlight I was confused. In the distance I thought I saw a line of breakers. In trying to avoid going inshore at Gay Head, I ran too near Cuttyhunk. It was blowing a fresh gale. We were carrying topsail, mainsail, three staysails and two jibs. I was first to see the breakers. I ordered the helm hard-a-port and called all hands on deck. I hoped we’d clear. We almost did.”
Instead, brig Aquatic drove ahead on to Sow and Pigs. But, though breakers seethed around the brig and the wind tore at her sails, the tide was low and the big vessel stood high out of the water. Captain Halcrow pointed to the poignancy of the tragedy which followed when he explained his immediate reaction to the Aquatic’s plight.
Sow & Pig Reef
Captain Felt Danger Remote
“I didn’t feel I was in any immediate danger. When I ordered torches set I didn’t for a moment suppose anyone would come out from the island to our relief. Some of my crew were frightened and I wanted them to know the islanders were acquainted with our presence on the reef. I was surprised when the second mate called to tell me a lifeboat was approaching before morning.”
Captain Timothy Akin Jr. and his Cuttyhunk volunteers couldn’t wait until morning before they braved encounter with the sea.
Captain Eisner sent Willie Black running to the village to alarm the islanders and inform the lifesaving station of the wreck. The lighthouse keeper headed for the Humane Society boathouse to help get that lifeboat ready for use. “It was fearfully rough. The sea was tumbling in on all sides,” Mrs. Eisner said in telling of the outlook from the lighthouse at that moment.
It was 8:40 PM when panting Willie Black burst into the home of Josiah Tilton. “Come quickly,” said Willie, “there’s a vessel on Sow and Pigs.” Young Tilton told this story of events that followed:
“I started to run to the Humane Society boathouse. I was first there and, thrilled as I was by the excitement and knowing that a terrible sea was running over the reef, it seemed ages before anyone else appeared. Willie Black was running from cottage to cottage to arouse the villagers. They kept arriving at the boathouse until there were plenty of men to choose a crew from. Captain Timothy Akin Jr. was one of the last to arrive. As I think of it now all we needed was a leader. Captain Tim was a man that didn’t know fear. He had never learned to flinch. From the time he appeared he gave us new energy. He was so imbued with pluck that he seemed to put it into us. Captain Tim told us he would take charge. I heard Frank Peters ask, ‘Who are you going to take for a crew?’ Captain Tim named the six of us.”
Captain Eisner was no coward. He had commanded in March, 1892 when the Humane boat dared high seas to save the crew of schooner Rob and Harry, which was breaking up off the island beach. Captain Eisner warned the boat crew they were taking a desperate chance. “It’s too rough for you to do anything, even if you get out there,” the lightkeeper argued. “Wait a better chance.” But Eisner felt it was his duty to encourage rather than discourage a rescue. He explained, “Finally I said nothing more.” Captain Tim directed the rolling of the boat toward the surf.
Six Young Men
In the boat which was quickly launched into the breakers and began to pull out into the boiling waters of Sow and Pigs were:
Timothy Akin Jr., 32; Fred Akin; 23; Hirman Jackson, 40; Isaiah Tilton, 32; Eugene Brightman, 39; and Josiah Tilton.
Josiah Tilton alone of the six came back alive. But all wore life preservers and all went out with the confidence born of many similar encounters with danger which had ended successfully.
Cuttyhunk Island
Hours of suspense were now to follow for those on shore. When Willie Black had aroused the village he hurried on to the lifesaving station. Captain David P. Bosworth launched a boat and began the long row around the Buzzards Bay side of the island to come into the wreck from off-shore. Men, women and children of the island gathered in the Eisener house on the bluff overlooking Sow and Pigs. They couldn’t know what was going on outside. Crowded into the small kerosene-lit rooms, they waited. Eventually up from the shore to join them trudged the wet and chilled crew of Captain Bosworth’s boat. The lifesavers had pulled to the wreck and rested on their oars while they surveyed the scene. They said great seas were breaking over the brig. They deemed it the height of imprudence to try and board the vessel. So they pulled ashore through the surf to the beach below the lighthouse.
As daylight approached Captain Bosworth discussed with the other men the possibility of a second try. The breaking light proved that the sea had not gone down and he was urged to wait. Captain Eisner continued to urge caution. In the meantime, a patrol was established on the beach.
Frank Veeder soon walked into the body of Fred Akin, tossed up within 200 yards of the boathouse which he had left so confidently a few hours before. A few minutes later the Humane Society boat was found close to the wreck of the Rob and Harry.
“At sunrise I looked out of my window,” recalled Mrs. Eisner to a reporter, “it was one of the saddest sights I ever witnessed. They were just carrying Fred Akin’s body up the beach. In a very little while I saw the dead boy’s father wending his way to the lighthouse for news of his sons. He passed within a few yards of the body. Twenty men were standing on my piazza as he approached. There was dead silence.”
“Have you heard anything,” the father asked.
The silence lasted until it seemed endless. Then Captain Eisner spoke up, “Yes, Captain Akin they have found the boat.”
“What do you mean by finding the boat?”
“The boat drifted ashore.”
“Then they were all drowned?”
“We fear so.”
“My God, my God, my poor boys.”
Josiah Tilton’s Story
“Wind and sea were high but we were sure the boat would live if we kept it out of the breakers,” said Josiah Tilton when he told afterwards how six Cuttyhunkers rowed out to rescue the crew of the Aquatic.
Time and again the wind beat the small boat back. For long seconds it seemed to the oarsmen that they were making no headway. They finally pulled to within 40 feet of the Aquatic, which stood head on to the reef with all sails set.
Captain Tim shouted to the Aquatic for a line to be thrown him. He ordered the small boat’s anchor to be dropped. Fred Akin unshipped an oar to obey. At that moment, a gigantic wave struck us.”
“I caught the line which was thrown from the brig,” Tilton continued, “By great effort I succeeded in passing it under my arms and tying a knot. I was pulled aboard. I saw three men on the bottom of our boat. Captain Tim was struggling in the water. He was encumbered with a heavy ulster. I heard him call ‘Get an oar, Joe!’”
Captain Halcrow of the Aquatic described the catastrophe as he saw it from the brig’s deck. “I was surprised when the second mate called to me that a boat was coming off. I did not expect a lifeboat before morning,” said Captain Halcrow. “The boat pulled within 35 or 40 feet of us. I heard them call for a rope. I saw them prepare to let go an anchor and saw one of them unship his oar. A fearful wave came and they were capsized. A line was thrown this fellow who was saved and he was drawn overside. It doesn’t seem as if he was in the water for 30 seconds.
“Another man—they tell me it was Captain Akin—came to the surface. We threw a line and he got it under his arm. We drew him up three times. We thought we would get him over our rail. He was weighted down with heavy clothing and rapidly numbing with the cold. He couldn’t help himself. He held on as long as he could. Then the rope slipped and he disappeared. I caught a glimpse of three men on the overturned lifeboat. I had just one look at them. Then they were gone.”
All the lifeboat crew wore life preservers. The cork belts helped them little in the rough and cold sea. The tragedy was quickly over. To Josiah Tilton aboard the Aquatic it must have seemed even then so unnecessary. There was no water aboard the brig. Tilton’s wet clothes were stripped from him in a warm cabin. Tilton was numb and stunned. But he recovered quickly. With the crew of the Aquatic the Cuttyhunker took to the rigging as daylight broke and the rising tide flooded the hull of the stranded craft.
“We were drenched to the skin by the time we got to the foretop,” said Captain Halcrow. “We wrapped staysails around us as a barrier to the piercing wind.” One man soon had frostbitten feet.
“That first attempt to reach us was foolhardy,” added Halcrow. “It didn’t seem possible a boat could live in that sea. If I’d thought it could, I would have lowered our boats.”
Meanwhile, after a three-hour pull, the boat from the US Life Saving Station had rounded the island from Buzzards Bay and pulled in toward the Aquatic.
Said Captain David P. Bosworth: “We approached as near as I deemed prudent. I saw that any attempt to board her or even to enter the breakers would be the height of folly. I saw men in the companionway of the Aquatic burning torches. For 150 yards around the vessel it was a seething, boiling sea.”
Bosworth ordered his men to pull for the shore. They were nearly exhausted and islanders who had gathered at the lighthouse keeper’s home on the bluff above the wreck had to enter the surf to help land the boat.
Hours went by before the lifesavers dared or were ready to make another rescue attempt. Then the tug Elsie came out from the lee of Cuttyhunk to tow a surfboat toward the wreck from off shore. The boat was allowed to drift in upon the Aquatic. Then the surfboat men threw a line to the brig. The first throw fell short. The second sent a line clear across the hulk. With the line a hawser for the breeches buoy was pulled between the boats and the buoy rigged.
Breeches Buoy
Josiah Tilton was first to be rescued. The hawser sagged so that Tilton slid down from the higher level of the brig to the surfboat. He sank up to his neck in cold water. Two of the Aquatic crew were then rescued by breeches buoy.
Now the sea was subsiding. A dory was able to get under the bow of the brig. The rest of the Aquatic’s eight men were able to climb down the spring stays and onto the martingale just below the bowsprit. From there they reached the dory.
Cuttyhunk was stunned by this disaster. Five neighbors had been drowned on the futile rescue attempt. They left four widows and 12 fatherless children. Now began the forlorn patrol of the beach to watch for bodies. Captain Tim, still wrapped in his ulster which dragged him to his death, was first to be found after the body of Fred Akin which had washed ashore to tell islanders of the loss of the rescue boat long before daylight after the fatal night could reveal the story. A boyhood chum of Isaiah Tilton found his body on a Vineyard beach. Isaiah Tilton was a native of Chilmark. Death had brought him back to shore of his native island.
The schoolteacher at Cuttyhunk officiated the first funeral for which all the inhabitants of Cuttyhunk gathered in their church. Then the body of Fred Akin was taken by oxcart to the wharf and sent by tug to New Bedford. The city turned out for another funeral in the Seaman’s Bethel. The honorable John Simpskins of Yarmouth headed a citizens committee to raise a relief fund for the distressed families. The Boston fund quickly reached $27,000. Contributions from nearer home put it over the $30,000 mark.
The Aquatic went to pieces on Cuttyhunk after water had destroyed her 3,000 bags of Cuban sugar. The Cuttyhunkers went back to wrecking. A reporter sought out Josiah Tilton to obtain the story of the lone survivor from Captain Tim’s boat found him on the beach where he had just returned from the wreck of the Douglas Dearborn “where he has retrieved some articles.” It was interesting that only a few weeks before the Aquatic and Dearborn had laid side by side at the wharves of Philadelphia. Now they were companion derelicts on the rocks of Cuttyhunk.
George A. Hough Jr. was publisher of the Falmouth Enterprise from 1929 until 1976. He avidly wrote of maritime exploits in the pages of the Enterprise and in 1963 published a book on the sinking of the City of Columbus titled “Disaster at Devil’s Bridge.”