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For centuries, lighthouses have helped to guide mariners in all corners of the earth, and to avoid the hazards of the near shore and rocks and reefs out to sea. But in spite of these stalwart bastions, and the dedicated men and women who kept their lights and fog signals strong in both clear skies and in the foulest of weather, many a ship still foundered on the rocks and sandbars along the shores. It wasn’t always the result of poor seamanship. Sometimes the gales were just too strong, particularly in the days of sailing ships.
The John C. Hanna, a three-masted schooner sailing out of Swansea, England, was but one of these ships overpowered by the winds of an October blow. The year was 1868. The Hanna was headed for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with a load of coal from the mines of Wales, and had been making good time. Three days from her destination, Captain Marcus Macauley found his ship unexplainably becalmed. Not unusual in the doldrums of summer, nor in the more southerly latitudes, this was most unusual in the North Atlantic. Captain Macauley was rightfully proud of his record of making port on time, and so he was concerned, but knew full well the old adage, particularly true at sea, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a few moments!” He was sure this unusual situation wouldn’t last.
Three days later, the ship had hardly drifted a mile closer to the New England coast. Captain Macauley sent his crew out in the ship’s two longboats to try to tow the ship forward. Rowing the longboats was heavy work, and in short order the crew was exhausted and had only progressed another mile or so. So then they put the ship’s anchor in the longboat and then played out the chains as far as they would go, then the men winched the ship to the anchor. This too was exhausting work, and resulted in little coastward progress. There was only one other solution the captain decided. They would have to pray for some wind.
Gathering his crew about him on the main deck, Captain Macauley called on them all to bow their heads in prayer. He thanked the Good Lord above for the creation, and for all the blessings and good fortune that had followed mariners at sea since that time, and especially for the good fortune that had followed him and his ships and crews on their previous sailings, and even more especially for the good fortune that had accompanied this voyage of the Hanna, up until now of course. He prayed. And he prayed. And he prayed some more. Finally, he finished with a brief reminder that he had never asked the Lord above for much, but if the Lord could see his way to send them just fifty cents worth of wind, they would all be eternally grateful. “Amen,” said the captain. “Amen and Amen,” repeated all of the crew. With that Captain Macauley took a half-dollar coin from his pocket and threw it far out over the taft rail into the calm waters below.
Nothing happened, or at least nothing happened right then. When Captain Macauley and his crew awoke the next morning, the sky was darkening and the clouds were building. By noon there was a slight breeze from the North East. By eight o’clock the ship was moving west at a furious clip. By midnight they had to reef in the mainsails. By eight o’clock the next morning, in spite of the several lighthouses along the Maine and New Hampshire coasts, the John C. Hanna was hard aground on the rocky shores of Southern Maine. Lighthouse Keeper Johsua Card, at Boon Island, the tallest and brightest light in that area, awoke to the sounds of the raging surf breaking over the hulk of the Hanna, fast ashore at the island’s northern tip. She was just one more ship, ever since the Nottingham Galley in 1710, that ran afoul of the rocks of Boon Island.
The crew was rescued, but the cargo and the ship were beyond salvation, Light Keeper Joshua Card, and those who followed him, and many of the local residents too, gleaned much of the coal from the rocks and beaches over the next several winters. Captain Macauley, a bit the worse for the experience, would go on to master many another ship across the Atlantic, but he had learned something important here. “If I had known that wind was so cheap,” he told his rescuers, “I would only have asked for a quarter’s worth.”
Docudrama/Fiction by John T. (Jack) Graham, Lighthouse Volunteer and Storyteller. “Buying the wind,” is an old theme, and variants of this tale can be found in the folk literature of almost all nations whose ships ply the seas.
This story appeared in the
Jan/Feb 2025 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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