The Hastings Disaster

The Hastings Disaster. - Peter Gilbert, of Sandy Creek, a sailor on the Corsair, now in port, loading for the upper lakes, relates that Stephen Wood, of Sandy Creek, early one morning late in the fall, on going out, saw a schooner apparently about a mile and a half out, destitute of canvass. He went in to breakfast, and on going out again the vessel had disappeared.

He took his glass and went down to the beach, but could discover nothing of her. When she was first seen Mr. Wood states that the lake was still enough for an open boat to go out, the blow having passed over. The vessel, rigging and all, was plainly visible, but he could not see any one on board.

The same person relates that this spring one spar came ashore below little Sandy Creek, whole, with top-mast and gaff top-sail; one spar, broken in two, lies below tis, near big Sandy Creek. A man by the name of Cyrenus Denney has some blocks which came off the gaff. David Orbro has the spar first mentioned in his possession. Thomas Gilbert, the brother of the narrator, says he found a human head frequently, frozen in the sand of the Creek, but it was in such a state as to prevent recognition. it is also said that some coal has come ashore there.

The inhabitants of that section have no doubt that the vessel referred to was the ill-fated Hastings, and it seems quite probable from the fact that no other vessel was lost on the lake.