By TLCoston
From the Chesapeake, on New Year’s Eve,
A three mast
schooner heads out to sea
Laden with phosphate on a winter’s day
The Crissie Wright approached the Atlantic grave
Twenty below, the temperature dropped, gale winds
brayed
Snow and sleet battered the ship along with icy waves
Beaufort Inlet, Captain Clark sought
When the main mast brace began to part
Rudderless, the Crissie Wright foundered off Shackelford
Banks
There the vessel tossed about with each violent wave
“Lash yourselves men,” the Captain ordered
His voice barely audible above the winds howl
The deck and rigging covered in ice
Treacherous, each footing was a slide
The biting cold, assailed flesh and bone
Wrapped in sails they hid from being exposed
On shore, residents
looked on in horror
As the sailors
fought at deaths door
Bonfires they built; don’t despair
Take heart Crissie Wright, help will soon be there
Whalers and fishermen gathered their boats
Over the dunes they tried to launch
Ten feet high the ocean’s waves
Held the rescuers at bay
A loud pop was heard over the wind
The mizzenmast snapped and bent
A sailor was flung overboard
Later found handless, scalped and bound by rope
Merciless was this unrelenting storm
One by one, crew began to succumb
Two fell from their rigging into the boiling morass
Spectators, helpless, could only swear, cry and gasp
Finally, a break from the blizzards assault
The steamer Nellie B. Dey approached
One sailor was found barely alive
Badly frost bitten, he would survive
In Beaufort, they have a common grave
Locals still remember to this day
The plight of sailors and residents alike
The night the Atlantic claimed the Crissie Wright
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