The Man Who Came Ashore
By Joan Russell Osgood
Cornelius Driscoll was born in the Port of Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland in 1843. He set sail from Ireland at the age of thirty arriving in Boston where he petitioned for naturalization. A year after he arrived, he married Ellen Gaffney who also lived in Boston with her family, and they set up their home there. Their children Edward, Hugh, Elizabeth and Frank were born in quick succession. Except for Elizabeth, who married, the three sons lived with their parents their entire lives, each working to support the family. Cornelius Driscoll died in 1927 in Sandwich. He’s buried in our town’s St. Peter’s Cemetery on Grove Street with his wife and children.
Sandwich – not Boston? How did that come to be? Well, that’s a big piece of his story.
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Although his name and story have largely been lost to history, he became a “legend” to those living at the time. A sort of folk hero, really. And this is where the story gets quite interesting.
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It starts in the winter of 1874-75. The Cape winter of that year was brutal. Back then Cape Codders were hearty souls used to enduring the usual hardships and challenges winter months presented to them. But this was different. News reports of the day quoted Cape natives as stating that never in their memory had there been such fierce, unrelenting winter weather. And indeed, in modern times it has been documented as one of the coldest on record.
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The ice floes that were steadily increasing in Cape Cod Bay were becoming more treacherous and difficult for the fishing boats, schooners, and brigantines to maneuver through and around. These vessels regularly sailed the waters to and from Boston through Cape Cod Bay and around the tip of Provincetown (the Cape Cod Canal would not be built until 1914). But on February 3, 1875 they became enmeshed and eventually imprisoned by the ice. Cape Cod Bay was frozen. Solid. From Provincetown to Sandwich.
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Schooner John Rommell Iced up in February 1875
Credit: Shipwrecks Around Cape Cod by William P. Quinn
The sight must have been a strange one. The ice extended as far as the eye could see…ten to twenty miles out from shore. Thick, thick ice ranging as deep as eleven feet in some areas.​
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The Sandwich Independent quoted a Sandwich native as saying: “first it snew, and then it blew, and then it friz.”
News reports varied as to the actual number of vessels iced-in, but most put the total at about fifty to seventy boats. Maritime trade through the bay was at a standstill. Word got back to Boston and the USS Revenue Cutter Albert Gallatin was sent to break through the ice and free the vessels. It was a futile task. Some of the boats that were frozen in at the edges of the ice floes were freed. But the problem, as described in the news reports, was that the Cutter Gallatin was able to make headway during the day getting through the immense masses of ice. But then at night--with the frigid wind and tide at play--huge, zagged ice floes blowing in from the Atlantic would again imprison the boats.
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U.S. Revenue Cutter Albert Gallatin
Credit: U.S. Revenue Cutter Service
So, there they were. As the days passed, the situation for the vessels became desperate. Signals of distress flags were flown. Wrapped in ice and almost hidden from sight, they were running out of food and coal to keep warm. Mercifully, some of the marooned ships were closer to land. As townspeople up and down the Cape coastline became aware of their plight, some trudged over the ice with sleds to bring food, supplies and clothing to them.​
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Among these ice-marooned vessels were fifteen fishing boats that had sailed out of Boston with seventy crewmen. They were not as fortunate. They lay frozen and powerless. No help in sight and twelve miles offshore of Provincetown. One of them was The Actress. Crewmember Cornelius Driscoll was on board.​​
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Ice scene Cape Cod winter of 1875, fishing fleet off Provincetown.
Credit: G.H. Nickerson, photographer, The J. Paul Getty Museum
As it happened this fishing fleet was stranded in the ice within a five-to-six-mile radius of each other. What could be done? Most of the fleet had few provisions left and had burned all their coal and anything else they could find on board. As the days and nights passed, the captain of The Actress saw no other solution for the survival of his men and those of the other fourteen vessels than to trek by foot over the ice to and back from Provincetown to get life-saving food and coal.
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Cornelius, “Con” as he was known, and two of his mates volunteered. They cut up their bedsheets to lash to their boots and began their trek to Provincetown. It was a monstrous task.
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The ice they’d be traversing was, by wave action, frozen in highly raised mounds with rough, sharp edges. Not like the sleek, smooth ice of Shawme Pond that those of us remember skating on back in the 1950s-1970s! Nonetheless, they set out.
With dogged determination they reached Provincetown. And then, struggling with exhaustion and frostbite, they returned to the fishing fleet towing a dory filled with beef, coal and flour.
As the Sandwich Independent reported back then, they returned to their shipmates with “news from the mainland, food from its stores. Hope for the future…How they cheered the dauntless three…They hailed their comrades with tears of joy.”
Although the ice storm of 1875 and Cornelius’ trudge over miles of ice to bring back life-saving supplies to the fleet is quite extraordinary, it doesn’t explain how he came to Sandwich. This, too, is a humdinger…the frozen landscape was not yet finished with Cornelius.​​
By March 1875, the fishing fleet’s situation was becoming more dire. The men felt they had two choices – stay with the fleet and whatever fate that may bring - or strike out for land. From their vessels they could see no evidence of human life. Ice, and more ice. And the occasional seagull. But on clear days, they had spotted our Boston & Sandwich Glass Factory’s black smoke pouring from its tall chimneys nearly twenty miles away. Seven men from the fleet chose to leave the ship and head for land. They decided to use the trail of black smoke from the factory as a beacon to guide them ashore.
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Cape Cod Bay, seen from the Sandwich shoreline, was iced over during the winter storm of 1875.
Credit: Sandwich Town Archives courtesy of Mrs. Clarence Cahoon
Mrs. Margaret Anderson Gibbs, native of Sandwich and wife of Ansel Gibbs remembered well the 1875 ice storm. She was 34 years old at the time. Her memories of the event were published in the 1911 Sandwich Enterprise.
She recalled on March 6, 1875, with many ships still held fast in the grip of the ice, a cry passed throughout the village. Seven men were seen walking and crawling slowly over the mounds of ice. It appeared they were headed for the Sandwich shoreline (it was determined later that this came from workers in the watch house of our glass factory).
None who witnessed the sight would ever forget it! The fishermen had tied themselves together in a line so that when one fell into the many ice fissures the remaining men could pull him out. She remembered that they were about 400 feet from shore when the ice gave way entirely. Some of the men fell into the frigid water! They grasped the rope tied around them and were pulled out by the others…a few more feet to go.
Finally safe! Our townspeople rushed to them with offers of coffee, food and shelter where they were cared for.
You guessed it. Among the seven who came ashore was Cornelius Driscoll! He and the other men eventually went back to Boston. No doubt to relieved and grateful families. They boarded the train at our rail station on Jarves Street.
But unlike the others…Cornelius returned. He, his wife Ellen, and their children remained in Sandwich, living on Tupper Road, for the rest of their lives. He was listed on our town’s census records as a laborer until in 1884 he was hired as keeper of the Lockwood Dredge working on building the Cape Cod Canal.
Cornelius Driscoll Family Gravestone
Credit: Ancestry.com Find a Gravestone
Why did he decide to return? I couldn’t find any information where he talked about this. So, I’ve decided to believe that the strong arms he fell into as he arrived on our shore and the whispered encouragement, kindness and care that he experienced on that March day provided more than enough motivation to make his decision.
Joan Russell Osgood is a member of the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives