The Frozen Lovers

A few days before Christmas 1850, a small boat dropped anchor off Jameson’s Point near Rockland, Maine. The captain was not on board; rumor had it that he had gone ashore for a drink, and not his first, and that the schooner’s owners had fired him for his hard-drinking ways. Whatever the reason, the boat was lacking a captain.

The first mate, believing strongly in the old adage “when the cat’s away, the mice will play”, had recently proposed to a beautiful young woman. With the captain gone, the first mate saw no reason not to enjoy the company of his bride-to-be. He invited her to stay in his cabin on the schooner for a few days.

Only the mate, his young lady, and one deckhand were aboard the boat on December 22, when a vicious storm whipped up and snapped the boat’s anchor cable. With only two men to guide the schooner, it soon ran aground on the rocky shore near Owls Head. The boulders held the boat in place, so luckily it didn’t sink, but it did fill with seawater. The three people aboard huddled for warmth on the deck. Waves crashed over the deck, drenching the three in freezing spray. Their clothes began to grow stiff with ice.

The first mate took charge. His plan was for all three of them to roll up together in a wool blanket and lie down next to the stern rail, as far out of the wind and spray as possible. The mate knew they couldn’t avoid the spray altogether, but he hoped it would freeze on the blanket and form a protective shell of ice around them.

His plan worked, but it worked too well. The waves continued to pummel the boat all night, and the spray froze into ice more quickly than the mate had anticipated. The ice built into a suffocating layer several inches thick.

By the time the sky grew gray with the dawn, the first mate and his fiancée were unconscious. The deckhand mourned his companions, but was glad to find himself alive at the end of that chilling night. He used a small knife to chip away at the ice, then smashed his way free with hands that bled from the shards of icy cold.

He staggered to his feet, and saw that the tide had gone out. A narrow, rocky bridge now connected the boulders to the shore. The winds of the storm still blew, but at least the deckhand could stumble towards dry land and salvation. He headed for the lighthouse at Owls Head. Even through the battering storm, the light still shone. A candle glimmered in the window of the keeper's house too. He fixed his mind on the light and headed for it, crawling the last fifty yards on bloodied hands and knees.

He reached the lighthouse, and the keeper hurried him into the warmth of the house’s kitchen. Shivering under a blanket, his hands wrapped tightly around a mug of hot soup, the deckhand stammered out his amazing story of survival.

The lighthouse keeper was reluctant to go out into the storm to retrieve two corpses, but he organized a rescue party just in case. The men found the pair curled in a tight embrace, and frozen in a solid block of ice. The rescuers used chisels and picks to free the storm’s victims. Everyone was sure the two were dead, but even so, they were rushed to a home near the lighthouse. In an attempt to revive them, they were stripped and placed in cool-water baths. Rescuers gently massaged the cold limbs, searching for the faintest signs of life.

In about two hours, the woman’s eyes fluttered open, and she struggled back to consciousness. An hour after that, the first mate stirred too. The two, snatched from death’s icy grip, took several months to recover. But in June, the first mate and his radiant bride stood together in front of a preacher and promised to love each other … ‘til death do us part.