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New England Weather

1768 Gale • December 4

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1768 Lightning

1769 Summer

ON Sunday, December 4, 1768, occurred a southeast rainstorm.accompanied by a violent gale. The day before nine West-India men sailed out of the port of New London, Conn. The gale came on fresh the next morning and one of them put back, but as far as the writer has learned the others sailed into the face of the wind and braved it through away from the coast.

At New Haven, Conn., the storm came on in the evening, and the wind blew terrifically till twelve o'clock. Four or five vessels at Long wharf parted their cables, and two of them were driven ashore, but were got off without much trouble when it was high tide.

At Guilford, a ship commanded by Captain Landon, which had arrived but a short time before from Liverpool, went ashore, having parted its cables.

As far as we have learned, there were no vessels driven on the bars off the coast of Cape Cod during the gale.

On the night of the storm a brigantine belonging to the port, of Boston, Thomas Morton, master, being inward bound from the West Indies, was driven on the rocks near the lighthouse in Boston harbor, and instantly dashed to pieces. The cargo consisted of sugar and molasses, and was large and valuable. Everything was lost, including several hundred dollars in money which was in the captain's chest. The people on board were saved with much difficulty, some of them being severely bruised.

Another vessel of the same build and rig, Thomas Thomas, master, bound from the West Indies to Newburyport, with a cargo of molasses, was cast away near Cape Ann, and both vessel and cargo were entirely lost. The crew were saved, with the exception of the mate, who was drowned.

A coaster commanded by Captain Patterson had been sailed for several years between Boston and the Kennebec river, and on Thursday, three days before the storm, sailed from the last named place, having on board a number of passengers belonging to Pownalborough, Me., who had been up the Kennebec to procure the winter's supply of provisions for their families, and were now returning with their purchases. They were Captain Thomas Allen, Ralph Chapman, John Barker, Mr. Perry, John Pierce, Mr. Hersey, Mrs. Jonas Fitch and Mrs. Stilfin, a Dutch woman. The crew consisted of Captain Patterson, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Kinney and a negro man belonging to the captain. In the darkness of the night and the terrific gale, they were cast away before they had reached Pownalborough, and the vessel with its freight and every person on board were lost. Mr. Chapman left a widow and seven children, and Mrs. Fitch five children. Only a few things of any value washed ashore, among them being several chests that were dashed to pieces before they could be secured, except the captain's which was strapped with iron.

At Fox island, situated farther down on the Maine coast, was soon afterward discovered the wreck of a vessel, apparently of about one hundred tons burden, which was probably cast ashore in this storm. There were found several sections of the vessel, some wearing apparel, a feather bed, a Holland shirt marked with the letters "T. P.," and some other articles which had washed ashore.

Other vessels, according to the newspaper reports of that time, were said to have been wrecked in that vicinity. How many vessels and lives were lost in this storm will never be known; and when we think of the great number of vessels that have gone down in the tempest and the darkness and for a century have been lying so unconcernedly at the bottom of the sea or buried in the sand off the beaches we entertain a thought similar to that of Hiram Rich:

"0 fleet that silent tarries
Along our listening land,
No night to come dismays thee,
No bar and tempest strand."

Source: Historic Storms of New England by Sidney Perley, 1891

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