Down to the Sea

For My sister, who lives on Lawson Terrace 

 
   A man should be careful what he names after himself. Children are most problematic. Though some sons exceed their fathers, others ruin the family name with wine, women, and song.  Astronomers are safer in naming stars after themselves but even a star will eventually become a black hole. Thomas W. Lawson must have had some regrets when his eponymous ship sank in a storm on this day in 1907.
   The Thomas W. Lawson was a seven masted-schooner, the largest sailing ship in the world without an auxiliary engine. Steam powered sailing ships had been crossing the Atlantic for almost a century, but Thomas Lawson, a Boston stockbroker thought he could turn a profit with a large cargo ship without the expense of an engine and the fuel to power it.
   The ship had been built in 1901 in Weymouth, Mass. For her first several years she hauled coal up and down the east coast, but because of her deep draft, she was not able to carry a full load. She was also difficult to sail. Some critics described her as handling like a tub, others, like a beached whale.
    In late November, 1907, the Lawson started on her first transatlantic voyage, bound for London with a load of paraffin oil. Her new captain had to replace six of his seamen who had quit over a wage dispute. The new men weren't trained seamen and did not speak fluent English.
   It was a stormy crossing and a navigation error brought the ship to the Isles of Scilly off the southwest coast of England. By now the ship had lost most of her sails and all but one of her lifeboats. A hatch had been breached and the pump was not working. A gale was forecast and the islanders offered to take the crew off, but the captain refused. A pilot from the islands came aboard and called for a tug from Cornwall, but the seas were too high for the tug to leave port.
   During the night, the ship's anchor chains broke and the ship was pounded against the rocks. All seven masts broke off and fell into the sea, along with the crewmen who had climbed into the rigging. The next morning the pilot's son came out looking for his father. He found the captain and engineer huddled on a rock.  The other 16 crewmembers and the pilot were lost.
    The man Lawson was as interesting as his ship. Born in Charlestown, Mass. in 1857, he rose from poverty to become a billionaire in his day's dollars though stock brokerage; some would say stock manipulation. His downfall came when he wrote an exposë of his fellow manipulators. They revenged themselves by droving his stock down and Lawson died in the same poverty he had come up from.

The Thomas W. Lawson, lost off the Isles of Scilly, December 14, 1907.

Lawson Tower, Scituate, Mass. Still standing.