Coronavirus has thrown us for a loop and a half and I’m taking solace from the seemingly permanent and unalterable. The gigantic trees looming over Thomas Road in Swampscott are silent spectators to human folly, drama and joy. Their massive trunks mock our puniness and their steadfast presence makes me slow down and contemplate what, in some ways, we are all being forced to consider during this time: Life lived for the moment with the needs of others on our minds is more important than the energy we waste dashing around trying to get this done or that accomplished.
The ocean cresting and rolling along Lynn Shore Drive makes me wonder if it looked the same 1,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago. It rages with fury during storms and glitters like a black carpet covered with diamonds on summer full moon nights. The water is a different color day-to-day, sometimes minute-to-minute, with pewter turning to black and blue-green in the afternoon and silver white in the moonlight.
The sea has claimed lives and swallowed ships, or spared luckier ones like the Oxonian, from floundering offshore. Bound from Antwerp, Belgium by way of Newcastle, England to Boston on Sept. 30, 1920, the 6,300-ton Oxonian got lost in thick fog off Galloupes Point.
Known for its dangerous rock outcroppings, the Point lay in wait for the Oxonian as it groped through the gloaming, sounding a distress signal with its whistle.
Swampscott fishermen George H. Brooks, Fred Blanchard and Ted Seaton heard the signal and jumped into Brooks’ boat when they saw what looked like a ghost ship emerge from the fog.
Versed in the nuances, nooks and crannies defining the North Shore coastline, the trio sped in the Oxonian’s direction. They were not the first town fishermen to spy the ship: Edward Snow and Fred Monk scrambled to break away from fishing when the Oxonian, with its four masts and steam stack, loomed over their dory.
By the time Brooks, Blanchard and Seaton reached the ship, it was a quarter mile off shore and well within Egg Rock. Oxonian Capt. John Parry told the Swampscott men that he thought he was sailing off Gloucester near Norman’s Woe, a rocky pinnacle protruding from the sea. Told by the trio that he was 18 miles from Gloucester, Parry replied, “Well, I guess I must have left it well nor’ard,”
The fishermen instructed him how to sail into Broad Sound even as a U.S. Coast Guard detachment rushed from the Nahant station seaward to aid the Oxonian. They escorted the ship until Parry picked up a harbor pilot.
Coast Guard Acting Capt. George Wickens told the Daily Evening Item that the Oxonian barely escaped disaster.
“But for the directions given by the Swampscott fishermen she would have undoubtedly been piled upon the rocks … 10 minutes more she would have struck,” Wickens said.
That grim prediction sparked coastal residents’ memories of the Lucia Porter, a schooner that floundered off King’s Beach on May 17, 1916. A Coast Guard crew rushed a long boat into the surf and dug in their oars as the three-masted ship bobbed and rocked a short distance from the coastline.
The Lucia Porter lost its load of wood laths and the heavy lumber washed onto King’s Beach, prompting residents to flood the beach and salvage the wood or stack it onto carts. Children, women in coats and dresses, can be seen in Item photographs carrying the wood from the sand.
The Lucia Porter ended up off Lynn after sailing from Portland, Maine and getting caught in a gale. The ship sat off Lynn for three weeks until it was finally freed from the sand and towed in for repairs.
A luckless pall, perhaps even a curse, hung over the Lucia Porter. In August, 1916, the ship was reported abandoned at sea while enroute to the Canary Islands with 350,000 feet of lumber.
Sea tales abound along the coast and more than one gravestone in local cemeteries bears the inscription, “Lost at sea.” Some stories have been distilled into legend, like the tale of the U-boat captain who sneaked ashore during one of the world wars and went to a movie in a coastal theater before making his way back to the beach where his crew was waiting to row him to the submarine. It’s far fetched but enchanting and enduring like the sea’s endless cycles.