The ghost ship of New Haven is a legend in which the settlers of the New Haven Colony saw a vision of a ghost ship in the aftermath of a storm.
Legend
editAs the New Haven Colony was settled from Massachusetts and not from England, the colony had no ship and thus no way to trade except through Massachusetts. Theophilus Eaton and other merchants accordingly commissioned the construction of a 150 ton ship in Rhode Island. The ship's maiden voyage did not start out well, as the winter of 1647 was unusually cold, the water had frozen over and ice had to be broken to let the ship into the Long Island Sound. Even after the ship was freed from the ice it had to be towed into the sound. Upon seeing the ship's sorry state, the Reverend John Davenport is said to have said "Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these our Friends in the bottom of the Sea, they are thine; save them!"[1] The ship sailed for England with a cargo that included wheat, peas, pelts, and writings from Davenport and Thomas Hooker.[2][2]
After the following spring arrived with no news of the ship, many of the settlers began to view it as lost and prayed for God to show them what had become of the ship. In June a great thunderstorm came from the Northwest and an hour before sunset the colonists saw a vision of a ship in the sky. The ship sailed against the wind with full sails for half an hour. The spectators had a detailed view of the ship and watched on as it gradually vanish from mast to hull, leaving a cloud of smoke which soon dissipated. The settlers concluded that their prayers had been answered and God had given them a vision of their ship's fate. The story, as recounted by Reverend James Pierpont was included in Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana[3]
It is possible the vision may have been the reflection of a Dutch ship traveling to New Netherland which disappeared as the sun set.[4] Some UFOlogists claim the vision was a UFO sighting, while skeptics claim it is proof that supposed supernatural events are often bounded by the culture around them.[5]
Legacy
editThe story of the ship was told in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1858 poem "The Phantom Ship" [6]
References
edit- ^ "The Ghost Ship of New Haven Sets Sail Shrouded in Mystery". ConnecticutHistory.org. CT Humanities.
- ^ a b "1644 — The Phantom Ship". ColonialWarsCT.org. General Society of Colonial Wars.
- ^ Mather, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana (PDF). pp. 76–78.
- ^ Day, Clarence S. (1849). Remarkable Apparitions and Ghost Stories. pp. 63–64.
- ^ Ofgang, Erik (May 27, 2021). "The legend of the Ghost Ship of New Haven". CTInsider.com. Hearst Media Services Connecticut.
- ^ Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "The Phantom Ship".