0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: It's 6-10 on the morning of November 13th, 1854, and the Gale Force wins that rattled windows all night, have driven the few families of deal beach from their beds. 0:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Through the fog and driving rain, they see her. 0:21 [SPEAKER_00]: A massive, three-mastered clipership, full sales still set, stuck hard on the outer 0:32 [SPEAKER_00]: the ship's bell. 0:33 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what woke them. 0:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The incestant staccato clatter cutting through the storm. 0:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Someone aboard is ringing that bell, desperate rhythmic, unceasing. 0:47 [SPEAKER_00]: The new era is going down and the 385 German immigrants who survived 46 days at sea are about to discover that the greatest danger wasn't the ocean crossing 1:01 [SPEAKER_00]: It was being 150 yards from land. 1:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back friend to hometown history. 1:10 [SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that takes a stroll down the main streets and back alleys of the past to uncover how local stories shaped the world. 1:19 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters. 1:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And today we're exploring a shipwreck that changed American law forever. 1:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Tonight, deal Beach, New Jersey. 1:29 [SPEAKER_00]: November 1854 A ship carrying hundreds of German immigrants runs around 150 yards from shore. 1:41 [SPEAKER_00]: By morning, 240 people will have drowned. 1:46 [SPEAKER_00]: In the captain, he'll beat back passengers trying to bore the lifeboats and row himself to safety. 1:55 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the story of the new era, and how 240 deaths forced America to finally answer does the government have a responsibility to save lives. 2:10 [SPEAKER_00]: April 1854. 2:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Bath Shipyard and Bath Main built a three-massive clipership called the new era. 2:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Construction cost just under $80,000. 2:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The ship is owned jointly by three men. 2:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The hitchcock brothers who built her and Captain Thomas J. Henry, who's going to be her master. 2:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The brand new ship is insured for $91,000, $11,000 more than it costs to build. 2:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And instead of using Lloyds of London, the reputable maritime insurer everyone trusted. 2:51 [SPEAKER_00]: The insurance is split across nine small companies. 2:55 [SPEAKER_00]: This was unusual. 2:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Lloyds have been the standard for decades, why avoid them? 3:02 [SPEAKER_00]: will come back to that. 3:05 [SPEAKER_00]: September 28th, 1854. 3:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The new era departs Bremerhaven, Germany on its maiden voyage, bound for New York City. 3:16 [SPEAKER_00]: On board, 385 German immigrants and steerage, 11 cabin passengers, 29 crew members, and a 3:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the passengers are heading to Pennsylvania, farmers, tradesmen, families. 3:37 [SPEAKER_00]: They paid their life savings for this passage. 3:40 [SPEAKER_00]: According to the manifest, quite a few are children. 3:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Now these passengers had heard about the risks. 3:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Just seven months earlier, in April 1854, another ship carrying German immigrants, the Pal-Hotten, had gone around off the New Jersey coast in a storm. 4:01 [SPEAKER_00]: That ship broke in two, all 250 passengers and crew perished. 4:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Bodies washed up on beaches for weeks. 4:11 [SPEAKER_00]: and everyone knew. 4:12 [SPEAKER_00]: There was no organized rescue system. 4:17 [SPEAKER_00]: If your ship went down inside of land, you depended on the kindness of whoever happened to be nearby, and their courage. 4:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And whether they happened to own a boat, sturdy enough to launch into a storm, 4:31 [SPEAKER_00]: There were informal life-saving societies, beach communities, had built small storage shacks with rope and equipment, but funding was scarce, equipment often rusted, and training was inconsistent. 4:49 [SPEAKER_00]: So these German families boarding the new era in September knew the risks, but what 4:58 [SPEAKER_00]: The new era is exactly one week out of Germany when she springs serious leaks. 5:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me be clear about what that means. 5:08 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a brand new ship on its maiden voyage. 5:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Within seven days, it's leaking badly enough that the pumps have to be manned 24 hours a day by both crew and passengers just to keep the ship from sinking. 5:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Historians believe the cargo shifted, possibly damaging the hull. 5:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Others think the ship was simply built poorly. 5:35 [SPEAKER_00]: But we know for certain, Captain Henry and the Hitchcock brothers who built this ship had overinsured it. 5:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And now it's falling apart. 5:46 [SPEAKER_00]: within two weeks, cholera breaks out in storage. 5:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Passengers are living in cramped, damp quarters, constantly pumping water, in the disease spreads fast. 5:59 [SPEAKER_00]: At night, bodies wrapped in canvas are slipped overboard with minimal ceremony. 6:05 [SPEAKER_00]: The captain ordered burials, conducted in darkness, didn't want to alarm the other passengers, 6:11 [SPEAKER_00]: But folks in Steeridge knew you can't hide cholera in cramped quarters. 6:18 [SPEAKER_00]: By the time the new era approached the New Jersey coast 46 days later, somewhere between 40 and 46 passengers had died and been buried at sea. 6:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The survivors were exhausted, terrified, and so close to safety they could almost taste it. 6:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Sunday morning, November 12th, the ship runs into thick fog. 6:44 [SPEAKER_00]: By afternoon, a northeastern is developing. 6:48 [SPEAKER_00]: By evening, it's a full storm, cold rain, high winds, seas running heavy. 6:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Captain Henry checks the soundings, then retires to his cabin, leaving the second mate in charge. 7:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, a crew member later testified, Captain Henry had been running the new era reaped. 7:10 [SPEAKER_00]: That means with reduced sale, until shortly before the grounding. 7:16 [SPEAKER_00]: In a storm that's quite unusual, you want full maneuverability. 7:21 [SPEAKER_00]: By Sunday night, the ship is rolling heavily and refusing to answer her helm. 7:27 [SPEAKER_00]: The few families living at deal beach, the islands, the whites, the corollies, the slow-cums, their hearing-gale-force winds rattle their windows all night. 7:40 [SPEAKER_00]: At some point in the darkness, the new era runs around on the outer sandbar. 7:47 [SPEAKER_00]: At 6-10 in the morning, the island family has been woken by the wind, rattling windows, 7:57 [SPEAKER_00]: November 13th, still mostly dark, and then they hear it. 8:03 [SPEAKER_00]: A ship's bell, rhythmic, insistent, cutting through the storm. 8:10 [SPEAKER_00]: They go outside. 8:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Through the fog and driving rain, maybe 500 yards off shore. 8:17 [SPEAKER_00]: A massive clipper ship, full sails still set, stuck fast on the sandbar, and that bell 8:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Deal Beach in 1854 is an a town. 8:30 [SPEAKER_00]: It's barely a settlement. 8:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Fewer than a dozen families lived there, fishing and farming, on what one contemporary called a bleak, desolate and dangerous part of the Atlantic coast. 8:44 [SPEAKER_00]: These folks know this beach has claimed 44 documented ships over the past century. 8:51 [SPEAKER_00]: and now there's another one, and they can hear the people aboard. 8:56 [SPEAKER_00]: As Dawn breaks, maybe 6.37 o'clock a.m., a series of gigantic waves, lift the new air high off the outer bar, and toss her about 150 yards closer to shore. 9:12 [SPEAKER_00]: She's now only 150 to 200 yards from the beach, close enough that you could hit it with 9:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Close enough that rescuers, standing on the beach, can see individual faces. 9:28 [SPEAKER_00]: When those waves move the ship, they also spun her around, so she's sitting broadside to the shore. 9:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Bough facing south, completely vulnerable to the heavy seas. 9:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Waves start crashing over the decks, as high as the first yardarm. 9:46 [SPEAKER_00]: The ship floods quickly. 9:48 [SPEAKER_00]: According to witnesses, she sank to deck level and began breaking apart in less than an hour. 9:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Passengers are climbing into the rigging to avoid being washed overboard. 10:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The crew is scrambling. 10:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And on the beach, the deal beach families and early arriving wreck masters are desperately trying to launch rescue boats. 10:14 [SPEAKER_00]: the surf drives them back, again and again. 10:17 [SPEAKER_00]: They get their mortar set up, fire a line toward the ship, miss, fire again, miss, again, miss. 10:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Finally, around mid-morning, a line reaches the new era, and someone aboard ties it to the 10:41 [SPEAKER_00]: The problem, rescuers on the beach are shouting instructions in English. 10:47 [SPEAKER_00]: How to secure the life car, how to load passengers, where to attach the secondary lines. 10:56 [SPEAKER_00]: In the passengers on the ship, they're German, they don't understand a word. 11:03 [SPEAKER_00]: This confusion costs them precious time, time they don't have. 11:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Now the ship has three lifeboats, crew members lower the first one, until passengers it's to help bring the rescue line from the ship to shore. 11:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they cut the line, and row toward the beach, abandoning the ship, leaving 385 passengers behind. 11:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Other crew members lower a second boat, same thing. 11:38 [SPEAKER_00]: They sever the line, so passengers can't board, and they row for sure. 11:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Around noon, with the ship now breaking apart and sections, Captain Henry Orders crew to bail out the third and final lifeboat. 11:56 [SPEAKER_00]: The ship's physician, Dr. Papinhausen, has spent the morning gathering passengers' coins and valuables, stuffing them into his clothing, 12:07 [SPEAKER_00]: When he leaps onto the long boat, the weight of his plunder capsizes it. 12:13 [SPEAKER_00]: He's crushed between the boat and the ship by way of action. 12:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Never seen again. 12:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Crew bales the boat out, and then captain Henry, the man who owned part of this ship, who'd ensured it for more than it cost to build, jumps overboard. 12:34 [SPEAKER_00]: His crew lifts him into the boat. 12:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Passengers see this, they start leaping overboard, trying to board. 12:43 [SPEAKER_00]: 46 days at sea. 12:46 [SPEAKER_00]: 40 fellow passengers dead of cholera and thrown overboard, pumping water day and night just to keep the ship afloat. 12:58 [SPEAKER_00]: 150 yards from land, people visible on the beach. 13:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Their shouts carrying across the water, the ship breaking apart under foot. 13:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And now the captain, the man responsible for their safety, is in the last lifeboat, rowing away. 13:18 [SPEAKER_00]: They jump. 13:20 [SPEAKER_00]: A dozen at once, grabbing for the side of the boat, trying to pull themselves up, and the crew beats them back. 13:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The captain and crew use oars to beat back passengers, trying to board. 13:34 [SPEAKER_00]: According to multiple witness testimonies, 10-12 passengers managed to get into the boat. 13:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Most were beaten back into the water. 13:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Around this same time, a large portion of the ship collapses, 80 to 100 people are swept into the sea at once. 13:57 [SPEAKER_00]: By early afternoon, about 170 passengers still alive, clinging to the rigging, the crew, they're all unsure, safe. 14:12 [SPEAKER_00]: By 4 or 5 p.m. on November 13th, it's almost completely dark, no one can reach the ship. 14:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The waves are too rough, but the rescuers, these deal beach families, the wreck masters from nearby stations, they don't leave, they can't. 14:35 [SPEAKER_00]: They can hear the people on that ship, so they build bonfires along the beach. 14:41 [SPEAKER_00]: To let the passengers know they haven't been abandoned. 14:45 [SPEAKER_00]: According to one account, the unceasing, pideous cries from the ship and the doleful ringing of the bell continued through the entire night. 14:56 [SPEAKER_00]: It's November 13th. 14:58 [SPEAKER_00]: The temperature is dropping toward freezing. 15:01 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a westerly wind cutting across the water. 15:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And as the tide rises, those heavy seas keep sweeping people off the rigging. 15:11 [SPEAKER_00]: The beach at 10 o'clock PM, 17 hours since dawn, raw hands, cold, exhaustion setting in. 15:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe 200 yards out, the ship's mast visible, people up there, silhouette it against what little moonlight filters through. 15:35 [SPEAKER_00]: In the sound of them, crying out, in German, words unclear, but the tone, unmistakable. 15:45 [SPEAKER_00]: The surf just drives the boats back, nothing works, so they stay. 15:50 [SPEAKER_00]: They keep those fires burning, because they can't leave them alone in the dark, 15:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Around 4 o'clock a.m. on Tuesday, November 14th, more than 26 hours after the ship first ran a ground. 16:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The surf finally calms enough for boats to launch. 16:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Rescuers reach the new era. 16:14 [SPEAKER_00]: They find 132 to 135 survivors. 16:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Almost all of them men. 16:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Almost 16:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Over the next two and a half hours, all survivors are brought ashore. 16:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The deal beach families take them into their own homes. 16:35 [SPEAKER_00]: These folks who'd spent all night on the beach. 16:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Over the following days, 142 bodies are recovered and buried in a mass grave behind the old first Union Methodist Church in West Long Branch. 16:56 [SPEAKER_00]: many others were never recovered. 17:00 [SPEAKER_00]: In total, somewhere between 240 and 283 passengers died. 17:07 [SPEAKER_00]: If you count the 40-some who died of cholera during the voyage, the new era killed more than half the people who boarded in Germany. 17:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And this disaster wasn't the first that year. 17:20 [SPEAKER_00]: It was about to force America to make a decision it had been avoiding 17:28 [SPEAKER_00]: news of the disaster reaches New York by a telegraph the morning of November 13th. 17:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The New York Times runs the story under the headline, terrible shipwreck and loss of life. 17:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Julius Friedrich Sachsah, who later wrote the definitive account, called it criminal heartlessness. 17:50 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not modern interpretation. 17:53 [SPEAKER_00]: That's how people described it in 1854, 17:57 [SPEAKER_00]: The new era wasn't the only disaster that year. 18:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The pow-hotton had gone down in April, 250 German immigrants, all dead, and now seven months later, 240 more, drowned within sight of the same coast. 18:16 [SPEAKER_00]: On December 15, 1854, just over a month after the new era, Congress passes comprehensive 18:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And then nothing happens. 18:30 [SPEAKER_00]: No funding until 1857. 18:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Equipment rests, stations decay. 18:38 [SPEAKER_00]: More disasters in 1870 prompt investigation. 18:41 [SPEAKER_00]: 24 years passed before the United States Life Saving Service is formally established in 1878. 18:49 [SPEAKER_00]: 24 years from disaster to functioning system, 18:56 [SPEAKER_00]: that service eventually became what we now call the Coast Guard. 19:01 [SPEAKER_00]: At the site where the new era went down, now part of Asbury Park. 19:06 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a marker acknowledging the disaster's role in establishing the life-saving service. 19:13 [SPEAKER_00]: What the marker doesn't say, what happened to Captain Thomas J. Henry? 19:19 [SPEAKER_00]: We know he survived. 19:21 [SPEAKER_00]: We know he made it to shore. 19:24 [SPEAKER_00]: but there's no record of an investigation, no trial, no consequence. 19:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The 142 unidentified German immigrants buried in that mass grave. 19:38 [SPEAKER_00]: According to a 2020 report, the grave is massively overgrown. 19:44 [SPEAKER_00]: The monument quite difficult to find. 19:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Every Coast Guard rescue today traces its lineage to the outrage this disaster provoked. 19:54 [SPEAKER_00]: But the people who died, they've been largely forgotten. 20:00 [SPEAKER_00]: 80 years later, in 1934, the cruise ship Moro Castle caught fire and came around at almost the exact same spot. 20:10 [SPEAKER_00]: 135 people died. 20:14 [SPEAKER_00]: The whole sat on the beach for months, as a tourist attraction. 20:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Two disasters. 20:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Same location. 20:21 [SPEAKER_00]: 80 years apart. 20:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The imagery, historians believe, influenced his famous story, The Open Boat. 20:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The ship's anchor was recovered in 1999. 20:38 [SPEAKER_00]: It sits in front of a church in Alan Hurst. 20:44 [SPEAKER_00]: The first monument erected in 1893, washed away in a storm the following year. 20:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Barry twice, once in the ground, once in our forgetting. 20:57 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the story of the new era, a ship that made it across the Atlantic only to sink 150 yards from shore. 21:07 [SPEAKER_00]: and the 240 people who drowned within sight of rescue. 21:13 [SPEAKER_00]: If you found this story as haunting as I did, share it with someone who believes every life deserves to be remembered. 21:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters. 21:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Every hometown has a story. 21:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Tonight, it's Dale Beach, New Jersey, where the distance between water and land was measured in yards. 21:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Good night, friend.
Show full transcript (196 segments)
