From collection Charles Coombs Collection
Sch. ABEL E. BABCOCK
Four masted schooner Abel E. Babcock Schooner ABEL E. BABCOCK 4 masts Official Number: 106854 Flag letters: KJQT 174.5' in length, 37.7' beam 18.1' depth Built in Camden, New Jersey in 1891 Home port: Absecon, New Jersey The four-masted schooner Abel E. Babcock, a vessel of 812 tons, was bound from Philadelphia to Boston with a cargo of coal under the command of Capt. Abel E. Babcock with a crew of eight. Some time, during the night (between 3 and 4 am) of November 26-27, 1898 after coming to anchor just outside of Boston Light, as is supposed, in an exceedingly dangerous place, but made unavoidable by the circumstances, she dragged anchor onto Toddy Rocks nearly a mile from shore, northwest of Hull, Massachusetts, and was pounded to fragments, all on board perishing on the spot. No person was found who knew anything more of the circumstances than is told here. Ten ships were wrecked during the Great Storm of November, 1898: Columbia, Abel E. Babcock, Barge No. 4, Calvin F. Baker, Mertis H. Perry, Jordan L. Mott, Lester A. Lewis, Albert L. Butler, Amelia G. Ireland, and Clara Leavitt. The ten wrecks occurred in the now memorable cyclonic tempest which struck the New England Coast, especially the south shore of Massachusetts Bay, in the evening of Saturday, November 26, 1898, and raged with almost unprecedented violence for twenty-four hours, and with gradually abating force for twelve hours longer - two nights and one day. Probably this storm will longest be remembered and generally designated as that which destroyed the steamer Portland with all of her crew and passengers, estimated as numbering between one hundred and fifty and two hundred people. No such appalling calamity has occurred anywhere near by the coasts of the United States, or on the shore, for almost half a century, and it is doubtful whether there has been within the same period a coast storm of such Titanic Power.
