Wreck of the Mexico (1837)

The wreck of the Mexico killed 115 people off the coast of Long Island, New York, United States, on January 2, 1837. The Mexico, a ship laden with Irish immigrants, had attempted an entrance into New York Harbor, but a nor'easter forced it back out to sea; it ran aground on a sandbar 200 yards off the coast of Long Beach. The 115 casualties froze to death on the deck of the ship, surrounded by waves "as high as a house”. Daniel Melancthon Tredwell recalled "seeing the drowned and the frozen being brought from the beach in sleds and being placed in rows in John Lott's barn for the identification of the friends and relatives." Eight were saved by the heroic effort of Raynor Smith and companions. The captain, Charles Winslow, saved himself, his sword and the ship's lockbox by jumping in Smith's boat and leaving the passengers behind to die.

The Mexico was a ship sailing from Liverpool. She was classed as a barque and carried "300 tons burden."

Two months prior to the wreck of the Mexico, "The Bristol, inbound from Liverpool to New York, broke up in a gale on Far Rockaway beach on the night of November 21, 1836, with a loss of 77 lives."

The wreck of the Mexico and the failed search for survivors is subject of the Walt Whitman poem "The Sleepers" in Leaves of Grass. In 1953, Ruth Bader (later Ginsburg) published an article about the wrecks of the Bristol and Mexico. An obelisk marking the mass grave of the casualties of the wrecks of the Bristol and the Mexico stands in Rockville Cemetery, formerly Old Sand Hill Cemetery, in Rockville, Long Island. In 2018, a historical marker was placed near the site of the tragedy.

References

Wreck of the Mexico (1837)

Bron en licentie