January 11, 2012
Last week I spotted the unusual story of a man saved from dying in a shipwreck in the middle of the night when he spotted a floating box—it turned out to be his wife’s coffin that he was bringing home for burial!
The newspaper article containing this incredible survival story was printed by the Albany Evening Journal (Albany, New York), 4 December 1855, page 2.
What an amazing newspaper article—and yet it seemed to me something wasn’t quite right about this story:
- When and where was the shipwreck of the steamer Anthony Wayne?
- Why no first name for the husband?
- Why no name for the wife?
- Did steamers travel from Chicago to Philadelphia?
- Was there more to this story?
Digging deeper into GenealogyBank’s historical newspaper archives I found this article, printed by the Daily Ohio Statesman (Columbus, Ohio), 1 May 1850, page 2, with this startling headline: “Awful Calamity. Explosion of the Steamboat Anthony Wayne. Forty Lives Lost!!”
So, the steamer ship exploded on Saturday, April 27, 1850, while en route from Sandusky, Ohio, to Buffalo, New York. The accident happened on Lake Erie, about six or seven miles offshore of Vermillion, Ohio.
I kept researching and found more details—but no names—in this newspaper article, printed by the Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 30 April 1850, page 2.
Here was a contemporary account of this horrific ship explosion tragedy, but still not all the details
A gentleman “going east to bury his wife and child”:
- Traveling with “the balance of his family, two small children”
- Following the explosion, he “launched the coffin” as a makeshift life raft
- Labored with “a child grasped under each arm with a most desperate struggle”
- Sadly, he “lost his boy” and was forced to abandon the remains of “his wife and child”
As news reporting improved and more details about the survivors and the deceased were gathered, the
Newport Mercury (Newport, Rhode Island), 11 May 1850, page 2, gave more of the story.
This newspaper article has provided us with more details about the survival story:
- Archer Brackney was the father trying to rescue his family
- He was from Lafayette, Iowa
- The coffin contained both corpses of “his wife and child”
- We learn of his desperate struggle to save his “two living children”
- Sadly, “his little boy, two years old, was drowned in his arms”
- He managed to save his little girl, “who was clinging around his neck, crying ‘Papa! We shall drown!’”
Researching further in GenealogyBank’s newspaper archives, I uncovered more of the real story.
The coroner held an inquest and the results were published in the Sandusky Register (Sandusky, Ohio), 30 April 1850, page 2.
This verified the essentials of the survival story.
Now to dig deeper and see what more details can be found about this shipwreck tragedy and real life story of survival. It’s amazing how much information you can find in historical newspaper archives!
