The Captain, The Missionary, and the Bell: The Wreck of the Steamship Atlantic

By Eric Larsson

The Captain: Isaac "Kip" Dustan, a well-respected mariner whose adventures were frequently recounted in the mid-1800s New York newspapers... The Missionary: Rev. Benjamin C.C. Parker of the Young Men's Church Missionary Society of the City of New York... The Bell from the Atlantic: Contains a history that spans more than one and a half centuries... On Wednesday, November 25, 1846, the steamer Atlantic left Allyn Point headed for New London, Connecticut. Less than an hour later, a steam pipe exploded, disabling the engine and leaving the Atlantic at the mercy of the winds and seas as it dragged anchor across a tempestuous Long Island Sound towards a rocky reef off Fishers Island. This true story follows the events of the twenty-seven hours following the explosion as well as the harrowing stories of many of the passengers that sailed aboard the Atlantic that fateful night. So much of life is about connections, seemingly chance meetings, lives intersecting with others, and encounters that could be luck, fate, coincidence, or faith. The wreck of the steamship Atlantic links the captain of that ill-fated ship to the missionary of the Young Men's Church Missionary Society of the City of New York and the bell from that ship, creating ripples that are still felt today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646703784

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The Captain, the Missionary, and the Bell

The Wreck of the Steamship Atlantic

Eric Larsson

ISBN 978-1-64670-377-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64670-378-4 (Digital)

Copyright © 2020 Eric Larsson

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Floating Chapel of Our Savior

Shipyard

The Atlantic Readies for Service

Underway at Last

Care for Seamen in New York During the 1840s

Navigating Long Island Sound

New Floating Chapel Ready to Open

The Last Voyage Begins

Dustan Arrested

Departure New London

First Engineer

Dragging Anchor—Part 1

The First Night Continues

Thursday Morning—Dawn

Dragging Anchor—Part 2

Thursday Afternoon

Rescue Attempt—Smack Planet

The Floating Chapel of the Holy Comforter

A Second Night of Darkness

The Atlantic Goes Aground

Survival

House of Refuge

A Tragic Weekend—New London

A Church Service and Religious Bigotry

Dustan Is Laid to Rest

Salvage Efforts

The Missionary and the Atlantic

The Bell Finds a New Home

Death of Benjamin C. C. Parker

The Bell through History

The Bell on the Move Again

Present Day

Epilogue

Poetry, General George Cullum, and Sermons

Memorial and Funeral forAlderman from Brooklyn

Rev. Armstrong Memorial and Funeral

Rev. B. C. C. Parker

About the Author

Those who go down to the sea in ships,

Who do business on great waters;

They have seen the works of the LORD,

And His wonders in the deep.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

And He brought them out of their distresses.

He caused the storm to be still,

So that the waves of the sea were hushed.

(Psalm 107:23, 24, 28, 29)

Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

In memory of my dad, George Larsson and to all mariners that make their living at sea or on the water.

Acknowledgments

The Seamen’s Church Institute (SCI) and their dedication to mariners that dates back to 1834 has been a meaningful part of my life for forty-five years. I was fortunate to work there for twenty-seven years. The history of the organization is fascinating—weathering sea change after sea change.

Sometimes, its mission called for a floating chapel. On other occasions, it was a full-service hotel. Throughout history, it was always a haven for weary mariners with a hospitality geared for that gruff individual. For my part, I carried on a tradition of maritime education and training that started in 1916 in a sailing loft on the top floor of the hotel by introducing SCI into the modern era, overseeing the purchase of five sophisticated maritime simulators that were part of training centers in New York; Paducah, Kentucky; and Houston, Texas. One of many maritime artifacts that SCI still owns is the bell of the steamer Atlantic. That bell graced numerous church belfries and the front doors of SCI hotels and buildings off and on for more than 170 years. I would like to thank SCI for access to their archives of the journals of Rev. Benjamin C. C. Parker and for photos that help to tell this story.

In writing this book, I was fortunate to have a number of people read various versions of the manuscript, receiving feedback and encouragement. In particular, I would like to thank Craig E Philip, Andrew White, and my sister, Ellen Picard, for their insight and guidance. I also received permission to use a family picture of Captain Isaac Dustan, provided by a relative of his, Michael Fairchild that added a great deal to an already well-developed mental image of the man as well as photos from Mr. George Bass, great-great-grandson of Rev. Armstrong, a passenger on the Atlantic. Connecticut Historical Society with particular assistance from Sierra Dixon, the Mystic Seaport Library with the assistance of Maribeth Bielinski and the Rhode Island Historical Society with assistance from Michelle Chiles provided memoires written by passengers, Comstock and Cullum and provided access to lithographs and other memorabilia from the Atlantic. This added to the understanding of what happened on board for the entire voyage and beyond. Richard Simpson provided valuable information about the burial of Captain Dustan in the Moravian Cemetery.

I would like to thank Pierce Rafferty, curator of the Henry L. Ferguson Museum on Fishers Island for hosting a visit to the island, opening the archives of his museum for me to view, and pointing out places on the island that had significance to the story. Based on his knowledge of the island and my understanding of navigation, winds and current, we were able to narrow down where we thought the Atlantic ran up on the rocks.

I cannot say enough about the access provided to the early newspapers of our country by the Library of Congress through the program called Chronicling America. It is amazing what can be found with a few key words and a range of dates!

Introduction

The Captain

Charles M. Simonson and his wife Mary, the oldest sister of Cornelius Vanderbilt along with their children, William and Cornelius, were there to witness the wedding of their daughter and sister Phebe Ann to Isaac Kip Dustan. Dustan’s mother and father—Major William Dustan and his wife Sarah, were also there at the North Chapel, on Staten Island. They were from the New Dorp area where many of those of Dutch descent had settled. It had been a beautiful day, and now, on that Sunday, April 21, 1833, in an afternoon ceremony in front of family and friends, they were finally getting married (New York Spectator, April 25, 1833). The ceremony took place with Rev. Dr. David Moore, presiding.

Dustan was excited to be marrying Phebe, not only because she was a wonderful woman who he had known since he was a child but also because it would cement his position in the family of his boss. He was employed now by Phebe’s uncle, the Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt and working as a chief mate on boats the Commodore owned that were transiting between New York City and Providence. Phebe and Isaac had known each other for many years, attending church with their parents on Staten Island in plain view of New York Harbor. It was only about seven miles from their new home on Staten Island to the pier at the lower tip of Manhattan in the North River, but it was a world away. He could leave his wife at their home surrounded by family as he pursued his career on steamboats. Their home would be a refuge, a place to escape the rigors of the sometimes perilous journey from New York to Providence on the company’s steamboats, a place where he could have his own family. Dustan was a man of powerful frame and he cut a truly handsome figure in his uniform. He was a tall man, with a full head of hair and a beard that ringed his chin in the old Dutch style. Others might say it was a chin curtain style. He had the piercing deep set eyes of a thoughtful, intelligent man. At one point in time, the papers of the day referred to his head phrenologically—he had a big head. At that time, the size of one’s head was supposedly linked to intelligence. At twenty-five years of age, Isaac was about a year and a half older than his twenty-three-year-old bride.

His father-in-law, Charles Simonson, was a shipbuilder with offices in New York and a shipyard on Walnut Street. It was expected that, along with his efforts aboard the Commodore’s vessels, he would assist as well as he could in the shipyard. This would immerse Dustan in all aspects of the shipping business, from building to navigation and everything in between. His future was very promising indeed. They gathered back at Phebe’s uncle’s house for a modest celebration. He was due to head back to work on Monday, so they would have a brief time to set up their new home at 64 Columbia Avenue.

Phebe and Isaac would go on to have a number of children including Charles (1834), Louisa (1837), Sarah (1842), and Charlotte (1845). The house on Columbia Avenue was filled with love and the sounds of children. Phebe worked hard at being a good mother. On many occasions, as with most women whose husbands go to sea for a living, she was left to take care of the household, the children, and anything else that might go along with it. When her husband left to go to work on the ships early on Monday morning, she knew he would not return until Saturday night when the vessel retuned to New York. When it was his turn for the trip that ended in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday night, he did not come home for at least another week.

Such was the life of any man that went to sea. Wintertime was the best time of all and the colder the better. When the East River froze over, the boats could not run and Isaac was home. Isaac was ambitious, so he often went on trips that other officers would not take. He had a bit of the daredevil in him and this caused him to take chances that she wished he never took. She feared for his safety, especially when she heard the stories of his most recent exploits at family gatherings. Their son Charles loved to hear these stories and would often sit by the door so he could listen to the adults talk about his father.

The Missionary

In the fall of 1819, Benjamin C. C. Parker was on his way to Harvard for his sophomore year. His father, Rev. Samuel Parker, the second Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts, had provided a wonderful education for his son and done what he could to provide a proper moral and ethical background as well. He had been tutored by Dr. T. S. Gardner, Rector of Trinity Church in Boston. Parker was certainly leaning toward following in his father’s footsteps. One of his classmates in that year was Nathaniel I. Bowditch, son of the Nathaniel Bowditch who produced The American Practical Navigator which is still in use today and a required source for learning navigation at all top maritime colleges. Parker was in Hollis Hall, room 19, just a few steps from the resident of room 15, Junior Ralph Waldo Emerson, while Bowditch was in Stoughton Hall living in room 32, mere steps from Hollis Hall (Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University in Cambridge, October 1819).

Parker continued his studies, graduating from Harvard in 1822, becoming a minister in the Episcopal tradition. He was ordained in 1826 and started his life’s vocation as a minister moving between churches in Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

One of the common events in the life of an Episcopal priest is attendance at the Triannual General Convention of the church. Held in different locations each year, priests had to travel many weeks in advance. Parker left home in early September, to attend the October 6–19 convention in New York City in 1841. That trip would include a life-changing event, in Tarpaulin Cove on the coast of Naushon Island.

In July 1842, the young rector of St. George’s Church in Flushing, New York, Rev. Frederick J. Goodwin, broke down under his many duties. He asked his vestry for leave of absence for six months, to regain his strength, and recover from an attack of bronchitis. The Rev. Benjamin C. C. Parker supplied his place. Mr. Parker’s ministrations were acceptable, and he was long well remembered by the congregation (History of St George’s Parish, Flushing, Long Island, J. Carpenter Smith, 1897, p. 119–120).

Just one year later, on July 3, 1843, Parker moved to Manhattan and accepted the post of Seamen’s Chaplain in the Port of New York for the Protestant Episcopal Church Missionary Society for Seamen (The Lookout, July 1934, Vol. XXV, No. 27, p. 2). The Society was already hard at work trying to raise funds for a floating chapel. They had secured a room above a grog shop at the corner of South and Pike Streets. Benjamin moved with his wife to 114 E. Broadway.

The Bell

Wednesday, January 9, 1974, 0400, Eight Bells

Bells are important fixtures on ships. They are sounded in fog so other vessels might be aware of the other ship’s position. It has also, for many centuries, been used as a means for telling time on board ship. Bells are also used to denote an important event, celebrate a special day or to mourn the passing of a notable person.

I was on my first ship as a cadet, a nineteen-year-old who had never ventured further than a quarter mile off the shore of Connecticut into Long Island Sound in a sixteen-foot speedboat. Now I was on the bridge of the SS American Lancer, a seven-hundred-foot long C7 containership. She was 22,582 deadweight tons with a beam of ninety feet and a draft when loaded of thirty-two feet. The Lancer was able to make a speed of 21.5 knots and was the very first purpose-built US flag containership. We had just left New York Harbor, and this was to be my first early morning watch. The bridge was dark; at first I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face. I had gotten there ten minutes early, so now, at 0400, my eyes were getting adjusted. The second mate on watch at the time barely grunted a greeting. The AB was at the wheel, but the vessel was on autopilot. It was then, for the first time, I heard eight bells. At the stroke of 4:00 am, the clock bell chimed ding-ding—ding-ding—ding-ding—ding-ding. It took a moment to suppress the urge to ask the question of the second mate—What was that? He would have laid right into me; Don’t they teach you college boys anything at that school? What’s the matter, boy? Don’t you know how to tell time? I kept my mouth shut. Over the next few watches, I realized that every half hour beginning at thirty minutes past twelve o’clock, thirty minutes past four o’clock and thirty minutes past eight o’clock the clock bell would chime once—ding. Thirty minutes later, it would ring twice—ding-ding. Thirty minutes beyond that, it would ring three times, pausing between the second and third ring—ding-ding—ding. It would continue this pattern until eight bells, and then it would start over again. This was a time-honored tradition on a ship and had been done for generations.

In a book titled Seaman’s Friend by R. H. Dana Jr., who also wrote Two Years before the Mast, the use of a bell on a ship is explained by the author as follows:

Bells. The time at sea is marked by bells. At noon, eight bells are struck, that is, eight strokes are made upon the bell and from that time it is struck every half-hour throughout the twenty-four, beginning at one stroke and going as high as eight, adding one at each half-hour. For instance, twelve o’clock is eight bells, half past twelve is one bell, one o’clock is two bells, half past one three bells, and so on until four o’clock, which will be eight bells. The watch is then out, and for half past four you strike one bell again. A watch of four hours therefore runs out the bells. It will be observed, also, that even bells come at the full hours, and the odd bells at the half-hours. For instance, eight bells are always twelve, four, or eight o’clock; and seven bells always half past three, half past seven, or half past eleven. The bells are sounded by two strokes following one another quickly, and then a short interval; after which, two more; and so on. If it is an odd number, the odd one is struck alone, after the interval. This is to make the counting more sure and easy; and, by this means, you can, at least, tell whether it is an hour or a half-hour. (Seaman’s Friend: A Treatise on Practical Seamanship with Plates, R. H. Dana Jr., Boston, 1847, p. 169)

My career at sea began on that trip out of New York and took me to five oceans and forty-five countries. I had heard all too often the toll of a ship’s bell ringing on the half hour and hour to mark the four hours of the watch.

Wednesday, October 4, 1978, 1130, Seven Bells

Bells on Display at SCI's 15 State Street Location. Reprinted with the permission of the Seamen's Church Institute

For me personally, this story about the bell of the Atlantic begins in New York City at a place affectionately called the doghouse. It was here, in 1978, that I first passed by the Atlantic bell near the entrance to the cafeteria on the second floor of the Seamen’s Church Institute (SCI). Located at 15 State Street at the very tip of lower Manhattan, it was only 350 yards away from Pier 1 where, from the mid-1830s and for the next one hundred years, many steam vessels would began their trip up the East River and across the breadth of Long Island Sound to New London or Stonington, Connecticut, or to Providence, Rhode Island. Like so many mariners before me, I was studying at SCI and taking my license examination as a second Mate Unlimited at the US Coast Guard offices at the Battery in New York. Other bells were on display there including the bell from the passenger ship SS Normandie that burned at Pier 88 in New York in February of 1942.

Seamen’s Church Institute of New York, The Lookout 1973 May (Vol. 64, No. 4) p. 15, SCI Digital Archives, accessed July 9, 2017, http://seamenschurcharchives.org/sci/items/show/1750.

Little did I know that after years of sailing, I would begin working for SCI at the Center for Maritime Education. My seagoing background, coupled with a career in the maritime industry, led to a more than casual interest in all things to do with the sea and those people that earn their living delivering goods and passengers from one place to another.

Monday, March 15, 1984, 0800, Eight Bells

It was my first day working at the Seamen’s Church Institute (SCI). Every day for the next twenty-seven years, in three buildings across the landscape of lower Manhattan, I passed by or under the ship’s bell of the steamship Atlantic. Now that in itself is not too unusual. This Atlantic bell was the one outside the cafeteria at 15 State Street location. It was moved to the lobby on the third floor of 50 Broadway when SCI moved there and outside on the top deck at 241 Water Street from 1991 until 2011. The bell hung on the face of the building directly above my office on the fourth floor. I was interested; how did this Atlantic bell end up in lower Manhattan going from building to building? Where did it come from? I also had an interest in the history of SCI. Eventually, I learned that this bell and SCI and many of the individuals that played a part in the story of this bell were inexorably linked. This bell, worn and weathered by storm and the vestiges of time, had tolled the hours for many years since it had been forged in lower Manhattan. It had begun its career on a ship, the steamer Atlantic.

The Ship—The Steamer Atlantic

The bell in question was from the wreck of the steamship Atlantic that sailed only briefly from August through November in 1846. The keel was laid on May 10 of that year. The steamship was the largest built by the shipyard of Bishop and Simonson, three hundred feet in length at a time when most steamships that plied the waters of Long Island Sound were around two hundred feet long. During an intense gale, stronger than any in the preceding decade, that same steamer Atlantic was dashed on the rocks off Fishers Island, New York. This story follows the advent of the steamship, the events leading up to the shipwreck and the path followed by many of the passengers who lived, and, unfortunately, those that perished when the ship ran aground.

Over time in my career, I became aware of and then fascinated by the both the ship and the bell. They reached back through history, intersecting at some point in time by figures in history such as Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Senator Daniel Webster or linked in some way to other such notables as a Superintendent of the US Military Academy, an Alderman from Brooklyn and the Secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missionaries.

As with any tragedy, identities of many people involved can be lost to time as memories of such a catastrophic event fade. In this case, some of those lesser known individuals have been remembered in the newspapers of the day, such as family of eight, originally from the United Kingdom, now on their way from a temporary home in West Newbury Massachusetts to a new life in the west, a Navy Surgeon back from the Mexican War, as well as other men of business and industry from New York and Boston. These people have certainly called down through time, and come to life, as newspapers, books, and journals told their stories. Sermons were preached about this vessel, and about those on board who died. These records of those on the vessel made the story of this bell more tangible, more poignant, and somehow more real.

As the years progressed, Princess Margaret, Brooke Astor, and Brooke Shields passed under the gaze of this ship’s bell that once tolled on the bow of the steamer Atlantic in 1846. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a vice president on the board of managers of the Seamen’s Church Institute while president of the United States and certainly passed through the doors and under the bell.

With respect to the Seamen’s Church Institute, there are literally thousands upon thousands of seafarers and mariners that have passed by, under or around this Atlantic bell as it hung in the belfry of floating chapels, churches, and seafarer hotels across the last 170-plus years.

Poems and the aforementioned sermons were written about the ship, its passengers, crew, officers, and the bell that bears the name of an ocean, yet that ship sailed for less than four months. G & W Endicott produced a lithograph of the ship marking its entry into service on Long Island Sound. Currier (before teaming up with Ives) produced a fourteen-by-ten lithograph of the vessel, after its demise, produced for a nation hungry for information about transportation by water. Copies of those lithographs can be found in the care of the Connecticut and Rhode Island Historical societies respectively.

A fledgling new ministry to the seafarers coming into and out of New York was just coming into being, which boasted two floating chapels, one on the lower east side at the foot of Pike Street and the other on the lower west side at the foot of Dey Street. The floating chapel on Pike Street was in one of the most notoriously dangerous areas of lower Manhattan. This was in the heart of Sailor town, filled with bars, boardinghouses, and brothels, more dangerous to life and limb than the notorious Five Points area just to the north. A chapel dedicated to seafarers right where they lived or stayed after getting off a ship or waiting for the next one was a daunting mission to be sure.

This mission ministry would one day become the Seamen’s Church Institute. The first Missionary of this organization dedicated to seafarers, Benjamin C. C. Parker, plays a pivotal role in this story. He worked hard to develop this fledgling mission. The floating chapel on Pike street was moored in the shadow of the many shipyards just a few short blocks to the north on the East River. The chapel was, in fact, built in the Bishop and Simonson shipyard on Walnut Street in New York City barely a year before the keel was laid for the steamer Atlantic.

1

The Floating Chapel of Our Savior

Monday, February 19, 1844, 1200, Eight Bells

Baptismal Font from Original Floating Chapel. Photo Courtesy of Eric Larsson

This was a big day to be sure. Rev. Benjamin C. C. Parker was very pleased with everything that had transpired since that day he had taken on the role of executive director and missionary for the Young Men’s Church Missionary Society of the City of New York (the forerunner of the Seamen’s’ Church Institute). The floating chapel had been towed from the Bishop & Simonson shipyard just a few days before and the painters, H. & O. Fitch from Pearl Street had just finished the day before. Mr. Charles M. Simonson was directly involved in the building of this chapel. Simonson was a ship joiner and was listed as having an address of 177 and 181 Lewis Street, a block or so from the shipyard owned by John Bishop and Jeremiah Simonson.

St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery had donated a baptismal font in the exact shape of a capstan on a ship. All white, the font was made from a single block, surmounted by a shell of exquisite workmanship, chiseled from the same block with the shaft.

First Floating Church of Our Savior. Reprinted with permission of the Seamen’s Church Institute.

The chapel itself was seventy feet long and thirty feet wide, capable of comfortably seating five hundred people with another one hundred able to stand. The roof at its apex was twenty-six feet high and was eleven feet at the eaves. There was a broad deck that made it easy to walk around—seventy-six-by-thirty-six and covered two boats of eighty tons each placed ten feet apart to prevent careening when the congregation might happen to be unequally divided on either side. The spire contained a bell and the top of the flag staff was about seventy feet from the deck. While floating, the motions of the waters were barely felt. A large steamboat or an easterly storm might cause some undulation during divine service, but Parker did not feel it would cause any inconvenience. Booms were placed around the boats under the chapel to protect against injury from adjacent vessels. This was a great day for his mission, and Parker was very proud. Here was a church dedicated to seamen—they would always sit for free—as the munificence