Free Coffin Ship by William Henry Page B

Magazine , ‘The Shipwreck of the St. John. ’ Article compiled from material supplied by Brud Slattery, John Flanagan (both Lahinch), and Frank Flanagan (USA) (1996).
    Miscellaneous articles and letters from the John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection: Article by Robert N. Fraser, the Curator of the Cohasset Maritime Museum (1-1-1979).
    The Boston Irish Echo : Paddy Mulkerrins, ‘More on the Ill-fated Brig, St. John – Remembers the St. John ’ (14-4-1984); Bill Loughran, ‘More on the Ill-fated brig, St. John ,’ (14-4-1984); Paddy Mulkerrins, ‘Survivors found’ (letter to editor); Bill Loughran, ‘The Ill-fated Brig St. John ’ (14-1-1984).
    [ 3 ] Diary of Elizabeth Lothrop (11-10-1849, 25-12-1849).
    [ 4 ] Boston Irish Reporter : ‘Cohasset Monument Honors Famine Victims’ (October 1996).
    Brig St. John of Galway was Cohasset’s Worst Shipwreck , Cohasset Historical Society. John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection.
    Comber, H., The Book of Thomas J. Comber and Eliza Comerford (n.d.). John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection.
    Diary of Elizabeth Lothrop (11-10-1849, 25-12-1849).
    Ennistymon Parish Magazine , ‘The Shipwreck of the St. John ’. Article compiled from material supplied by Brud Slattery, John Flanagan (both Lahinch), and Frank Flanagan (USA) (1996).
    The Boston Sunday Globe: ‘150 Years Later, Honouring the Irish who Died at Sea off Cohasset Coast’ (3-10-1999); ‘Remembering the St. John Disaster of 1849’ (3-10-1999); ‘Those Known to Have Perished’ (3-10-1999).
    The Galway Vindicator : ‘Awful Shipwreck at Minot’s Ledge – Loss of St. John of Galway. About One Hundred Drowned – Men, Women and Children’ (3-11-1849).
    [ 5 ] Boston Irish Reporter : ‘Cohasset Monument Honors Famine Victims’ (October 1996).
    Brig St. John of Galway was Cohasset’s Worst Shipwreck , Cohasset Historical Society. John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection.
    Ennistymon Parish Magazine , ‘The Shipwreck of the St. John ’. Article compiled from material supplied by Brud Slattery, John Flanagan (both Lahinch), and Frank Flanagan (USA) (1996).
    [ 6 ] Brig St. John of Galway was Cohasset’s Worst Shipwreck , Cohasset Historical Society. John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection.
    The Boston Daily Herald : ‘Brig St. John of Galway, Ireland, Lost October 7, 1849, at Cohasset’; ‘List of Survivors and Drowned’; ‘The Burial of the Victims of the St. John – Melancholy Sight’ (12-10-1849).

VIII – Recovery and Burial
    On Tuesday morning members of Boston’s Irish community began arriving in Cohasset. It was only then that the full enormity of the tragedy was revealed to them. For many their worst fears were well founded and their loved ones were dead. Local people were already combing the beaches looking for bodies and the devastated families joined in the search. Fragments of the wreckage of the St. John , that included hats, bonnets, dresses, scarves and jackets, were spread across the shoreline. Breakers were still crashing angrily against the rocks and washing over a small section of the St. John that still remained afloat. A reporter from the Boston Daily Herald arrived in Cohasset during the day and gave the following brief account of what he witnessed in the wake of the tragedy:
    One of our reporters visited the scene of the lament-able catastrophe yesterday, and states that the sight was heart-rending in the extreme. The shore, for about a mile in length, was strewed with portions of the wreck. Some of the bodies were shockingly mutilated. The forehead of one the woman [sic] was horribly mangled; the flesh from the right leg of another was torn off from above the knee to the feet; all the others were more or less bruised, with the exception of one young girl, recognised as Sally Sweeny [sic] , whose person exhibited no injuries. [1]
    Henry David Thoreau,