And then, with ghastly shimmer and shine

Over the rocks and the seething brine,

They burned the wreck of the Palatine.

In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped,

"The sea and the rocks are dumb,” they said:

"There'll be no reckoning with the dead."

John Greenleaf Wittier

The Wreck of the Palatine

A legend tells of an eerie spectral ship

That still haunts the waters off Block Isle

And those who have seen this ghostly sight

Are spellbound and must linger for a while

The tale relates that this old ship is an apparition

Of one that wrecked soon after Christmas in 1738

But is this a friendly ghost or a very dark demon

Today on this legend there is still very much debate

Some say that it’s the ghost of a British ship

Which ran aground on December 26, 1738

Her name was the Princess Augusta

And on board were the souls of 158

In one version of this historic tale

The local islanders assisted this ship

In another dark version they pilfered it

Set it ablaze and sent it to its watery crypt

Some say that the ship’s appearance over the years

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day

Has always been an extremely dark evil omen

Forecasting ill weather that’s surely on the way

But whichever version you choose to believe

If you wander near Sandy Point Rhode Isle

Keep on the lookout for the Christmas Ghost

She may just light up the dark night for awhile

©2006, Mr. Ed

The morning of December 26, 1738 broke calm as the Princess Augusta lay at anchor some 12 miles off the New England coast. Aboard were 158 passengers and crew, the survivors of the German Palatines who had boarded the ship in Rotterdam seeking a new life of religious freedom in Philadelphia.

But by the time the ship got underway, a strong tide and heavy swell had come up. The ship was soon fighting a heavy gale from the north-northwest, and as the ship began to show signs of breaking apart, the mizzenmast was cut away to ease the strain.

A blinding snowstorm soon accompanied this fierce gale, limiting visibility to only a few hundred feet. Attempting to steer between Block Island and Long Island Sound, the ship ran aground on Sandy Point, the northern tip of Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island.

Legend today tells of a blazing spectral ship that still haunts the waters off Block Island, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

And depending on who's spinning this ghost story, the islanders involved in this human drama were either compassionate heroes or hideous monsters.

The on-island version of this incident tells of the island residents' generosity in rescuing and nursing back to health the ill and starving ship wrecked passengers, who had been abused and exploited at sea.

The opposing version was immortalized by the 19th-century poet John Greenleaf Whittier, whose poem ‘The Wreck of the Palatine’ appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1867. In this poem, Block Islanders recall the wreck - and their role in causing it by villainously igniting false signal lights to draw the ship aground.

According to Whittier, they plundered the ship "Like birds of prey, Tearing the heart of the ship away, And the dead never had a word to say, And then, with a ghastly shimmer and shine, Over the rocks and the seething brine, They burned the wreck of the Palatine.”

A year after the wreck, the Princess Augusta, which is also known as the Palatine - apparently because it carried immigrants from the Palatinate – mysteriously reappeared in brilliant flames off the Rhode Island coast.

And it often still appears to this very day, the week between Christmas and New Year’s.