Fishing the Georges Bank has always been a dangerous job taken on by the Gloucester fishing fleet of Cape Ann, Mass., but nothing has ever been seen quite like the year 1879. That year, 249 fishermen disappeared at sea, 14 ships from the fleet disappeared in a single month – February 1879.
In those years death on the ocean was so common it was mostly in and around Gloucester where people took note of a fisherman dying at sea. But when 14 vessels from the fleet were lost, it was news around the country.
The Gloucester fishing fleet was legendary for the dangers it faced on Georges Bank, and the Schooner fleet had been decimated before. In 1862, 15 vessels and 120 men disappeared in a gale. In 1871, 19 vessels and 140 men. And 1879 topped them all with 14 vessels with 157 men gone in February gales.
Sources
New England Historical Society – http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com
* Noteworthy
1689 – William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
1867 – Work begins on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels’s primary river and creating the modern central boulevards.
1880 – Thomas Edison observes the Edison effect.
1913 – The 13th Dalai Lama proclaims Tibetan independence following a period of domination by Manchu Qing dynasty and initiated a period of almost four decades of independence.
1935 – A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.
1967 – American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.