WATERY GRAVE.

Long Island Sound Scene
of Tragedy.

    NEW LONDON, Conn. Feb 6--Tug Aries, owned by the Thames towboat company, reached port this afternoon after a hard tussle with wind and sea in her passage down the sound and reported the loss of the barge Van Santvoord and two of the crew.
    She brought in the corpse of Capt James Wynkoop, a mariner known to every towboat man who travels Long Island sound.
    The Aries was clad in an armor of ice as she entered this harbor, a fitting bier for the body she bore. She dropped the four barges she had dragged through from New York, and went up to the wharf to deposit the lifeless body of Capt Wynkoop.
    When she tied up at Chappel's wharf Capt Andrew Snow told the sad story of the loss of life and property. The tug that brought in the dead body also conveyed the brother of the dead man, the only survivor of three brothers who were on the barge. The third brother, George, went down with the barge, or survived in the icy water but a few minutes after the vessel foundered.
    The Aries left New York Monday night in good weather and proceeded down the sound, but when she got to Stratford the wind had increased to nearly a gale, and a terrific sea was running so that Capt Snow deemed it the better part of discretion to put in there and await a subsidence of sea and wind. The Aries remained at Stratford until about 11 o'clock last night, when the wind had abated and a start was made to the eastward, the barges being consigned to Providence and Newport, with the purpose of making New London if conditions of wind and water changed unfavorably.
    Off Saybrook light, about seven miles to the westward of it, at 5.30 this morning the fury of the wind had increased and a sea that lashed itself into furrows of foam and broke over the gallant tug and her tows threatened dire results.
    Suddenly the Van Santvoord begun to settle in the water and the tow of the Aries hauled harder than ever.
    Capt Snow heard shouts from behind and stepping out of the pilot house saw the three men who made up the crew of the barge in the water. Two of them were clinging to wreckage that floated away from the barge as she settled down, one on the corner of a hatch, the other on the house.
    The Aries, as the barge sunk and broke from the tug, went to the rescue of the seamen and took them aboard. They were almost exhausted and were frozen.
    James was unconscious and did not rally. In less than half an hour he was dead. His brother Andrew's condition was not so bad and stimulants and good care revived him. He could tell little about the sinking of the barge, though he was on deck at the time. His ears and hands were badly frozen and he suffered great pain. He was attended by a physician here and will recover.
    The body of Capt Wynkoop will be held here until relatives advise as to the disposition to be made of it. Capt Wynkoop was married and had one child, who resides with its mother in East Providence. Andrew Wynkoop's home is in a Hudson river town. He thinks he was in the water about 15 minutes.
    It is believed that a plank started in the barge, opening a hole in her that allowed a great volume of water to flow in. She was not leaking a few minutes before she went down, as she was sounded then, and no water of consequence was found in her.
    The tug Sea King, which lost five barges and a dozen lives off Point Judith about a week ago, strangely enough

followed the Aries into this harbor about five hours behind her, having made the run from New York with four barges.

Source:

Unknown, "Watery Grave," The Boston Daily Globe, Boston, Mass., Thursday, 7 February, 1895, pp. 1, 7.