The SS Mary, above, ran aground, rupturing its hull, in November of 1876. All passengers survived, including the captain, John Benson, right, thanks to the efforts of the Mercer family bar pilots. Port Aransas Museum
What could we include in a great adventure story? A shipwreck? Huge seas? A chambermaid, heroic rescuers? A roaring fire after escaping death and misery? Drowned horses? A beach strewn with cargo for the taking? Strychnine? 23,000 pounds of dynamite?
That and more are part of the true saga of the sinking of the Mary. And it happened here. In fact, if you’ve ever walked out the south jetty, it is on your left, in the channel, about where the beach ends and the rocks go into deep water. Curiously enough, the Mary was captained by John Benson, the great, great grandfather of Mary Jo Brundrett Matthews, Ben, Johnny and the Brundrett clan.
The run from Brashear, now Morgan City, Louisiana, to Rockport was a regular route of the Morgan Lines. Depending on the season, steam-powered side wheelers made at least twice monthly runs, and depending on exports at the docks, maybe more often. The Morgan, Mary, Alice Taylor, Indianola, Woodhull, West Side, Union, Mattie, Nonesuch, Peabody, Geranium, Mabel and many more Morgan Lines ships carried cargo such as lumber and general merchandise to Texas Gulf ports and carried exports of wool, hides, horns, tallow, live cattle and turtles, cotton and even lead as well as passengers.
Port Aransas Museum/ Brundrett Collection
The Mary, a steam-powered side wheeler, arrived at the Aransas Pass (our inlet … with no jetties) at 8 a.m. on Nov. 30, 1876, after a night working its way south along the coast with rising wind and seas. The manifest included eight passengers, two horses belonging to passenger Sue Miller, 30 crew, barrels of flour, silk and calico cloth, wagon wheels, bottles of medicine (strychnine), a dentist’s chair and 2,200 sacks of grain.
The tide was running out and was at dead low. The high north wind along with the outgoing tide produced a pounding surf. The master, John Benson, feared that the 10-year-old vessel, which was heavily loaded and not in good condition, would swamp if he attempted to reverse course and return to sea. Capt. Benson made the decision to risk running the high surf and treacherous channel rather than maintain his position and be beaten apart by the waves. As he began his attempt, he struck a buoy and opened up the side of the vessel. Though he continued to try to force her over the outer bar, within 35 minutes the vessel had sunk to her upper deck and the boiler fires were extinguished.
Mark Creighton is a longtime researcher of Port Aransas history. With J. Guthrie Ford, Creighton is the co-author of “Port Aransas,” a photographic history book on the town of Port Aransas. Creighton can be reached at markwcreighton@gmail.com.
The bar pilots of the Mercer family took their schooner Doaga, to the aid of the Mary. After three hours of tireless effort, they were finally able to get a line to the ship. The passengers and crew were taken to the Mercer Pier and walked to the Mercer home. No lives were lost. A passenger, Sue Miller, wrote of the shipwreck 54 years later in her book “Sixty Years in the Nueces Valley.”
Sue East was married to rancher S.G. Miller in 1870. Their holdings were tens of thousands of acres. She had the financial ability and time to visit New Orleans often, and on this particular trip was returning from that city. She knew Capt. Benson and had traveled on his ships many times. She recounts that the voyage was over two days and the rough seas caused seasickness and she remained in her cabin. Her party consisted of her brother, Dr. East, and her children, her chambermaid and two horses. As they approached the Aransas Pass her chambermaid informed her of the bad conditions. As the ship started the run over the bar, she noticed water in her room. The chambermaid came again and said that they were sinking, and she had to get out of bed. With encouragement from her brother Dr. East, she headed for the ship’s pilot house and watched as the Mercer boys tried in vain for three hours to get a line to the ship. Eventually, they brought the sloop alongside and tried to get the passengers over to the sloop on a gangplank. Sue Miller fell in the water but was caught by the heel of her shoe. The sailors pulled her from the water and the sloop began the treacherous passage to safety. Sue made a point of the terrible cold from the norther as they walked on the 300-foot pier, which was only two 2×12 planks for a deck. They were dried and fed and sailed to Rockport the following evening. The Mercer men made numerous trips back to the Mary to rescue the captain and crew.
The Mary sat on the bottom of the Aransas Pass and was adjacent to the Mansfield jetty that was built in the early 1880s. That jetty, and the Mary, became hazards to navigation when the present jetties were built. A contractor used 23,000 pounds of dynamite to blow up the Mansfield jetty and probably some of the Mary. It was unsuccessful, so dredging and grappling were eventually used to remove the rocks.
But all was not lost, this disaster was the impetus for the Life Saving Station to be located on Mustang Island. Some of the rescues by the hardy crew of the station may be the detailed in another column.
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