Newspaper Clipping of the Day

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The death of a notorious “cursed ship” was reported in the “Miami News,” October 9, 1929:

A mystery fire, believed set by a superstitious seaman, Wednesday morning was destroying the rotting wreck of the schooner Nancy Hanks, ghost ship of Miami harbor, whose name has been cursed by mariners from Cape Cod to Zanzibar. 

Shortly before midnight Tuesday, when the Miami Beach waterfront was silent except for the soughing of waves and the rippling of the tide, flames suddenly burst out aboard the haunted schooner, which has laid on the end of Fisher's island since 1926. 

Seamen on the SS Magnolia, docked at the Texas Co. wharf, said the fire appeared to break out in the bow and leaped the entire length of the hulk, indicating the wreck had been saturated with oil and the blaze set deliberately. 

Fingers of flame etched the death tale of the Nancy Hanks to a distance of 75 feet in the sky, lighting up the harbor. The fire was visible for miles and burned all night. 

At 9 a. m. Wednesday the sides of the vessel fell in and the stern, which overhung into the water, crashed hissing into the bay. At noon the flames still were eating along the keel and hull timbers that remained.

Miami Beach fire department made a run to a point on the county causeway opposite the bulk and kept watch lest a blazing section of the craft drifting in the water, come ashore and spread the fire to wharf and warehouse properties. 

The Nancy Hanks was a three-masted schooner of 1,100 gross tons. She was 204 feet in length, 41 feet in breadth and drew 19 feet of water. Normally she carried a crew of 10. The name of the shipyard that gave her birth could not be learned, but she was rebuilt in 1917 at Thomaston, Maine. New York was the schooner's home port. 

The "wreck." beached almost at the entrance of the harbor, long has been an eyesore and officials for some time have considered removing it, but the fear of wraiths on the part of a deep water man apparently has accomplished that task. 

Feared by sailor-men as an unholy schooner on which the devil held high fiesta, the Nancy Hanks long has been an enigma of the sea. The ghost of John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was said to have haunted the craft, which was named for the mother of the Emancipator.

One old sea dog on the waterfront, his eyes probably distorted by superstition and the smoke banks, said he saw a ghastly figure, anguished and fearful, dancing up and down on the tongues of flame that licked skyward during the fire. He swore it was the ghost being driven from its abiding place by the "purifying" flames. 

Often the schooner is reputed to have put to sea with a good cargo and fair voyage in prospect, only to creep into port, torn by storms and the crew in mutiny. Tales that seamen on watch were whisked off the decks by a supernatural agency, that a monstrous black cat, with the eyes of a Satan, appeared from nowhere and perched on the poop as harbinger of disaster, have gone the rounds wherever seafaring men gather. Often the ghost has been reported laid, only to spring up, sphinx-like, from the debacle of its demise. 

Mariners believed the Nancy Hanks was a doomed ship and during the latter days of its career it was almost impossible to ship a crew. One seaman, Capt. C. B. Foster, was said to have beaten the ghost in 10-month battle at sea and returned to port with a $250,000 profit for the owner. He was well known in Miami. 

Captain Foster took the Nancy Hanks from New York to Durban, British East Africa, with a general cargo, and the voyage proved a ghastly Odyssey. When out only a few days, a mysterious leak was sprung and a squall "broke down." 

The crew, terrified, pleaded to put back, but Captain Foster "cracked on." While in the midst of their terror, the devil cat that has been associated with the ship suddenly appeared. 

The skipper found the leak was caused by wedges slipping out of the ports and repairs were made. Fair weather followed the squall and the black cat disappeared. The sailors' spirits rose until suddenly, when they were nearing latitude 40, the cat appeared again, trailed by four coal black kittens. The men reverted to hysteria, the sky darkened and a hurricane "broke down." The ship survived, the skipper said, only by a miracle. After many days, in which misfortunes followed one another in rapid succession, the schooner reached Durban. 

When the seamen looked for the black cat, it had disappeared. The cargo was discharged and a lading of coal taken aboard for West African ports. The Nancy Hanks barely was at sea before the cat appeared and another gale blew up. It was weathered with difficulty and port reached. Upon docking, the cat disappeared again. 

A cargo of mahogany was loaded for Boston and the schooner put to sea once more. The infernal cat appeared again and African fever swept the ship. With only himself and two weakened seamen able to work the schooner. Captain Foster struggled toward America. A sudden squall swept away canvas which the weakened mariners could not reach and it was said the cat was swept overboard. Fair weather followed and the schooner finally reached Boston, clearing about a quarter of a million for her owners on the voyage. 

Captain Foster left the schooner and it carried coastwise cargoes, with varying misfortunes, for several years. One day it appeared off Miami in distress, carrying a cargo of lumber. Aid was given, and the Nancy Hanks towed into the harbor. The crew, muttering mutiny, deserted and it was learned a sailor had killed one of the officers and the captain had been washed overboard at sea during the voyage. 

The cargo of lumber was unloaded and the Nancy Hanks anchored in the harbor, awaiting further orders.

Her name had become a curse in the mouth of every mariner and it was impossible to ship a crew, for sailor-men believe in ghost ships and are firm in the opinion that to ship on one is to seal one's doom. 

Even in harbor, the malignant fate that was the destiny of the staunch schooner did not cease to torture it. The craft strained at anchor and had a disconcerting way of swinging into the path of any boat nearing it. Then, in a storm, it broke away and grounded on Fisher's island. There was no attempt to salvage it. The wreckers dismantled it and left the battered skeleton to rot. Sailor men shook their heads and muttered that at last the devil ship's career was ended and its ghost would walk no more. 

But it seemed that fate only had leered in a twisted smile when it apparently had allowed the boat to end its days on a peaceful bar. 

Some mariner, probably tortured by the sight of the hulk that may have meant misfortune to himself or comrades, apparently could not rest at the sight of the abandoned schooner. Perhaps he thought the ghost would roam again and do more harm unless driven to oblivion by flames. 

So under cover of darkness, with a curse in his throat, perhaps he rowed to the island in a skiff, poured oil on the hull and touched a match--then fled chuckling while the remains of the good shin Nancy Hanks were devoured by flames. Only a few charred timbers remain: the next few tides, a puff of wind, a little sand piled up--and the last remnant of the Nancy Hanks will be removed from the sight of man.