AUGUST HURRICANES: 1635 & 2011

The year is 2011. Hurricane Irene is expected to arrive on Sunday, August 28th somewhere between the Carolinas and Maine. Weather reporters say it is forty years since the last powerful hurricane landfall in New England. We'll have to wait until Sunday to learn of the intensity and path Irene will show and follow...

The year was 1635. Anthony Thacher, with his new wife Elizabeth and four children by an earlier marriage along with his cousin (and new world adventure partner) Joseph Avery, his wife, six children and manservant, boarded the ship Watch and Wait at Ipswich, heading for Marblehead. No weather forecasts predicted the hurricane. 21 passengers and crew died as their ship was tossed and beaten on the rocks of a small island just off Rockport, Massachusetts. There were two survivors: Anthony Thacher and his wife Elizabeth. Anthony wrote of his woe to his brother the Rev. Peter Thacher in England.

Excerpts from THE LETTER...
"I must turn my drowned pen and shaking hand to indite this story of such sad news as never before this happened in New England....
"We embarked at Ipswich August 11, 1635, with our families and substance, bound for Marblehead... The next morning having commended ourselves to God, with cheerful hearts we hoisted sail. But the Lord suddenly turned our cheerfulness into mourning and lamentations... ut before daylight it pleased the Lord to send so mighty a storm, as the likes was never known in New England since the English came, nor in the memory of any of the Indians.... We were driven before the wind and waves.
"... The waves came furiously and violently over us and against us; but by reason of the rock's proportions could not lift us off, but beat her (the ship) all to pieces... and mind own children so untimely (if I may so term it without offence) before mine eyes drowned....
"... but by a mighty wave I was, with the piece of the bark, washed out upon part of the rock, where the waves left me almost drowned. But recovering my feet, I saw above me on the rock my daughter Mary to whom I had no sooner gotten, but my cousin Avery and his eldest son came to us... We four by that wave were clean swept away from off the rock also into the sea; the Lord in one instant of time, disposing of fifteen souls of us....
"... I was overwhelmed with water, and driven to and fro again, and at last I felt the ground with my right foot... and I made haste to get out... (and) crept to the shore, where, blessing God, I turned about to look for my children and friends but saw neither, nor any part of the pinnace... but I saw my wife....
"... we sat about an hour, almost dead with cold. But now the storm was broken up and the wind was calm... But my heart would not let me sit still any longer - but i would go to see if any more were gotten to the land in safety... but I could find none, neither dead yet living.
"...time and manner how and when I last saw and left my children and friends. One was severed from me sitting on the rock at my feet, the other three in the pinnace; my little babe (ah, poor Peter!) sitting in his siter Edith's arms, who to the uttermost of her power sheltered him from the waters; my poor William standing clost unto them, all three of them looking ruefully on me on the rock, their very countenances calling unto me to help them... Oh, I yet see their dheeks, poor silent lambs, pleading pity and help at my hands....
"There we remained until the Monday following when, about thre oclock in the afternoon, in a boat that came that way, we went off that desolate island, which I named after my name, Thacher's Woe, and the rock, Avery, his fall. In the island lie buried the body of my cousin's eldest daughter, whom I found dead on the shore. On the Tuesday following we arrived in Marblehead."

2011: Let us hope sufficient information, alerts and warnings have been aired and printed so that everyone in the path of Hurricane Irene will take heed, take precautions and take action to protect their safety and the safe well-being of those around them. Amen.

NOTES:
-Anthony Thacher of 1635 hurricane is a cousin, many generations removed, from our father/grandfathers Clarence Evan Thatcher, son of Lewis Ellsworth Thatcher, son of Nathaniel R. Thatcher.
-Thacher's Woe is now Thacher Island. Look just offshore on the Massachusetts' map.
-A subsequent Thacher (probably Daniel) added the middle 't' = Thatcher.
-A Google search regarding Thatcher, Anthony Thacher, the letter, etc., changes frequently. The beautiful webpage of Lady Katherine, in which the entire Thacher letter was beautifully presented, has disappeared....

Here are a few sites - as of August 25, 2011:
http://www.jezzmo.com/Legacy/myfamjun2010.66/7818.html
http://www.lighthouse.cc/thacher/history.html
http://www.thacherisland.org/
To read Anthony Thacher's letter in it entirety, see
http://www.puritanboard.com/f18/anthony-thacher-9616.
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