Sunday, August 28, 2011

THIS DAY IN SHIPWRECK HISTORY August 28th


PECONIC - 1905

In the early hours of August 28th, 1905, the steamer Peconic – bound from Philadelphia to New Orleans – capsized in a storm and sank 20 miles off the Florida coast near Fernandina Beach.  Only one lifeboat was successfully launched and two survivors came ashore at Amelia Island eleven hours later.  The remaining crew of twenty men was lost.





ISAAC ALLERTON - 1856
Bound for New Orleans, the  Isaac Allerton  encountered a hurricane off the Florida Keys on the night of August 27, 1856. On the Captain’s orders, the crew cut the masts and weighed the anchor in an attempt to keep the ship from being ground to pieces on the reef. All efforts to save her proved futile and she struck bottom on Washerwoman Shoal, 15 miles southeast of Key West, in the early hours of August 28th. The Isaac Allerton  immediately began to break apart and Captain Baldwin wasted no time rounding up all those aboard to abandon ship. There was no time to lose and all personal effects were left where they lay in the cabins and quarters – some of them remaining undiscovered until almost 130 years later. Today these many of these items recovered during a 1985 salvage operation are on display at the Key West Shipwreck Treasures Museum.

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