A tale of two shipwrecks

On a plot of land called the Mariner’s Burying Ground in the Rockville Cemetery in Lynbrook, an 18-foot-tall marble obelisk pays tribute to the terrible tragedies of the Bristol and the Mexico, shipwrecked just days apart in the winter of 1836-37 off the coast of Long Island.

Village historian Art Mattson describes the incidents in heart-wrenching detail in his new book “Water and Ice: The Tragic Wrecks of the Bristol and the Mexico off the South Shore of Long Island.”

“I first read the inscription in 1972, when I moved to Lynbrook,” said Mattson. “I had just gotten a letter from France, informing me that my sister, Irene Bates, had drowned in the wreck of her restored 19th century tall ship in a nighttime collision with a French weather ship.”

Mattson said he found solace walking around his new neighborhood and in Rockville Cemetery, where he came across the monument. He asked others — including the village historian at the time — about the incident, but no one seemed to have any more information than what was inscribed on the marble.

What Mattson learned in the years to come was detailed and interesting information about the largest incident of mass death in U.S. history at the time. “It was the biggest story of that decade, front-page news,” he said. “Walt Whitman wrote ‘Leaves of Grass’ about the Mexico, he later revealed. ... Currier & Ives did a print on it.”

‘White cargo’

The Bristol and the Mexico were cargo ships carrying railroad iron, coal and dry goods to America. To make money, and to fill any extra space on the vessels, the captains took on mostly Irish immigrants, or what they called “white cargo.” Both left from Liverpool, England, a collection point for those traveling to America, in mid-October of 1836.

The conditions on board were deplorable, mostly on the Mexico: people jammed into spaces no bigger than a kitchen table, some starving and many sickly. On the Bristol, immigrants traveled in different classes and were treated a bit better.