Chart of Tramore Bay

Chart of Tramore Bay

Wednesday 21 October 2015

William Ladd & De Spiruit, 7 June 1843

Total Loss of an American Vessel
We (Dublin Mercantile Advertiser) have received the following melancholy account in a private letter.
Dunmore East, Thursday, June 8.
Since I wrote last evening we have witnessed a very melancholy scene. A large American barque, laden with cotton, has been wrecked on Brownstown Head. There were sixteen hands on board and only one saved out of the whole crew. At present the gale is not eased, only drawn a little more to the west.[1]

Shipwrecks at Brownstown Head
Wednesday evening, at about 6 p.m. a large American barque the William Ladd, from Mobile to Liverpool, laden with cotton went on shore at Horseleap Glen, near Brownstown Head. The mate swam on shore and says the master (Wyman) and two blacks were drowned and there were five more hands on board who expected to get off at the fall of the tide; the bales of cotton were being washed ashore; the Coast guards were in charge of the property. It is reported that all hands were lost except the captain and mate, but this does not appear well founded; the vessel is said to have been knocked to pieces on the rocks near the place where the Aurore was lost and all hands perished except the captain (Howlan), a most dangerous part of the coast and one on which a vessel has little chance of escape.

About the middle of the same night, the ketch or galliot, De Spiruit, of Te Bult, from Schiedam, bound to Liverpool, in Ballast, Arrand St. Karsyns, master, was driven on shore near Rathwhelan Cove, to the westward of Waterford harbour, where she went to pieces. The Master’s son and two of the crew were lost. The captain, mate and two men escaped by means of a piece of timber. The captain did not know where they were; the air was so thick on Wednesday that he could not take the sun. Mr. Alexander, R. Pope, agent to Lloyd’s and American Consul was on the spot at an early hour; the Coast Guards rendered most effectual services[2]


 Waterford Chronicle, 17 June 1843.


 Waterford Chronicle, 1 July 1843.


Waterford Chronicle, 1 July 1843.



[1] Dublin Weekly Register, 10 June, 1843.
[2] Waterford Chronicle, 10 June, 1843.

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