The Wreck of the Sagunto

The east coast of the United States is an archaeologist’s paradise. Shipwrecks leave their treasures to be washed up on rocky beaches, human habitation leaves its mark, and the romance of the sea casts its spell over the landscape.

One of the evocative parts of New England coastline is the Isle of Shoals. This is a group of small islands about six miles off the coast, sitting on the borders of New Hampshire and Maine. The third largest of these islands goes by the delightfully odd name of Smuttynose. In addition to being the place where the pirate Blackbeard allegedly went on one of his honeymoons, Smuttynose Island has also been the site of a couple of tragedies.

One of these was the wreck, in January 1813, of the Spanish ship Sagunto. (At least, this may have been the name of the Spanish ship. It could have been the Concepcion. Or perhaps it was Portuguese. Sometimes the history of these shipwrecks can get a little woolly.) Whatever the ill-fated ship’s name, wherever it’s original port of call, it wrecked – hard – on the rocky shore of Smuttynose Island late at night on January 14, 1813. Apparently, the ship was manned by a crew of fourteen sailors. When the Sagunto broke herself open on the rocks and surrendered herself and her cargo to the crashing waves, these men were tossed overboard at the mercy of the roiling water. They made their way to the beach through a blinding snowstorm, following the promise of safety – the yellow glowing light of a candle in the window of Sam Haley’s cottage.

Haley, mindful of the ships that passed by the islands, kept a candle burning in his window for fifty years, until the White Island lighthouse was built. On that snowy night, the candle gave the sailors a direction to go, but sadly, not one of the men made it to the safety of Haley’s cottage. Although a few made it all the way to the stone wall that encircled the cottage, they all froze to death during that long, cold, blustery night. Haley, warm and safe, knew nothing of the drama playing out just yards from his front door.

After the wreck, the men were buried right there on the beach where they had perished. Crates of cargo, raisins and almonds from Spain, washed up on the shore in the coming days. A watch, stopped at four o’clock, was found on the sand, fixing the time of the disaster.

In the spring, Sam Haley went exploring on the beach and found more treasure – a cache of silver ingots. Again, it’s not really clear whether this silver was part of the Sagunto’s (or Concepcion’s) cargo, or if it was perhaps some buried treasure left behind by a pirate crew. Haley used four of the ingots to fund the construction of a breakwater to connect Smuttynose with Malaga Island. Other treasure hunters later found silver coins lodged in the rocks on the shore of the island.

Now, the ghostly apparition of the ship appears just off Smuttynose every January, around the anniversary of the wreck. The island is also haunted by both Blackbeard and one of his many wives. The pirate is either searching for his treasure or protecting it, and his wife is seen as a misty white figure or an apparition wearing a white dress. Blackbeard abandoned that particular wife on one of the Isles of Shoals, and sometimes the woman’s ghost simply manifests as a whisper on the breeze, murmuring “He will return.”