CHAPTER XXII. 



WRFXKS, WRECKING, AND MINOT LIGHT. 



THE privilege of an open sea has been accompanied 

 by many disasters for Cohasset inhabitants. The 

 drownings and the wrecks which have occurred upon our 

 shore have been an unbroken series from the earliest 

 settlement to the latest summer bathing. The number 

 and the names of many unfortunates will never be known. 

 The deeds of daring which have been recorded in the 

 books of the Massachusetts Humane Society to the credit 

 of Cohasset life savers cannot all be read, for these records 

 were burnt in the great Boston fire of 1872. Many of 

 their medals, however, are owned in our town as evidence 

 of bravery in a score of disasters. 



The great wreck of the Gertrude Maria in 1793 off 

 Brush Island has been told in a previous chapter. In 

 this we have to recall some of the subsequent tragedies 

 which have not lost themselves from our available records. 

 The diary of Joel Willcutt, already referred to, gives a 

 number which attracted his attention during the years 

 immediately following the Gertrude Maria. 



The first was December 7, 1796. The diary says: 

 " Last night there was a vessel from Chatham cast away 

 at the Glades. One man, one woman, and a boy were 

 drowned. 



" Another vessel got into Briggs' Harbor and one got 

 ashore on Long Beach." 



Saturday, December 10: "This day the people that 

 were drowned were buried from our meeting-house." 



Three years later, December 17, 1799, the diary says: 

 "This day there were two ships cast away, one down by 

 Captain Nathaniel Nichols' (Black Rock) stove to pieces; 

 the other one got into the harbor by White Head." 



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