vessel at 18 thousand Cargo would have to pay about 3/5 of the expence The schooner I presume is not injured in the least for the bottom was very muddy and she did not heel at low water….She does not leak any now but leaked very bad the whole passage home …. we have one of the worst passages that I most ever had We had 3 gales of wind from NE to NW and have to for 2 days We lost the jib boom and some of the rigging on the passage. Collision at Sea On 7 July 1870, the B. N. Hawkins collided with the schooner Charles P. Stickney outside of Holmes Hole, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts (now Vineyard Haven Harbor). The Stickney was bound for Boston from Philadelphia; the B. N. Hawkins was bound for Woods Hole, Massachusetts, from Charleston carrying phosphates, the only cargo Captain Wyatt could find to carry. According to the 12 July report in the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, the Stickney “had jibboom, cat-heads and head gear carried away, split jib, and received other damage. The B N H had port main rail [c]arried away and mainsail badly torn.” The Charleston Daily News on 14 July 1870, reported similarly, yet differed by writing “The Hawkins had port mainsail carried away and mainsail badly torn.” The newspapers underreported the damage. Captain Wyatt, writing from Woods Hole to Benjamin Hawkins wrote: Dear Sir We arrived here in the night of the 7th and in coming to an anchor cam in column with a schooner doing grate deal of damage to or hul and sails. It makes me feel very bad after going so long without any we will have to pay all of the damages our self under the circumstances Please drop me a line to N York I have not heard from you and we will much oblige yours Truly, John P Wyatt Hope you and your family are well. A letter from Captain Wyatt dated 1 August 1870 reports that David Bayles’s shipyard crew repaired the damage for half the cost
of what other yards were charging. One note estimated the cost at $1,000. Epilogue Captain Griffin left the maritime trade after the death of his son Edward from measles in 1860 (age 10 months 12 days). The disease sickened his entire family. In response, Griffin sent his brother and the mate out to run the schooner, while he stayed home with his family. Griffin died in 1899 at age 75, after becoming a successful farmer in eastern Long Island. Alongside his name on his tombstone reads the words “THE FARMERS FRIEND.” John Parker Wyatt died in 1908 at age 81. He left the service of the B. N. Hawkins in 1877. His obituary stated he was at sea for 59 years, “sailing round the globe many times.” It noted his service: “During the Civil War he took stores to the South for the Union army.” Benjamin Newton Hawkins died on 4 December 1886. He is buried in the Oak Lawn Cemetery, Fairfield, Connecticut, in a large family plot he purchased.
The schooner B. N. Hawkins: On 6 January 1878, sailing from Charleston to New York City with a cargo of lumber, the ship ran aground on Brigantine Shoals off the South Jersey coast during a violent gale that wrecked numerous ships along the Eastern Seaboard. After four days of being hard aground and battered by waves, she was condemned. On 12 January, six days after running aground, she finally broke off the shoals and came onto the beach, where she broke into pieces. Her crew of ten survived the wreck. The ship’s value was recorded at $20,000 and her cargo of lumber was valued at $3,000. A total loss, the schooner B. N. Hawkins came to her end in the waters in which she had sailed for nearly twenty-five years. Douglas Tolles is the transcriber, researcher, and organizer of the letters of Benjamin Newton Hawkins. He and Fran Sculley, chief researcher, investigated the people, places, and events detailed in the letters. Ben, Gerry, and Grace Tolles assisted with additional external research.
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