How many people survived the Titanic sinking?

After a presentation by Carol Starre-Kmiecik, who told the story of the “unsinkable” Margaret “Molly” Brown, a famous Titanic survivor, one of our patrons was curious about how many other people had survived. Ms. Starr-Kmiecik remembered that around 1,500 had died, but no one could remember the number of survivors.

The answer was in Andrew Wilson’s book Shadow of the Titanic: The Extraordinary Stories of Those Who Survived. 705 people survived the sinking. Wilson tells some of their stories, from Jack Thayer, a seventeen year-old who jumped from the rail of the ship in its final moments and managed to swim to an overturned lifeboat, to Dorothy Gibson, an actress who went on to star in Saved from the Titanic, a silent film about the tragedy. 

The website www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/ provides lists of survivors that can be sorted by lifeboat. According to the site, there were twenty-three other people on Margaret Brown’s lifeboat – less than half its full capacity. These other passengers included several other people from first class and their maids, two crew members, an a third-class passenger. One of the women, Mrs. Elizabeth Rothschild, is said to have snuck her Pomeranian aboard and refused to board the rescuing Carpathian without it.

Was there someone from Braceville on the Lusitania?

“I was reading Dead Wake, Erik Larson’s book about the Lusitania, and it mentioned that someone on the boat was from Braceville. Can you tell me anything about her?”

A quick internet search told us that Jessie Taft Smith was the Braceville resident in question. She was born into one of Braceville’s original pioneer families in February 1876. In October 1901, she married John Smith (also from a prominent family) at the Methodist Church, and the two moved to Chicago shortly after. John developed an airplane engine that the British Admiralty was interested in, so in 1915, he went to England and Jessie moved back to Braceville. A few months after he’d left, he contacted Jessie, asking her to bring him blueprint plans for one of his engines. We were able to find her passport application (including a photograph) on Ancestry.com. On the application, she gives “to accompany husband (who is there with passport)” as her reason for visiting Great Britain. John paid for her passage on the Lusitania.

The Lusitania began its journey from New York to Great Britain on May 1. On May 7, it was torpedoed by a U-20 submarine in the Irish Channel. Jessie made it into one of the lifeboats and was rescued by a British ship and reunited with her husband. She survived the sinking, but the stress of it took a toll on her, and she suffered a mental breakdown from which she never recovered. Jessie Taft Smith died in 1928 at the age of fifty-two. She is buried in Braceville Cemetery.

We found our online information at RMSLusitania.info, FirstWorldWar.com, and Encyclopedia Titanica. The History of Braceville Township Trumbull County Ohio by Grace R. Sells has a brief section on Jessie Taft Smith. We also have Erik Larson’s Dead Wake, the book that inspired the question. 

I'd Like More Information about the Pelicano

"My pastor told us the story about the garbage ship, the Pelicano.  It was filled with toxic ash from Philadelphia and then no port will let it dock.  I would really like to know more about it."  The Newton Falls Public Library staff found this to be an interesting inquiry and told our patron we would see what we could find for them.

An online search brought us to the November 28, 1988 New York Times article "After 2 Years, Ship Dumps Toxic Ash."  According to the article it's cargo holds were filled with " 28 million pounds of Philadelphia's municipal and industrial incinerator ash."  "The ship left Philadelphia in September 1986 as the Khian Sea. It was renamed the Felicia in July and the Pelicano earlier this month, according to published reports and shipping officials. . . After the ship was barred by the Bahamian Government from dumping the ash, it wandered the Caribbean for 18 months, leaving at least 2,000 tons of ash in Haiti before making an attempt to enter Delaware Bay. Its later travels took it to West Africa, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. It was turned away from ports in at least 11 countries, including the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. . . Earlier this month. . .a court document showed that the ash had been dumped." 

The New York Times article is not the complete story.  In the March 18, 2001 Los Angeles Times article by Mike Clary titled "Wanted: Final Resting Place for Huge Trash Pile - Environment: 3,000 tons of waste from a 14,000-ton haul is all that remains of years of global travels and no takers. Its barge now sits in a Florida canal."  Fifteen years after this odyssey began "the last of 14,000 tons of incinerated garbage from Philadelphia has yet to find a permanent home." According to this article, 4,000 tons was dumped in Haiti when the officials were led to believe it was fertilizer. "Over the next two years, it sailed through the Suez Canal, changed its name again and was finally spotted in Singapore as the Pelicano--without the remaining 10,000 tons of trash. . .In court in 1992, the boat's captain admitted dumping the ash in the Indian Ocean." After about a 1,000 tons had blown away from Haitian land, the U.S. Department of Agriculture arranged to have Waste Management remove the remaining 3,000 and it was loaded on another ship which sits off the coast of Florida. At the writing of this 2001 article, Waste Management had neither found a dump site nor had been paid for the removal.

We finally discovered what happened to the remaining ash at the website Philly.com.  On June 15, 2002, Inquirer Staff Writer Tom Avril posted "Traveling trash Years later, long-fought ash returning."  The final resting place for the last 3,000 tons of ash is The Mountain View landfill in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.

More information about toxic ships can be found in the Greenpeace report, www.greenpeace.it/Report-The-toxic-ship.pdf.

Is There a Wiring Diagram for a 21 foot 1976 Starcraft Boat?

The Newton Falls Public Library recently received the following email query. “We have a patron who needs a wiring diagram for a 21 foot 1976 Starcraft boat. Is there a library that has this information?” Libraries are very good with sharing information and on occasion the staff of the Newton Falls Public Library gets requests such as this one from another library.

We contacted the librarian making the inquiry and discovered that her patron did not need information about the Holiday outboard motor attached to the boat, but rather the diagrams for the boat itself. Searching our catalog, we found Outboard Motor and Inboard/Outdrive: wiring diagrams, 1956-1989 and Outboard Motor Service Manual. Since neither had the information needed, we expanded our search online.

Typing in www.OhioWebLibrary.org/smallengine took us to the Small Engine Repair Reference Center database. It includes manuals for All Terrain Vehicles, Generators & Other Small Engines, Marine/Boat Motors, Motorcycles, Outdoor Power Equipment, Personal Water Craft, Snow Machines/Snow Mobiles, and Tractors. Selecting Marine/Boat Motors, we looked at the Electrical System section of Powerboat Maintenance Overview & Information. From there we were able to send on information about auxiliary power plants, battery systems, bonding, lighting, making a wiring diagram, power plant lay-up, and shore power. We were also able to send the Intertec Wiring Diagrams: Outboard Motors & Inboard/Outdrives 1956-1989. Hopefully this information will meet the need of the patron. Newton Falls Public Library card holders can access this website from any Internet access computer.

If the patron is interested in more information there are websites such as http://www.iboats.com/. This website had a page which gave more details about the 1976 Starcraft Holiday 22, a 21.42 foot outboard boat and how to purchase a manual.

Why is a New Ship Christened with a Bottle of Champagne?

The caller on phone line number two wanted to know, “Why is a new ship christened with a bottle of champagne?” This is one of those practices that the Newton Falls Public Library staff is aware of, but never really thought of the reason behind it.

Page 791 of Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: a compendium of American folklore: from the Ohio Collection of Newbell Niles Puckett, under the heading Christening of a Ship; The Name of a Ship includes the following beliefs: “Christening a ship with champagne will bring it and its crew good luck” and “It is bad luck to christen a boat with anything but champagne.” The section also one that said “A ship must be christened with the breaking of a bottle of wine . . . to be safe and lucky.”

Library staff members remembered hearing of bottles containing fluids other than champagne being used. To discover if this was so, we looked online and found that the Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center has a website dedicated to Naval History and Heritage with frequently asked questions. Christening, Launching, and Commissioning of U.S. Navy Ships by John C. Reilly (Head, Ships History Branch)[www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq108.htm] relates the history of this practice back to 3rd millennium BCE Babylon. Later, Jews and Christians used water or wine to ask God to protect the ship. Ottoman Empire residents prayed to Allah and sacrificed a sheep and then feasted. Beginning in the 19th century in the United States of America, women began to customarily “sponsor” or christen ships. It was during this time that champagne began to be used, perhaps for its elegance, and has continued except for during Prohibition. Over the years, wine, cider, holy water, sea water, spring water, river water, whiskey, and brandy have been used.