Analysis of Two Texts

FICTIONAL PORTRAYAL HISTORICAL ACCOUNT

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WRITTEN RESPONSE: How did the fiction author use or alter history?

The Wreck of the HesperusBY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

It was the schooner Hesperus,That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blowThe smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailòr,Had sailed to the Spanish Main,“I pray thee, put into yonder port,

For I fear a hurricane.“Last night, the moon had a golden ring,

And to-night no moon we see!”The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,

And a scornful laugh laughed he.Colder and louder blew the wind,

A gale from the Northeast,The snow fell hissing in the brine,And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amainThe vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,Then leaped her cable’s length.

“Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr,And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest galeThat ever wind did blow.”

He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coatAgainst the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,And bound her to the mast.

“O father! I hear the church-bells ring,Oh say, what may it be?”

“‘It is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!”And he steered for the open sea.

“O father! I hear the sound of guns,Oh say, what may it be?”

“Some ship in distress, that cannot liveIn such an angry sea!”

“O father! I see a gleaming light,Oh say, what may it be?”

But the father answered never a word,A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,With his face turned to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snowOn his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayedThat savèd she might be;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the waveOn the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,Through the whistling sleet and snow,Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept

Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.And ever the fitful gusts between

A sound came from the land;It was the sound of the trampling surfOn the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crewLike icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy wavesLooked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks, they gored her sideLike the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,With the masts went by the board;

Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair,Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,In the midnight and the snow!

Christ save us all from a death like this,On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

MARCH 11, 1888 : GREAT BLIZZARD OF ’88 HITS EAST COAST

On this day in 1888, one of the worst blizzards in American history strikes the Northeast, killing more than 400 people and dumping as much as 55 inches of snow in some areas. New York City ground to a near halt in the face of massive snow drifts and powerful winds from the storm. At the time, approximately one in every four Americans lived in the area between Washington D.C. and Maine, the area affected by the Great Blizzard of 1888.

On March 10, temperatures in the Northeast hovered in the mid-50s. But on March 11, cold Arctic air from Canada collided with Gulf air from the south and temperatures plunged. Rain turned to snow and winds reached hurricane-strength levels. By midnight on March 11, gusts were recorded at 85 miles per hour in New York City. Along with heavy snow, there was a complete whiteout in the city when the residents awoke the next morning.

Despite drifts that reached the second story of some buildings, many city residents trudged out to New York’s elevated trains to go to work, only to find many of them blocked by snow drifts and unable to move. Up to 15,000 people were stranded on the elevated trains; in many areas, enterprising people with ladders offered to rescue the passengers for a small fee. In addition to the trains, telegraph lines, water mains and gas lines were also located above ground. Each was no match for the powerful blizzard, freezing and then becoming inaccessible to repair crews. Simply walking the streets was perilous. In fact, only 30 people out of 1,000 were able to make it to the New York Stock Exchange for work; Wall Street was forced to close for three straight days. There were also several instances of people collapsing in snow drifts and dying, including Senator Roscoe Conkling, New York’s Republican Party leader.

Many New Yorkers camped out in hotel lobbies waiting for the worst of the blizzard to pass. Mark Twain was in New York at the time and was stranded at his hotel for several days. P.T. Barnum entertained some of the stranded at Madison Square Garden. The East River, running between Manhattan and Queens, froze over, an extremely rare occurrence. This inspired some brave souls to cross the river on foot, which proved a terrible mistake when the tides changed and broke up the ice, stranding the adventurers on ice floes. Overall, about 200 people were killed by the blizzard in New York City alone.

But New York was not the only area to suffer. Along the Atlantic coast, hundreds of boats were sunk in the high winds and heavy waves. The snowfall totals north of New York City were historic: Keene, New Hampshire, received 36 inches; New Haven, Connecticut, got 45 inches; and Troy, New York, was hit by 55 inches of snow over 3 days. In addition, thousands of wild and farm animals froze to death in the blizzard.

In the wake of the storm, officials realized the dangers of above-ground telegraph, water and gas lines and moved them below ground. In New York City, a similar determination was made about the trains, and within 10 years, construction began on an underground subway system that is still in use today.

Norman's Woe (Gloucester Harbor) Location, History, and Legends

http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/ccarlsen/poetry/gloucester/normanswoehistory.htm

Location and Description

The rock and reef of Norman’s Woe are a short distance from the westernmost point of Gloucester’s outer harbor. Norman’s Woe can best be seen from

Hammond Castle on Hesperus Ave., off route 127 in Gloucester.  

History and LegendsThere is no clear record of how Norman’s Woe got its name. Tradition tells that a man named Norman was shipwrecked and lost there, and it is for him the rock and reef are named. John J. Babson’s history of Gloucester notes that Goodman

Norman and his son settled the headland near the islet.

The history of uninhabited Norman’s Woe is the history of its many shipwrecks. One noted shipwreck was of the “Rebecca Ann” in March, 1823. In a snowstorm, all ten crewmembers were swept out to sea, and one survived by holding on to a rock in the water. Perhaps the most famous shipwreck at Norman’s Woe was of

the schooner “Favorite” out of Wiscasset, Maine, in December 1839. Twenty bodies washed ashore, among them that of an older woman lashed to a piece of

the ship.