Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 209

Price Realized: $ 531
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
HARROWING ACCOUNT OF A PASSENGER SHIP DISASTER (MARITIME.) Cran, Walter. An Account of the Journey of Walter Cran and his Family. Autograph Manuscript, 7 pages (12 1/4 x 8 inches) on 2 folding sheets; minor foxing. (MRS) [Boston, 10 January 1847]
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Describes a tragic 1846 trans-Atlantic voyage. Walter Cran--with his wife and three young daughters--was attempting to return to his native Scotland. They went from St. Louis by riverboat to Pittsburgh, and then on to Philadelphia, where they boarded the Thomas P. Cope bound for Liverpool. On the night of 29 November 1846, lightning struck the mast: "I hurriedly took hold of my two eldest children & rushed them upstairs & my wife brought the baby, naked as they were. . . . A widow woman was halooing my child, my child is below. I attempted to go down for her, but a sailor would not let me. The hatches was imediately closed for to smother out the fire." The fire was somewhat contained before sunrise, but with the loss of both masts: "At daylight I saw the females that were laying on the quarter deck rolling, to and fro as the ship went, some of them had their hair froze to the deck. . . . My family sat by themselves in the cold bow of the ship, and hard times they had, for when the waves broke over, they were wet, and the sails of the foremast, taring to ribbons, cracked over their heads like thorns a blazing, the snow and hail attending." The crew and passengers continued to pour water over the smoldering fire for 7 days, with almost no food or shelter, until a passing ship rescued them. They were deposited in Boston on 20 December, frostbitten and hungry, and were homeless and friendless there for several days before finding members of the Waterston-Ruthven family to offer charity.
The author, Walter Cran, was possibly a Mormon--a man of that name appeared at Nauvoo in 1842, though nothing in this account hints at his religion. The Crans remained in the Boston area; two of the daughters died young in Charlestown, MA in 1860 and 1865, and his widow Jane Frazer Cran died in Boston in 1890. Provenance: purchased at an auction of the Ruthven Deane estate, date unknown.