Voyages grew safer in the 1800s, but storms, fires, and rocky coasts still threatened seafarers.
Ever-greater numbers of people traveled and worked at sea in the 1700s and 1800s. Ship design, navigation, and life-saving methods all improved dramatically. But crossing an ocean was a far riskier journey than it is today. Storms on the high seas might be the most terrifying of the dangers, but thousands of men and women lost their lives within sight of shore.
Oil painting on canvas by Samuel Walters, 1848
Gift of CIGNA Museum and Art Collection
On August 24, 1848, the Ocean Monarch caught fire while sailing from Liverpool, England, to the United States. The yacht Queen of the Ocean rescued 30 people. Other ships picked up another 188. The ship and 178 passengers were lost.
The British bark Ayrshire ran aground off Squan Beach, New Jersey, in January 1850. But the passengers and crew had reason for hope: Congress had begun funding the construction of life-saving stations along the coast of New York and New Jersey two years before.
The sea was too rough to launch a surfboat, and the local wreckmaster decided to use his station’s life-car instead. Hauled between the shore and the wreck on ropes, the enclosed boat made 60 trips to the wreck over two days and rescued all but one of Ayrshire’s 166 passengers and 36 crew.
Many of the passengers on the Ayrshire’s final voyage were likely Irish laborers, farmers, and families fleeing famine in Ireland. Almost one million people between 1846 and 1851 died because of the failures of the potato crop and poor distribution of what remained. Hundreds of thousands more sailed for the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia.
Courtesy of Doris A. Martin
The Irish immigrants aboard the Ayrshire included 50-year-old John Woods, some of his siblings, his 30-year-old wife Lydia, and their three sons—a 2-year-old and infant twins. The family came ashore in the Francis Life-Car. Some settled in New York, while John, Lydia, and their children continued on to Canada, where they established a farm north of Toronto.
The passengers and crew of the bark Ayrshire came ashore in the Francis Life-Car, January 12, 1850. Ships traveling the busy sea lanes leading to New York frequently came to grief on the shores of Long Island and New Jersey. In the 1840s, an average of three vessels a month wrecked in these coastal waters.
Gift of Joseph Francis
The life-car overhead rescued the passengers and crew of the stranded bark Ayrshire. It was the first such car ever used in an emergency. Developed by inventor Joseph Francis and manufactured by the Novelty Iron Works in Brooklyn, it was installed at the new Squan Beach, New Jersey, life-saving station in 1849. Boat-shaped and buoyant, the iron life-car was hauled between the stranded vessel and the beach on stout ropes.
Two to four people were sealed inside for each ride from ship to shore.
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, July 1851
The hydraulic press was used at the Novelty Iron Works to shape metallic-boat parts.
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, July 1851
When the first federal life-saving stations were built along the New Jersey coast in 1849, they were equipped with galvanized iron surfboats. This station, at Chadwick Beach, was established around 1850. Each station was also given an experimental “life-car”—an enclosed boat designed to be hauled by ropes to and from stranded vessels. Life-cars made by Joseph Francis’s works rescued at least 1,400 people on the New Jersey coast alone by the end of 1853.
Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office
Explore other stories of Dangerous Waters:
Between 1790 and 1873, the U.S. Patent Office granted 163 patents for an amazing variety of life-preserving boats, rafts, clothing, and other gear. Many of them were invented with an eye toward the rise in passenger travel: life-preserving bedsteads, berths, buckets, bucket rafts, buoys, capes, chairs, stools, dresses, doors, garments, hammocks, mattresses, and even a “life-preserving hat.” Few of these inventions enjoyed practical success.
Courtesy of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Joseph Francis of New York experimented with new ways to make boats throughout his career.
Patent No. 2,018, March 26, 1841
Transfer from U.S. Patent Office
In 1841, Joseph Francis patented air-filled chambers to keep a lifeboat afloat, even if damaged. His model contained holes to allow any “water within [to] escape freely without bailing.”
Patent No. 2,293, October 11, 1841
Transfer from U.S. Patent Office
This model accompanied Joseph Francis’ patent application for a new way of fastening a boat’s planking together.
Joseph Francis made a name for himself in the 1840s and 1850s manufacturing light and sturdy iron lifeboats and other nautical gear. These model dies and a sample copper sheet show how his boats were constructed using grooved metal plates.
Francis traveled extensively promoting his inventions and was honored in several countries. French Emperor Napoleon III gave him this snuff box in 1856. President Benjamin Harrison presented this Congressional medal to him in 1890.
Patent No. 3,974, March 25, 1845
Gift of Joseph Francis
Patent No. 19,693, March 23, 1858
Transfer from U.S. Patent Office
Patent No. 3,974, March 25, 1845
Gift of Joseph Francis
Patent No. 20,072, April 27, 1858
Transfer from U.S. Patent Office
Francis D. Lee of Charleston, South Carolina, envisioned a shipboard water tank that—if drained in time—would float free of a sinking ship. Passengers would cling to its exterior while a “treasure safe” suspended below would save “bullion, mails, and other valuables.” If the buoy itself sank, a smaller cork buoy would float out of the turret at the top to “mark the location of the lost treasure.”
Patent No. 146,316, January 13, 1874
Transfer from U.S. Patent Office
This raft uses rows of air-filled cylinders as floats. The elaborate wood framework protects the floats from damage and forms a deck. The inventor, George Clark of Ecorse, Michigan, hoped his rafts would be placed on the upper decks of steamships, “...whence they may readily be thrown into the water by one or two persons of ordinary strength, thus avoiding the delay and uncertainty of...launching boats.”
Patent No. 149,891, December 12, 1874
Transfer from U.S. Patent Office
Alpheus G. and Abram T. Sterling, fishermen from Portland, Maine, designed this boat to partially flood when launched. Water allowed into one chamber helped the boat resist capsizing while air-sealed rubber fenders and a second interior chamber kept it afloat.
Patent No. 211,807, January 28, 1879
Transfer from U.S. Patent Office
Designers George Tremberger and Michael Joseph Stein of New York City claimed that this boat’s “cabin is free to roll in the body of the boat, and consequently the effect of the rolling motions of the boat is not felt by the passengers.” Among the boat’s many features were a telescoping mast and hand-operated propeller.
On September 3, 1857, the steamship Central America left Panama for New York City with nearly 600 passengers and crew. Nine days later, the vessel sank in a hurricane off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in the deadliest peacetime shipwreck in American history. Four hundred twenty-five people perished in the wreck. And tons of California gold went to the bottom.
The wreck horrified and fascinated the American public and helped spark a financial crisis known as the Panic of 1857. Without the gold on board, several New York banks were unable to pay their creditors. Rediscovered in 1987, the wreck was later salvaged.
From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, October 3, 1857
Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library
The sinking of the Central America was international news. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly and other newspapers published artists’ re-creations of the tragedy.
Paddle steamer Central America
Built by William Webb at New York in 1853
The Central America was a three-masted sidewheel steamship originally named the George Law. In 43 trips between Panama and New York City between 1852 and 1857, the ship carried as much as a third of all the gold found during the California gold rush. On its final voyage, the ship’s gold cargo included thousands of new $20 Double Eagle gold coins produced at the San Francisco Mint.
Gift of William A. and Jo Anne Eidson
President James Buchanan gave this ornamental silver speaking trumpet to the captain of the German bark Laura for bringing the Central America’s final three survivors to New York City. The British brig Mary actually rescued the men after nine horrific days on the open ocean. Bound for Ireland, the Mary transferred them to the New York-bound Laura.