Beaching of The Elmiranda

Shipwrecks are very much a part of the history of sea-girt East Hampton. This is the first of an occasional series recalling some offshore misfortunes over the years.

Elmiranda, a three-masted bark carrying 1,100 tons of coal from New York to her home port of Portland, Me., ran aground at Wainscott just after midnight on April 21, 1894.

J. Everett Hand of the Georgica Life Saving Station spotted the distressed ship and by first light a line had been secured to her mizzenmast, from which the crew and the captain's son were taken off by breeches buoy.

In later life, Mr. Hand recounted the tale to Jeannette Edwards Rattray:

"It was my first experience handling the breeches buoy and my hands were raw from it . . . The ship's cook had got into the captain's cabin during the excitement and got hold of a bottle of Aquavit. By the time it was his turn for the breeches buoy, the tide had commenced to rise; the vessel was rolling toward shore with every wave, and that slacked up the hawser on the onshore side."

"When we got the cook as far as the surf, two big waves came along and buried him right up. But we got him ashore all right. He had a parrot inside his coat and the bottle of Aquavit tied round his neck. The parrot got wet."

"We put the cook into the old red fish-house by Wainscott Pond and he was fast asleep in no time. Condit Miller, who was in the Georgica station then, bought the parrot for two dollars. It used to swear like a pirate."

By the following day the Elmiranda (named for two sisters, Elmira and Miranda) lay inside the bar in a dense fog, with 15 feet of water in her, but she was eventually refloated.

W. Tyson Dominy took her pennant. It flew over his bathing beach pavilion in East Hampton for many years.