The Storm
Gloucester, Massachusetts was one such harbor. The town is located on Cape Ann, the spit of land that marks the northern boundary of Massachusetts Bay. Ships anchored in the harbor, most of them north of Ten Pound Island. This did not prove to be safe enough, though, as the wind shifted to the southeast greatly increased in force, reaching hurricane levels..
"The scene in Gloucester harbor during this storm has never been equalled in any other New England port. Many vessels sought this haven of refuge from the tempest, and in all as many as sixty were there during the gale.Between three and four o'clock on the afternoon of Sunday, they began to drift, dragging their anchors or breaking the cables that bound them. Upon the beach were many willing fishermen to assist the mariners if it were possible. ... On Monday morning only a single mast was left standing in the harbor. Twenty-one vessels were driven ashore, three schooners sank, and seventeen were so thoroughly dashed to pieces that in some cases no fragment larger than a plank was left. Twenty vessels still rode in the harbor, all but one without masts, they having been cut away. From each vessel a slender pole stood to bear aloft a signal of distress. They were tossing like egg-shells upon the still raging sea, liable at any moment to part their cables and be driven to sea with all on board. The pieces of twenty-two wrecks were scattered along the shore, scarcely any one of which being larger than a horse could draw. The crowd had staid on the beach all night to give assistance if it were possible. On the following afternoon as soon as it was considered safe to do so, a brave volunteer crew under the direction of Capt. William Carter procured the custom-house boat, and pulled out to the vessels that still floated, taking the weary and suffering seamen to the shore. The shipwrecked men were obliged to jump from their decks into the boat, as the sea was still too violent to enable the gallant little craft to approach nearer. One of the vessels, just after her crew were taken off, drifted out of the harbor and was never again heard from.
The exact loss of life was never ascertained. About forty lives were believed to have been lost, including the persons who perished by the wreck of a schooner near Pigeon cove, and twenty were known to have died, though only twelve bodies were recovered. One of the bodies was taken away by friends, and the funeral of the other deceased mariners was held at the Unitarian church on the following Sunday afternoon. ... The people of the town were so deeply in sympathy with the occasion that between two and three thousand persons listened to the exercises. ... The vast congregation formed in a procession, which was nearly a mile in length, and followed the remains of the mariners to the public tomb.[1]
The Schooner Glide
The picture at the head of this post is a schooner. Since I've never lived anywhere near the sea, researching this story has prompted me to find out the exact meaning of familiar terms. A schooner is a vessel with two or more masts, and the lower sails on the masts are "gaff-rigged" The gaff is the pole, attached to the mast at one end and to which the head of the sail, its top margin, is attached. During the storm in Gloucester, one such schooner, the Glide, was tied up at the wharf, already loaded with cargo and ready to sail for New Orleans. Newspapers at the time reported that the Glide suffered damage due to "chafing" as it rode out the storm. This ship, though, is not the Glide that is the focus of this story. There was another schooner Glide that had already put to sea before the storm. It had been cleared from Boston harbor on November 30, and finally set sail on December 11, leaving Boston under Capt. James Colburn and headed for Havana. On board were six men and one woman, and part of the cargo was stored on deck.Captain James Colburn was descended from an early settler in New England, an Edward Colburn who purchased land north of the Merrimack River in 1668 and occupied it a year later. James was his 3rd great grandson, five generations separated. James was born in Leominster 30 May, 1787; in 1821 he married Mary Shelton (1800-1825) with whom he had one daughter, Mary. After his young wife's death, James married Mary Herrick of Hopkinton, New Hampshire in 1836. The captain had one incident that was widely reported in newspapers of the time before our story begins. On 08 Mar 1836 he was captain of the brig Barafine (a brig is a square-rigged vessel), at the time anchored in Boston harbor. At four in the morning the ship was discovered to be on fire. Capt. Colburn was sleeping in his cabin and was the only person on board. He managed to save himself by knocking out a dead light (the cover over a porthole) and getting out of the cabin window. The fire apparently began from the stove in the captain's cabin.[2]
The Pehr Ennes
The second "actor" in this adventure is the Swedish ship, the Pehr Ennes, captained by Sven Norberg. The ship was sailing from Gävle to New York, carrying a cargo of iron for the company Boorman, Johnston & Co. with offices in Manhattan. All the records I've seen refer to the Pehr Ennes as a "ship." I believe that this means that this was a larger, square-rigged vessel. One site on the web says that the Pehr Ennes was one of Sweden's finest ships.[3] The ship was based in the port of Gävle, roughly 110 miles (175 km) north of Stockholm on the Gulf of Bothnia. The name of the city is, roughly, pronounced like "Yef-la," and in English-language newspapers in the 19th Century often spelled Geffle. Today the city is famous for the Gävle goat (Gävleboken). This is a holiday tradition, begun in 1966: a huge goat made of straw and set up in the city center. Its height varies from year to year, generally it's about 40 feet tall (12 m). The ship was named after Pehr Ennes (1756-1829), a Gävle wholesaler and shipowner. Sven Norberg (1792-1850) captained the Pehr Ennes from 1839-1846. He was based in Gävle, where he was married to Greta Stina Nordberg (1798-1832) in 1818, but he was born in the south of the country, in Allerun parish in Skåne. In the church records, the captain's name is spelled Nordberg.
Now, to bring these two ships, Glide and Pehr Ennes together. The Glide had left Boston before the storm hit. It was next heard of when Capt. Norberg spotted it. Here is an early account as published first in the Commercial Advertiser in New York on January 22. As you'll see, there are several errors in the initial version:
DISASTERS
Captain Norburg, of the Swedish ship Frobenis, from Gefle, fell in with on the 19th inst. Lat 34½ long 66, the schr Glide, Colburn, 8 days from Boston for Havana, in a sinking condition. The G. on the 15th, 16th and 17th inst. encountered severe gales, lost sails, deck load, and set the vessel aleaking so badly that the pumps could not keep her free, and thought advisable to abandon her.To translate some of the abbreviations in that passage:
- inst., for instant, refers to the current month
- lat, for latitude, and long. for longitude, are the coordinates where the Glide was spotted. This location is roughly 134 nautical miles (248 km) NNW of Bermuda, or 534 nautical miles (989 km) SE of New York City.
- schr: schooner. Note that the record refers to the Pehr Ennes as a ship. After citing the name of the vessel, custom seems to be to name the captain.
- G.: the Glide
Extract from the Log Book of the Swedish ship Pehr Ennis from Geffle, S. Norberg, master.
The 18th December, at 4 o’clock P. M. fell in sight of a schooner (Glide, Captain Colburn) without sails, and drove right before the wind, and as his flag was hoisted at the foretop as in distress, we made several tacks to come up with him, in which we succeeded at 8 o’clock. We hailed him, but could not hear the answer, for it blew rather hard. Consequently I sent the jolly boat, with three men on board to inquire if they were in distress; the answer was that the schooner was sinking, and the crew asked to be taken off. I now despatched the large boat with five men, which with great danger took six men and a woman from the wreck.
The wind had now increased, and it continued to blow very hard. I laid by with the ship until 12 o’clock, when I had the great pleasure to see our men and the strangers all well on board, because I am persuaded that without our assistance no one on board the unfortunate schooner would have lived. We were then in lat N. 81 6, and long W 67 81, and arrived safe in New York, after severe weather, the 21st of January, the captain and passenger of the schooner having been on board 5 weeks.
The Commercial Advertiser echoed this report, but added an additional note. This, I hope, will finally explain to you why I'm telling this story:
Captain Colborn, of the Glide, in behalf of himself, passengers and crew, has published a card of thanks to Captain Norberg for his gentlemanly and kind attention to him while on board his vessel, and to Mr. Charles Westerlund, the first officer of the Peter Ennes. They say – “We consider ourselves under infinite obligations for the kindness and intrepidity he displayed in managing the boat which came to our relief. Undaunted by the tempest or the heavy sea running at the time, rendering it impossible to board the schooner, he, happily for us, succeeded in saving a part of our clothing, and our whole company, as we threw first our trunks and then ourselves overboard from the stern, and finally after much perseverance got us safely to the ship, then at 6 or 7 miles distance, during a … driving rain and dangerous sea, at midnight – thus distinguishing himself as a man of courage and a philanthropist.”
Over the next few months I found accounts of the rescue published in newspapers up and down the eastern seaboard, in Portland, Maine; Keene, New Hampshire; Woodstock, Vermont; Philadephia, Pennsylvania; and Charleston, South Carolina. One noteworthy point, I think, is that the newspapers reported that the Pehr Ennes arrived in New York 90 days out of Gävle. Also you probably noticed that it took the Swedish vessel 5 weeks to travel ~500 nautical miles to New York. The weather was not great, to be sure, but that would equate to an average speed of less than one knot. Perhaps that's a good pace for a sailing ship laden with iron.
The real reason that this article caught my attention, of course, was the heroics of a certain Carl (= Charles) Westerlund. That's my paternal grandfather's surname, so that explains my interest. I'm not sure if Carl was aboard the small jolly boat that initially set out to communicate with the Glide, but he was certainly in command of the larger boat that rescued the passengers and crew. It's almost unimaginable: a boat powered only by oars (certainly if it had the capacity to raise sail, the intensity of the storm would have prevented it), 6-7 miles distant from the mother ship, in the middle of a raging storm in the middle of the night. I think that I'd agree with Captain Norberg: those passengers were lucky to make it out alive. Upon arrival in New York, Captain Colburn and the passengers attempted to raise funds to repay the crew of the Pehr Ennes for their heroism. I don't know if that ever came to fruition. But the real question is, is there a sailor named Carl Westerlund in the family? The answer is yes.
Carl Axel Anshelm Westerlund
Carl Axel Anshelm Westerlund was born 08 Dec., 1816 in Stockholm, in the old city (Gamla Stan), son of Axel Jansson Westerlund (1784-1840) and Catharina Ulrika Hempel (1789-1831). He had 3 siblings: Mathilda Eleonora (born 1815, date of death uncertain, but sometime after 1840), Frans Daniel (1818-1881), and Helena Sophia Ulrica (1819-1820). His father, Axel, was a grandson of Lars Ericsson (1698-1757) and Margreta Ersdotter (1710-1784), which is as far back as I've been able to trace the Westerlund lineage. Axel was a policeman in Stockholm, and, in an earlier post, I included a picture from my visit to Stockholm standing in front of two of the buildings Axel and family lived in (see Retracing Steps: Stockholm). At the age of 14 Carl was apprenticed to the tailor C. Dahlin. The household examination records from Stockholm for this time are pretty minimalistic, and I lose track of Carl until, in 1841, he is recorded in the moving-out book. This is a record of members of the parish (Sankt Nikolai, or the Storkyrkoförsamling) leaving for another parish. Here Carl's profession is recorded as a sailor (sjöman), and he is headed for the sailor's home in Gothenburg (Göteborg).
After this, I've been able to find very few records of Carl Axel's whereabouts and fate. But if he was the first mate on that tiny boat in the Atlantic on that stormy night, then that's enough in my book to look up to him as a real hero.
Epilogue
After his rescue at sea, Captain Colburn was not out of the woods. This item was published in the Boston Traveler on January 31, 1840:Capt. Colborne, of the schooner Glide, who arrived at New York last week, escaped from the wreck of his vessel, was a passenger in the stage from New Haven, returning to his family in Boston. The stage overset twice on the journey, and once it was thought Capt. Colburne was killed, as he had the whole weight of the stage and a large number of passengers upon him. When extricated he was found to be much bruised, but not seriously injured.
Colburn continued in the maritime trade in the West Indies. He died in Trinidad de Cuba on Sept. 2, 1843, aged 56.
After the death of his first wife in 1832 Captain Norberg was remarried to Brita Cathrina Sundberg (1793-1863). According to a post in the Gefle Dagblad his last voyage, in command of the Oden, brought emigrants to New York from Sweden. Among those passengers were Eric Norelius (1833-1916). Norelius studied here in Columbus, Ohio at Capital University, and then continued west to Minnesota. As the Latin form of his name might suggest, he was a Lutheran minister. Norelius, initially at least, seems to have been part of a group led by Joris Per Andersson from Hassela parish in Gävleborg (the county, or län, of Gävle). Andersson, his family, and followers were early settlers in Chisago, Minnesota, and the diaries of Norelius were part of the research materials upon which Wilhelm Moberg based his historic novels, the Emigrants. These books were also discussed in an earlier post (see Unto a Good Land). Captain Norberg died on 25 November, 1850 in New York and is buried there. As for the Pehr Ennes, it was abandoned in the North Atlantic on 14 July, 1853 on a voyage from London to Québec City, and its crew rescued by the British ship Parthenia.[4]
That, at last, brings me to the central question: was the heroic Carl Westerlund actually the Carl I've found in the family? If the goal was to write an interesting story, I should have stopped at this point. My Carl was a sailor, he was about the right age, and the heroic acts are abundantly documented. But curiosity and skepticism pushed me to look a little further. The answer that a lawyer might give to the question is that I have no definitive evidence, one way or another, that Carl Axel Anshelm Westerlund born 8 December, 1816 was the first mate on the Pehr Ennes during the events of December, 1839. But, honestly, I don't think it was the same person (sigh). You may have noticed in the document pictured above, that when he left Stockholm in 1841 he used the name Axel, not Carl. This isn't definitive, to be sure: it seems that Swedes often switched from their first to their second names, or both(!), pretty liberally. But it isn't supportive of my argument. Second, my Carl was in Stockholm, not Gävle where the ship was based. In fact, looking through the Gävle records there were two, two! other Carl Westerlunds who were sailors based in Gävle. One was born in 1815, the other in 1816. I haven't (yet) found the crew list for the Pehr Ennes at the time, so this isn't definitive. However, in browsing for the death record of Captain Norberg, I did come across one of those Carls: he also died in 1850, and he was listed as Styrsman, the same rank of the Charles Westerlund in the newspaper reports. So while I can't say for sure, my own hunch is that it was the Carl Westerlund, born 1816, died 1850, who was the real hero of this story.
There is one further record for cousin Carl that I've found. It is from the Karlsborg Garrison. Karlsborg is a fortress on a bay off the western shore of lake Vättern, one of the huge lakes in central Sweden (I'm not quite sure how to refer to it in English, is it Lake Vättern, Vättern Lake, Vätter Lake...?). This was supposed to be a central defensive position: if Sweden were attacked, then the monarchy, administration, and all the gold could retreat to this central, fortified position. The garrison there seems to have been a mix of regular soldiers and men who had been sentenced to service in the garrison. I say this because Carl Westerlund's record documents that he was convicted of counterfeiting and attacking a police officer in 1855. He was sentenced to 28 days on bread and water. I don't know if this was a euphemism, or the real punishment. He seems to have been released in December, 1855, but then returned the next year, sentenced to two years. I'm not sure what the second sentence was for; perhaps the counterfeiting and assault were two separate incidents. Interestingly, the record shows that after he served this sentence he returned voluntarily (!!!) in 1861. And that's the last record I've found of Carl so far. As a final note, Carl doesn't seem to have been the black sheep of the family, at least not the only one. His brother, Frans Daniel, and his uncle, Lars Gustaf, also served sentences at Karlsborg.
I'd like to close with the thought that it doesn't really matter too much if I'm related to the daring Carl Westerlund of the Pehr Ennes or not. It's a helluva story, and I admire the man and his courage on its own. I hope you do too.
Sources
- Perley, S. 1891. Historic storms of New England. The Salem Press Publishing and Printing Co., Salem, MA. 341 pp. Link to Google Books.
- Newburyport Herald, March 08, 1836, page 1.
- Kaptensgården i Furuvik - snart ett minne blott? https://www.gd.se/artikel/kaptensgarden-i-furuvik-snart-ett-minne-blott
- Fate of the Pehr Ennes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_July_1853
