Underwater New York

The Last Days of the Princess Anne by Claire Shefchik

On February 2, 1920, the Princess Anne, en route from Norfolk, Virginia, ran aground off Rockaway Beach while entering New York Harbor. After sending a distress call, all 175 passengers aboard were evacuated safely. The crew, however, insisted on remaining aboard until they could be allowed to retrieve all luggages from below decks. For nine days, the Princess Anne sat in the harbor with the crew aboard before the hull began to crack, and they at last agreed to be rescued. The site of the wreck remained undisturbed until 1957, when a dive team recovered not only the little remaining luggage but a journal describing the nine days previous, left behind by the registered shipboard nurse, a Miss Agnes Channing (a.k.a. Mrs. Charles G. O’Shea, Jr.), 26, of Queens Village, N.Y. and lately a Red Cross veteran of the Italian theatre.

Day One

We made the decision to stay behind actually rather quickly. Less breezy was the consensus about how to pass the time.  Certainly, the motionless steam-hulk under us gave up a certain post-apocalyptic feel, and indeed, a percentage of us voted to act as if we’d motored to the end of the world. Others were keen to evoke the air of an officers’ club, in the Rue St. Denis perhaps, one glimpsed through the slatted-wood doors but whose mysteries never had been revealed; the purple smoke and pinkish satin of its milkmaid-prostitutes, spread over the banquettes at the height of their art for one.

I for one, felt compelled to give in to my own drive to craft a parallel world. But I also recognized the weight of my civilizing influence, was just about the men’s sole anchor. Thus I proposed a rotating schedule, to begin today, in appropriate east-meets-west fashion, with tea-parties and sewing circles, taking turns with chiffon handkerchiefs and cricket games, our repertories drawn from the church picnic songbooks at First Presbyterian of Queens Village. The crew promptly concurred.

Afterward, in the forecastle I explained my reasoning to the barkeep, the young Virginian Mr. Freddy Heatherton. I suspect that we shall find scarcely a minute, as this strange sojourn lags on, between all the accompanying rum raves, bourbon blasts, whiskey socials, happy hours, pig-and-whistles, nightcaps, pub games and grog nights, for the enactment of stimulating exercises and revues, for the edification of us all.

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Tags: Claire Shefchik, Rockaway, The Princess Anne