and self-possession; and the insinuation that he was unduly excited from any cause is wholly untrue." Furthermore, Southworth asserted, while he himself had been in one of the two lifeboats, "Captain M. was in neither." 9
Sunbeam, 1870 The most compelling story and resulting painting of a fiery shipwreck has to be the 1870 burning and explosion of the barque Sunbeam. Nineteen-year-old M arshall Johnson (1850-1921), also ofBoston, sailed aboard the barque, having been hired as a
ship's "boy." Fifteen years later, his reputation as a marine artist growing, Johnson memorialized the Sunbeam in a large canvas titled "Ship Afire at Sea," depicting identifiable su rvivors amid the heat and fury of the confl agration {see image next page). The 798-ton Sunbeam was built in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1865, and served the South American Pacific trade of Boston merchant Augustus Hemenway (1805 1876). The ship's master, John Chadwick (1822- 1885), had sailed for Hemenway since 1854. The Sunbeam's first officer was
George Abbott (1829-1880), a Salem native and former captain of the Harriet Ewing, who had assisted in the 1867 rescue of the warship USS Sacramento's crew off M adras, India. 10 Sixteen others made up the remainder of the crew, including Johnson, son of a Boston weigher and gauger. After loading cargo at Iquequi, Peru, Sunbeam put to sea on 13 March 1870, bound for Tome, Chile. Nearly three weeks out and eighty miles off the Chilean coast, a "seething volcano" burst from Sunbeam's after hold as fumes were ignited from an "open light." Ir began with the second
Burning of the Ocean Monarch off the Great Orne, 24 August 1848 by Samuel Walters (41 x 52 inches, oil on canvas) Launched only the previous year, and considered one of the finest and largest ships ever built in the United States at the time, the Ocean Monarch was a notable addition to Enoch Trains White D iamond Line of Boston-to-Liverpool sailing packets. H er total loss aroused enormous public sympathy on both sides ofthe A tlantic. Walters created at least three paintings depicting successive stages ofthe conflagration and rescue attempts, this being the intermediate one, when only the foremast was still standing. First on the scene was the cutter yacht Queen of the Ocean, commanded by Thomas Littledale, Commodore of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, seen to the left in the painting, having launched her boat to pick up survivors. On the right is the Liverpool-built Brazilian naval steam frigate Affonzo. H aving started in the aft cabin, the flames have now reached the bow, with a small group crowdingforwa rd ofthe foremast and out onto the headrig. The jib boom has given way, and some desperate survivors are using it as a means of escape. Women and children too terrified to make any such attempt were rescued by Frederick J erome, a British crew member of the nearby American sailing packet New World. H aving climbed aboard by means ofthe trailing gear and rigging, he succeeded in lowering them to within reach ofthe waiting rescuers. Shortly afterwards the foremast fell, and within a Jew hours the Ocean Monarch burned down to the waterline and sank. 30
SEA HISTORY 150, SPRING 2015