mare's desire to give "rhe upper deck a little neater appearance ... usually a cautious mariner, by an act devoid of pruden ce, caused the picture of contentedness to suddenly change to one of dismay and dearh." 11 "Nothing could be done. Smoke all around, blinding, suffocating, and the boats could nor be reached." 12 W ith hundreds of tons of saltpeter in her hold, fire and explosions rapidly engulfed the vessel; saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, an oxidant and otherwise stable, can explode in the presence of fire. In ten minutes, the mainmast was toppling; in three minutes more, it was over the side. After explosions destroyed the forward hold, the Sunbeam, "with the last bubbling hiss," plunged bows-first into the sea. Twelve m en , including Johnson, the captain, and his fo urteen-year-old son jumped into the sea. Six others were less fort unate. The whaler Charles W Morgan, then in her third year of a whaling voyage, was also off the coast of Chile, sailing in fair weather, when her lookout sighted a huge
smoke plume. Crowding on sail, the Morgan arrived two hours later at the debris field that had been the Sunbeam, and rescued survivors. A light sea and the proximity of the Morgan at the time of her sinking were simply miraculous. The Morgan's log was succi nct: "Ship Sunbeam ... took fire at 15 minutes past 12 [meridian] and in 20 minutes nothing of the ship visible from mas t head ... rook fire from a light [candle] while drawing va rnish." 13 Two weeks later, the Chad wicks arrived in New York via steamer from Aspinwall, Panama, carrying the spar that had saved them in the open ocean. The captain soon turned landsman and became the port superintendent for the City of Boston while supervising shipbuilding projects for the Hemenways . Ir would be ano ther fifteen yea rs before the ship's boy-turned painter wo uld immortalize the Sunbeam disaster on ca nvas. By then, his reputation as an artist was well established, and in December of 1885 he started working on the first of two paintings that recalled the drama of his experience
aboard the Sunbeam. In Ship Afire at Sea (image below), Johnson illuminates himself and others by both fire and the mid-day sun. This painting was one he likely held until his death, as it was listed in his property probate in 1921. Its wherabouts after his death were unknown for decades, but the painting recently emerged at auction. Johnson made a second painting of the disaster, titled Ship Sunbeam of Boston Burning at Sea, which differs slightly. Ir is presently unaccounted for, except for a black-and-white photograph of it held by the Exeter Historical Society in New Hampshire. The second image was also reproduced in a monograph reviewing the life of Augustus Hemenway and his shipping company.14 When Captain C hadwick returned to New York after h aving been plucked from the sea by the Charles W Morgan crew, his acco unt of the loss of his ship appeared in newspapers coast to coast. A subsequent letter by Marshall Johnson, published in the 1901 Sea Breeze of the Boston Seaman's Friend Society, contributed much more
Ship Afire at Sea by Marshall Johnson (24 x 36 inches, oil on canvas)
SEA HISTORY 150, SPRING 20 15
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