The treacherous ledges known as The Graves have brought a few ships to grief, and the wreckage makes for a relatively easy dive.
This page is about the shipwrecks around Graves Ledge, or with a connection to the ledge or Graves Light. See our sub-pages for the wrecks of:
- Ewan Crerar, brig (1860)
- Hugh G., schooner (1908)
- Davis Palmer, 5-masted schooner (1909)
- Romance, passenger steamer (1936)
- City of Salisbury, freighter (1938)
- Mary E. O’Hara, dory schooner (1941)
- Winifred Sheridan, barge (1941)
- Lynn, trawler (1951)
- Arco No. 8, barge (1950)
- Baleen, tug (1975)
- Sweet Sue, dragger (1980)
The Shipwrecks of Boston Harbor contains an excellent interactive map, at BostonShipwrecks.org.
Boston Globe 1938 headline image courtesy of Wreckhunter.net.
Below is a gallery about the wrecks around The Graves.
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- The smokestack of the SS City of Salisbury snaps off as the hull of the wrecked steamer makes its final plunge.
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- A Boston tug offloads crew from the stricken City of Salisbury.
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- Tides and currents helped snap the SS City of Salisbury in two. The bow slid down one side of Graves Ledge, and the stern sank down the other side. (Photo: Boston Traveler)
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- The five-masted schooner Davis Palmer, left, under construction in Bath, Maine. (Courtesy Maine Historical Society and wrecksite.eu)
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- The SS City of Salisbury is broken in two on an uncharted part of Graves Ledge. Graves Light is seen in the upper left background.
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- ‘Storm administers coup de grace’ is the news caption on this original 1938 photo from the archives of the San Francisco Examiner. We acquired the original from the Examiner archives.
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- US Coast Guardsmen from the USCGC Harriet Lane search the floating wooden superstructure of the SS Romance for victims or survivors. The Boston-to-Provincetown steamship sank between Graves Light and Nahant in 1936. (Graves Light Station collection)
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- Bad news in the Globe. Good news is that nobody was hurt.
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- The stricken SS City of Salisbury, 1938.
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- The Mary E. O’Hara under construction at Essex boat yard. (Courtesy of Boston Public Library)
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- The Mary E. O’Hara in an icy Boston Harbor, 1930. (Courtesy of Boston Public Library)
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- The Romance was a lovely old ship for pleasure cruises.
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- Covered in ice, the fishing schooner North Star rescued the five survivors of the Mary O’Hara. (Boston Post photo)
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- A T-2 tanker similar to the SS Ventura, which sunk the trawler Lynn off Graves Ledge in 1951, with a loss of 15 men.
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- The ‘Zoo Ship’ breaks its back on The Graves. (Image: Jeremy D’Entremont)
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- The Ventura’s huge bow struck the aft of the trawler Lynn.
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- A news story about the terrible disaster.
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- The international crew of the City of Salisbury is evacuated by tugboat. Everyone aboard was safe.
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- One of 13 sister ships of the Davis Palmer, the Dorothy Palmer sank off Cape Cod in 1923. (Cape Cod Times)
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- The reverse of the 1938 news photo of the ‘coup de grace’ sinking of the SS City of Salisbury. This International News Photo is an original print from the archives of the San Francisco Examiner.
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- The wreck of the Mary O’Hara, with a salvage boat after the rescue of five surviving sailors. The survivors clung to the protruding masts and lines until being rescued by the North Star.
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- MV Baleen, courtesy of Wrecksite.eu.
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- Captain Ewan Crerar went down on the Lord Ashburton, depicted in this painting, in the Bay of Fundy in January 1857. His family built a brig and named it after him, launched in May 1858. The vessel, Ewan Crerar, struck Graves Ledge during a storm in 1860, and sank nearby.
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- The Boston salvage crew that blew up the hull of the SS City of Salisbury after it sank in the fall of 1938. The hull was a navigation hazard. See the “Dynamite” and “Explosives” signs on the cabin at left. At right, the diver is seated in his white dive suit, with his companion, standing, holding the bronze diving helmet.
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- This disaster tormented the lighthouse keeper, who was powerless to help.
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- Boats help offload cargo from the City of Salisbury as it lists to starboard, prior to splitting in two atop Graves Ledge.
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