Schooner barges Arkansas and Cogensville
There are many categories of shipwrecks, ranging from fire and storms to being attacked by an enemy or a collision.
Not on any list, but in the minds of maritime history writers, are “maybe they should have stayed in port” to “stupidity.” Of course, hindsight is always better, especially in view of almost a century’s worth of knowledge and technology.
Looking back, we shouldn’t criticize, knowing that most mariners did the best they could with the ships they had, the profits that were crucial and without the modern devices of today.
Definitions
Schooners were the most commonly seen boats 150 years ago.
A definition is a sailboat with at least two masts. If the ship had two or more masts, the foremast was usually the smaller one. Commercial schooners were built as early as the late 1700s, when Dutch, English and Swedish settlers arrived on the East Coast of the United States.
Some were as large as four or five masts, carrying massive cargos from Canada to the Caribbean, known as the Coastal Trade, or even across oceans. These lasted until the early 1900s, when even the most stubborn builders and captions agreed that engines were more reliable than sails.
Early coastal residents and visitors sat in the dunes or on the sand in full wool bathing suits watching one sailboat after another heading up and down the coast, mostly schooners. Today, sailboat admirers still own restored or well-built schooners, which are admired by all.
A barge is described as a flat bottom boat used chiefly for the commercial transport of goods under tow by another well-powered boat. Barges are usually mentioned along rivers and inland waterways; but many traversed the Atlantic carrying coal, wood, wood products and heavy cargos. A barge can also be defined as a motorboat supplied to the flag officer of a flag ship or a roomy pleasure boat.
Put together schooner and barge, and a schooner barge exists. A schooner barge is a schooner converted to a barge. To be blunt, it is usually an old schooner, not maintained, which has lost a few masts, and is good only for towing cargo. Without motors, they are towed by a tug or another well-propelled ship. Schooner barges can be towed up to three at a time depending on their size and weight.
Schooner barges started in the 1800s and lasted until the 1950s. They were very much a part of the Atlantic Coastal Trade. Old schooners were easy to find tied up at docks or in boatyards, just waiting for another chance to be put to use. Money was the bottom line. Schooner barges made money for owners and those who chartered them. The old boats could be easily adapted using few in crew. If a mast and sail were still intact so much the better to help with the steerage and even save a little money on fuel. In later years, with wrecks accounting for large financial losses, most commercial boat owners found that schooner barges were more costly than newer methods of shipping.
Safety problems
These old wooden boats got their second chance holding cargo loaded with heavy cargo such iron ore. The U.S. Navy took advantage of schooner barges and were frequently seen being towed close offshore overflowing with coal.
However, there were downsides to tugs towing schooner barges. The towing apparatuses often broke; leaving these schooner barges floating on their own in bad weather or crowded inlets and narrow channels. Set adrift, their small crews were at the mercy of perilous winter weather. Sinkings were frequent, with loss of life for those aboard. It was impossible for a tug to round up two or three loose schooner barges in stormy, winter weather.
By the 1920s, schooner barges on the Great Lakes were known to be hazardous and not used much. Ones along the Atlantic
Ocean and East Coast ports soon followed suit. Many an old hull found after erosion, or a good diving spot, is the remains of old schooner barges that were sunk. Some are unknown.
The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History has an article by Joseph C. Sweeney devoted to “Collisions Involving Tugs and Tows.”
“Tugs involving schooner barges bring up subjects of unseaworthiness of any of the vessels, improper length of towlines, and tug masters’ unpreparedness or ignorance. Every captain and owner involved must have deep Knowledge of Navigational of the towed vessel in collision, negligence clauses in towing contracts, shift of insurance coverage and waiver of subrogation, and collisions between tows and other vessels.”
Arkansas, Cogensville, tugboat Baldrock
The 142’ tugboat Baldrock was constructed in February 1919 at the Bethlehem Steel’s Shipyard in Elizabeth, NJ. Along with identical tugs and various other vessels, the Baldrock was built as part of the World War I emergency shipbuilding effort for the United States Ship Building Board.
On January 28, 1928, under the command of Captain Robert Parker, the tug was towing three schooner barges piled high with coal: the Arkansas, Cogensville and Nahant. These vessels were owned by the Eastern Transportation Company.
Adams and Seibold wrote in Shipwrecks Near Barnegat Inlet:
“The fickle January weather took a turn for the worst when a storm brewed just off the Barnegat Shoals. Captain Parker of the Baldrock valiantly fought the odds, as the hawsers strained with every surge of the sea. Aboard the barges, crewmen must have known they were in peril. Captain Ira Parker of the Cogenville and Captain Harvey Twilley aboard the Arkansas were virtually powerless.
“Their fate, and the fate of the men
aboard the barges rested entirely with strength of the lifelines that attached their vessels to the mother ship. The strength of those lifelines were sapped by the choppy seas and the 1,300 ton loads of both barges. Knowing full well that any kind of rescue attempt at the time would be dangerously impossible, the tug steamed northward with its sole surviving encumbrance.”
Unfortunately, the Coast Guard was unaware of the wreck. Captain Parker steamed into New York Harbor, dropping off the Nahant at Kearny along Newark Bay, and turned around to see if he could find the two missing schooner barges. It was assumed that the eight men (four on each schooner barge) had not survived, and that the two vessels had sunk and broken up. When the Baldrock returned to the scene, the crew’s worst assumptions were realized:
“All that was left was a ghostly sight. The masts of the barges poked out of the waves, bony fingers beckoning unwary sailors into the deep. No wreckage, no bodies drifted ashore. As more winter storms raked the offshore, the ravaged wrecks of the Arkansas and Cogensville rapidly broke apart underwater. Over a period of time, the masts slowly sank beneath the waves.”
The Eastern Transportation Company of Boston, which owned the ships, valued each schooner barge at $84,000. Tragically, not one of the eight bodies was ever found. With outcomes like those crew members of the Arkansas and Cogenville, we turn to the lyrics of the Naval hymn:
“Eternal Father strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddst the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep,
O hear us when we cry for thee
For those in peril on the sea! “O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at thy word. Who walkedst on the foaming deep, And calm amidst its rage didst sleep, Oh, hear us when we cry to thee
“For those in peril on the sea.”