In October 1836, the 179-ton, three-masted American
barque Mexico left Liverpool, England for New York,
filled with cargo and immigrants, most of them Irish.
The ship reached the entrance to New York Harbor
after a stormy, 69-day crossing, and waited for a pilot to
lead the ship into port. But it was New Year's Eve, and
the pilots were celebrating in a Manhattan tavern. A
storm arose, driving the ship back out to sea and onto a
sandbar just 200 yards off Long Beach. The temperature
fell to 3 degrees above zero. Captain Raynor Rock Smith
of Freeport made the only rescue attempt. Shockingly
the captain and crew jumped into Smith's boat, leaving
115 people behind to freeze to death overnight on the
deck of the Mexico. Almost half of the victims were
women and children. Their unclaimed bodies are buried
in a mass grave in Lynbrook. Poet Walt Whitman wrote
about this wreck in his famous poem, Leaves of Grass.
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