View source for Polly (brig)

{|{{Infobox ship begin}}
{{short description|19th-century American sailing ship}}
{{Infobox ship career
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|Ship country= United States
|Ship flag= [[File:Flag of the United States.svg|60px]]
|Ship name= ''Polly''
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|Ship builder= Alden Briggs, Calvin Turner and Ichabod Thomas, Jr.
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|Ship completed= 1791
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|Ship homeport= 
|Ship fate= Swamped in storm 15 December 1811.
|Ship identification= 
}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
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|Ship tonnage= 131 [[Builder's Old Measurement|tons burden]]
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|Ship sail plan= Brig
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|Ship propulsion= Sails
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|Ship crew= 7
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}}
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'''''Polly''''' was an American [[brig]] that was swamped during a gale in late 1811 and spent the following six months adrift in the [[Atlantic Ocean]]. [[Edgar Allan Poe]] mentioned the saga of ''Polly'' in his 1838 novel ''[[The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket]]''.<ref name="Poe2004">{{cite book |chapter=The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym |title=The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe |last=Poe |first=Edgar Allan |year=2004 |publisher=Spark Educational Publishing |page=540 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0sJr1xPt30UC&pg=PA540 }}</ref>

==History==
''Polly'' was a 131-ton brig constructed at [[Pembroke, Massachusetts]] in 1791, probably by shipbuilders Alden Briggs, Calvin Turner, and Ichabod Thomas, Jr.<ref name="Briggs1889">{{cite book |title=History of Shipbuilding on North River, Plymouth County, Massachusetts |last=Briggs |first=Lloyd Vernon |year=1889 |publisher=Coburn Brothers |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyshipbuil00verngoog/page/n252 174] |url=https://archive.org/details/historyshipbuil00verngoog }}</ref> During her service life, the ship was home ported in [[Boston, Massachusetts]].

==Shipwreck==
[[File:Frontis--Lost ships and lonely seas.jpg|thumb|The wreck of ''Polly'']]
On December 12, 1811, ''Polly'' departed Boston with a cargo of [[lumber]] and provisions (including salted meat) bound for the [[Virgin Islands]].<ref name="doremus">[[The Passing Parade]] by [[John Doremus]], [[2CH|Radio 2CH]], 20:40 [[AEST]] September 21, 2010.</ref> The ship was commanded by Captain Casneau,<ref name="Howes1892">{{cite book |title=Genealogy of the Howes Family in America |last=Howes |first=Joshua Crowell |year=1892 |publisher=F. Hallett |pages=[https://archive.org/details/genealogyhowesf00howegoog/page/n229 205]  |url=https://archive.org/details/genealogyhowesf00howegoog }}</ref> and carried eight others: the mate, four seamen, an Indian cook,<ref name="Howes1892"/> a passenger named Mr. Hunt, and a 12-year-old<ref name="doremus"/> African-American slave or servant girl belonging to Hunt.<ref name="Poe2004"/>

Three days out, on December 15, ''Polly'' was caught in a severe [[gale]].<ref name="Grocott1997">{{cite book |title=Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras  |last=Grocott |first=Terence |year=1998 |publisher=Stackpole Books |pages=xiii  |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YD3FnOwPgBkC }}</ref> The storm capsized the ship and the masts were either carried away by the storm, or cut away by the crew. Relieved of the topweight, ''Polly'' rolled back onto an even keel. The ship was completely filled with water, but the cargo of lumber kept the ship afloat.<ref name="Marvin2006">{{cite book |title=The American Merchant Marine: Its History and Romance from 1620 to 1902 |last=Marvin |first=Winthrop T. |year=2006 |publisher=Kessinger Publishing |pages=189–190  |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q6RumhEtMzUC }}</ref> However, two people, one of whom was Hunt, were lost during the storm, and the girl was badly injured.<ref name="doremus"/><ref name="Marvin2006"/>

The survivors began to salvage the wreck for usable items. Quantities of salted pork were recovered, and the survivors ate that raw until the cook managed to start a fire twelve days after the wreck, by using two sticks rubbed together.<ref name="Marvin2006"/> The supplies of salted pork ran out after forty days, and the survivors were forced to eat [[barnacle]]s scraped off the hull, and the occasional shark and fish. The barnacles were exhausted by mid-April, but the survivors managed to catch additional fish.<ref name="Marvin2006"/> Stores of fresh water ran out after eighteen days, and water was subsequently obtained from a makeshift [[still]] made out of a tea kettle, a metal pot, and a pistol.<ref name="Howes1892"/><ref name="Marvin2006"/> Seawater was boiled in the pot, and condensation was captured in the tea kettle.<ref name="Howes1892"/>

Over the next 191 days, ''Polly'' drifted across the Atlantic. The hulk was passed by over a dozen ships, but none offered assistance.<ref name="Poe2004"/> Henry Howes, the first mate,<ref name="Marvin2006"/> was the first of the survivors to die, either 43<ref name="Howes1892"/> or 50 days<ref name="Marvin2006"/> after the wreck. Three other crewmen followed suit. Some references indicate the cook died at this time,<ref name="Marvin2006"/> while others indicate the cook survived the ordeal.<ref name="Howes1892"/> By the 65th day, only two survivors remained.<ref name="Howes1892"/>

On June 19, 1812, Captain Casneau and either the cook<ref name="Howes1892"/> or a crewmember named Samuel Badger,<ref name="Poe2004"/> were rescued by Captain Featherstone of the British ship ''Fame'', en route to [[London]] from [[Rio de Janeiro]]. The crew were picked up {{convert|600|league|lk=in}} west of [[Marrakesh]],<ref name="Grocott1997"/> having drifted over two thousand miles across the Atlantic.<ref name="Poe2004"/> On July 9, the survivors were transferred to the brig ''Dromero'' and taken back to the United States.<ref name="Poe2004"/>

The story of ''Polly'' is mentioned in an in-character footnote in Chapter 13 of [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s ''[[The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket]]''. Poe's narrator, Arthur Pym, refers to the ordeal as similar to the one he experiences in the course of the narrative.<ref name = "Poe2004"/> Poe's source for the material may have been R. Thomas' ''Remarkable Events and Remarkable Shipwrecks'', published in 1836.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Huntress |first1=Keith |year=1944 |title=Another Source for Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym |journal=American Literature |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=19–25 |publisher=Duke University Press |jstor=2920915 |doi=10.2307/2920915}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{1811 shipwrecks}}
{{coord missing|Atlantic Ocean}}

[[Category:1811 disasters in the United States]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents in 1811]]
[[Category:Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean]]
[[Category:Sailing ships]]
[[Category:Edgar Allan Poe]]