FRANK MCFARLAND'S LIVING BURIAL

((In honor of St Patrick's Day and my Mom's Irish family, I'm reprinting this transcription of
the  newspaper account of the death of Frank McFarland, who I believe to be my great
granduncle. Like many Irish immigrants to Boston in the 1800's, he worked at construction jobs ))



Here is my transcription of the story in the Boston Daily Globe on Saturday, August 14th,1886
with the details of the terrible accident that took my great granduncle Frank McFarland's life
on the day before which, I just now realized, was Friday the 13th!  One of his two brothers mentioned
in the report was probably my great grandfather John McFarland . For some reason, the reporter
spells the family name as McFarlane:   

"Dead Under Tons of Land
Frank McFarlane's Living Burial
The Caving Ditch at Brighton And The Struggle for Life
The Successful Search For The Body
Cunningham's Escape"

The body of Frank McFarlane, who yesterday morning at 10.30 was buried by
the accidental caving in of the sides of a ditch in which he was working, was
discovered last evening at 5.26. He was sent about nine days ago to brace the
sewer ditch on Waverley street, Brighton. On account of the treacherous
character of the soil, which is of a sandy, gravelly nature, a skilful man was
required. Yesterday morning Mr. Grace, who is superintending the construction
of the sewer, spoke to McFarlane about polling braces at the bottom of the
ditch, which was about fifteen feet deep. At first McFarlane thought such
precaution  unnecessary, but finally decided to act upon the suggestion,
and, taking Thomas Cunningham, had begun strengthening the bottom of
the ditch when one of the men above cried:

"Come out, both of you, as quick as you can; the ditch is caving!"

Cunningham immediately ran towards the nearest exit, which was at the
westerly end, and McFarlane, after a moment, started for the opening in the
opposite direction. Cunningham succeeded in making his escape while, as
the result showed, McFarlane was overtaken about half way between the
point from which he started and the exit, and was buried alive beneath
tons of sand and gravel.

All the afternoon a gang of about sixty men, many of them without dinner,
labored hard and earnestly with the faint hope that the braces might have fallen
from both sides and prevented him from being crushed. As the afternoon
wore on and the loose soil continued caving and preventing rapid headway
this hope began to vanish, and at about 5.26, when John Coughlin cried,
"Here he is!" scarcely one of the immense crowd that had gathered expected
to see anything but a lifeless corpse.

At the moment the body was found two men rushed in from the crowd which
had been roped off by the officers, and, in spite of the detaining cries of those
in charge, made straight for the edge of the ditch, crying: "Is his name Mcfarlane?
Is he dead?" They were the two brothers of the victim, and had spent the
afternoon in a wild search among the hospitals and police stations of the city
for their brother, whom they had heard was killed.The grief of these two
strong men, both of whom sat around on the ground and wept like children,
was heartrending.
 
It was almost an hour after the body was discovered that it could be extricated
from the earth and timbers. When this was at length accomplished, and the
body of the unfortunate man was borne in the rough and brawny arms of his
comrades carefully and gently to the ambulance which was in waiting, sobs
and exclamations of pity arose from all sides. The hands were found to be
open with the fingers close together, like those of a man swimming, while
upon the face was a calm look, as if the victim, after a brief struggle with his
hands, had desisted and become resigned to his fate.

The body was conveyed to Station 14, whence it will be removed to 13 Coventry
street, where the unfortunate man lived, Although McFarlane was unmarried
and had no family of his own, he leaves an aged father and mother, to whose
support he was the principal contributor. "


My great grandfather John McFarland  had already lost two infant children and now with
the death of his brother must have decided to purchase a family plot at St. Benedict's Cemetery.
The burial didn't take place until a week later after the children were exhumed and all three were
buried on the same day,

Of the twelve McFarland family members on the list, only the last four are on the headstone:
my great grandparents John and Ann, my grandaunt Winifred, and my grandmother Agnes.

THE ST. JOHN'S CROSS OF COHASSET, MA.

((In honor of St Patrick's Day, I'm reposting this from March, 2012))


I've written before about the way some work of chance leads me to
encounters with places related to my family's history. Last month
I took some pictures in a local cemetery that I thought might make a
good St Patrick's Day post, a reminder of the perils our Irish ancestors
braved to come to America. But when I researched the story behind
a stone monument, I didn't realize that while I was not related to the
dead it commemorated, I was connected to it in another way.

A tall Celtic cross sits atop a small hill in the midst of the Central Cemetery in
Cohasset, Ma, overlooking a tidal pond. On the landward side is the
following inscription:

This Cross Was Erected And Dedicated
May 30th 1914 By The A.O.H. And The L.A.A.O.H.
Of Massachusetts To Mark The Final
Resting Place Of About Forty Five
Irish Emigrants From A Total Company
Of Ninety Nine Who Lost Their Lives
On Grampus Ledge Off  Cohasset
October 7, 1849 In The Wreck Of The
Brig St.John From Galway Ireland
R.I.P.

Edwin Victor Bigelow gives the details of the wreck of the St.John in
his A Narrative History of the Town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, published
by the Cohasset Town Historical Commission in 1898:

On Sunday morning at seven o'clock, October 7, 1849, under a heavy northeast
storm, the British brig St. John, loaded with immigrants brought from Galway,
Ireland, was driven upon Grampus Ledge near Minot, and ninetynine lives
were lost. Another brig, the Kathleen, had managed to creep into the mouth
of our harbor and to anchor; but the St. John was farther out where the gale
struck furiously and made her drag anchors.

The masts were cut away, but still she dragged on. After the first heavy thump
on the Grampus Rock the old hulk rapidly tumbled to bits. Previous to the
breaking up, the jolly-boat was hanging by the tackles alongside when the
stern ringbolt broke and she fell into the waves. Captain Oliver, the second
mate, and two boys jumped into her to clear her, when about twenty-five
passengers poured into her and swamped her so that all perished but the
captain. The first mate hauled in the captain, who caught the end of a rope.

Then the longboat was loosed and the captain with the first mate and eight
of the crew and two passengers scrambled into her, reaching shore at the
Glades. Many more passengers were drowned in their desperate endeavors
to get into the longboat which saved the captain and crew. Ten others, upon
a piece of the deck which was wrenched off by the waves, were floated
safely to shore, seven men and three women.

The St. John was only an hour in tumbling to pieces under the incessant banging
of the waves upon her. Ninety-nine lives were lost and twenty-two were saved.
One of the survivors was a young woman who afterwards settled in Cohasset,
marrying a man whose name was by strange coincidence St. John. (pp463-464)


You can also read about the aftermath of the wreck by no less an author than
Henry David Thoreau who happened upon the scene the day after the storm
as bodies were being recovered and buried by the townspeople of
Cohasset. His account of the incident can be found in his book On Cape Cod.

Now we come to the coincidence:

The wreck of the St John took place while construction was being completed
of a lighthouse at nearby Minot Rock. On page 463 of Bigelow's book, just
before his recounting of the tragedy, there is this on the lighthouse:

"It was finished in the fall of 1849, and Isaac A. Dunham took charge of it,
lighting the lamp for the first time on December 13, 1849."

Isaac Dunham was the first Keeper of Minot Light. Even though it was not
in service at the time of the storm that sank the St John, he was present in
Cohasset and part of the group dealing with the aftermath. He stayed 
at Minot Light only ten months, resigning in 1850 because he felt the
structure was unsafe. A year later the first Minot Lighthouse was destroyed
by a terrible storm, taking the lives of two men stationed there.

My great great grandmother was Florilla Dunham, Isaac Dunham is my 2x
cousin 7x removed, and many of his relatives qre buried in Mt. Vernon Cemetery
here in Abington,

And I wouldn't have known about him except for taking these pictures in
the cemetery in Cohasset, and then using two of them for a St Patrick's
Day post!