Bland
Simpson book explores
80-year-old Diamond Shoals
ghost ship mystery
On
the cold last day of January 1921, just after dawn, Surfman
C.P. Brady could scarcely believe his eyes.
Scanning deadly Diamond Shoals through a 71-inch-long telescope
from the cupola of U.S. Coast Guard Cape Hatteras Station No.
183, not far from the renowned candy cane-striped lighthouse,
Brady spied a five-
masted
schooner through the mist and spray. Fully rigged and with most
sails set, the enormous vessel lay foundered a dozen miles away,
firmly lodged deep in the shifting sands and in danger of being
pounded apart.
What caused the "Carroll A. Deering," the pride of Bath, Maine,
to run aground on the outermost reaches of the Outer Banks --
and what became of her captain and 10 crew members -- have remained
enigmas for more than 80 years. In his new nonfiction novel,
"Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals: The Mystery of the Carroll A.
Deering," Carolina writer Bland Simpson revisits the event and
those that followed. UNC Press is publishing the book in October.
"In
its day, the mystery "spurred the captain's daughter into an inspired
investigation, and a nation and the best of her sleuths and maritime
forces all followed her lead and worked to near distraction to
discover what happened," wrote Simpson, who directs Carolina's
creative writing program. "The families of the shipbuilder and
the captain and his crew all wonder still."
Rough weather prevented a Coast Guard cutter and a salvage tug
from reaching the stranded vessel for four days. Except for three
starving cats, which they rescued, boarders found no sign of life.
The big ship's two small boats -- a dory and a yawl -- both were
gone, as were her anchors and log. Her steering gear and binnacle
were smashed, and a sledgehammer was found nearby. Coffee, pea
soup and spareribs lay in the mess ready to be eaten. Eleven presumably
good men disappeared forever
The tale of the mysterious shipwreck was put into short form numerous
times by such writers as David Stick and John Harden and by newspaper
and magazine reporters, but no one had ever dramatized it at length
before, Simpson said.
"I
had been fascinated by the story since I was young and eventually
decided I wanted to write a book on it using techniques novelists
employ to make mine not only true, but also dramatic," he said.
Just tracking down most known pieces of the puzzle, even though
he could not hope to solve it, involved much detective work. The
writer read everything he could find on the subject. After poring
through the archives at the U.S. Department of Commerce with limited
success, he eventually discovered, after completing his first
draft, that most federal papers concerning the wreck and its aftermath
were stored at the Herbert Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa.
The library sent him copies of about 450 pages he requested.
Hoover was secretary of commerce at the time of the disaster.
The captain's tenacious daughter, Lula Wormell, nearly obsessed
with her family's loss, got Hoover interested in the unusual case,
and he assigned his top assistant to follow up on it.
Among voluminous information that emerged from the investigation
in subsequent months was that the "Carroll A. Deering" passed
the Lookout Shoals lighthouse farther south a day and a half prior
to grounding on Diamond Shoals and that a red-headed man had cried
through a megaphone that the schooner was in distress. On April
11, Christopher Columbus Gray, a Dare County fisherman, claimed
to have found a message in a bottle in the surf saying the vessel
had been captured and was being looted. Initial handwriting analyses
linked the note to the ship's engineer.
In June, the story of the FBI's discreet but thorough investigation
broke, panicking Eastern shippers, global insurers and merchant
mariners about possible pirates, maybe even Bolsheviks! Also that
month, the captain of the steamship "Lake Elon" wired the Department
of Commerce that he had seen the "Deering" on its last day, and
it appeared to be sailing a collision course for Cape Hatteras.
Word filtering in from Barbados that the drunkard first mate threatened
the captain on the voyage's outward leg to Rio de Janeiro suggested
mutiny. Another theory was that gangsters hijacked the vessel
to run rum up from the Caribbean for thirsty Prohibition-era Americans.
"To
me, this was an amazing story, full of heartbreak and far more
complex than I thought when I first heard about it and was intrigued
as a boy," Simpson said. "Writing it was like getting on a ship
and taking a wonderful ride. Even when I had finished, I kind
of hated for it to go away because I wondered if I'd ever find
one that good again."
Simpson spent his early boyhood in Elizabeth City, a river port
on the Pasquotank River, and is the son and the nephew of Navy
officers.
Besides teaching creative writing, he is author of "Heart of the
Country," "The Great Dismal," "The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey"
and "Into the Sound Country." He also is an accomplished pianist,
a member of the Tony Award-winning Red Clay Ramblers and a collaborator
on musicals such as "King Mackeral & The Blues Are Running,"
"Kudzu" and "Fool Moon."
Ship's
bell to be rung at reading
On Nov. 14 at 5 p.m., Bland Simpson will read from his new book,
"Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals: The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering,"
in Wilson Library's Pleasants Family Assembly Room.
The great-grandson of Carroll A. Deering, for whom the ill-fated
vessel was named, will bring the ship's bell and ring it during
the program.
Also planned are a reception, book signing and an opportunity
to view the N.C. Collection's exhibit "North Carolina Mysteries,
Myths & Legends," which runs through Jan. 19, 2003.
Copies of the book are available by calling UNC Press at 848-6224.
