Days before the Titanic struck an iceberg, a first-class passenger, Col. Archibald Gracie, described the vessel in a letter written while on board: “It is a fine ship but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her.”
Colonel Gracie’s journey on the Titanic had a catastrophic end, but he fared better than most.
He was on the top deck of the ship, gripping a railing, as it plunged into the sea. He said he was “swirled” under water before he got to a raft, where he spent hours floating on icy waters before being rescued.
The letter he wrote was sold on Saturday at an auction for $399,000 (or 300,000 pounds), according to Henry Aldridge and Son, an auction house in Wiltshire, England.
The auction house said the letter, written in neat, cursive handwriting, was addressed to an unidentified European ambassador, the great-uncle of the seller. The letterhead shows a triangular red flag with a white star and is printed with the words “On board R.M.S. Titanic.”
The letter was dated April 10, 1912, the day the ship set sail from Southampton, England. On April 12, it was postmarked in London, where it was received at the Waldorf Hotel. The Titanic struck an iceberg just before midnight on April 14 and sank the next day.
The buyer of the letter was based in the United States, according to Andrew Aldridge, the managing director of Henry Aldridge and Son. The auction house did not publicly identify the buyer or the seller.
Mr. Aldridge said in an email that the stories of the ship’s passengers “are told through the memorabilia” and that “their memories are kept alive through those items.”
The auction house had initially expected the letter to sell for up to 60,000 pounds, or nearly $80,000.
Colonel Gracie, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, was a high-profile survivor of the Titanic disaster, in which about 1,500 people perished.
He died eight months later, in December 1912, of complications from diseases, but his doctors and his family said that the real cause was that he had never recovered from the shock of the Titanic disaster, according to The New York Times.
After Colonel Gracie was rescued, he began work on “The Truth About the Titanic,” a book about his experience that was published posthumously. The New York Times review of the book said “there is something effective in the very lack of directness and coherency in the narrative.”
Colonel Gracie said in an interview with The New York Tribune that he had been on the top deck of the ship when it was hit by a wave that sent other people overboard. He managed to stay on and grabbed a brass railing.
“When the ship plunged down, I was forced to let go, and I was swirled around and around for what seemed an interminable time,” he said. “Eventually I came to the surface to find the sea a mass of tangled wreckage.”
He said he grabbed a wooden grating and then saw a canvas-and-cork raft. He made it onto the raft and began trying to rescue others. They eventually reached a rescue ship, R.M.S. Carpathia.
“The hours that elapsed before we were picked up by the Carpathia were the longest and most terrible that I ever spent,” Colonel Gracie said, according to The Tribune. “Practically without any sensation of feeling because of the icy water, we were almost dropping from fatigue.”
Colonel Gracie was an established figure in New York and Washington society.
His father had been an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Colonel Gracie was also a descendant of Archibald Gracie, who built the New York City mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion, in 1799.
After news of the Titanic’s sinking reached the United States, and it was not known whether Colonel Gracie had survived, his wife, Constance Schack Gracie, was reported missing for unrelated reasons.
Mrs. Gracie had not been on the ship, but had left town to avoid being subpoenaed in the lunacy trial of another society woman, Mary E. Gage, according to The New York Times.
In the days after the Titanic disaster, the Gracies’ daughter, Edith Gracie, was asked about the whereabouts of her mother, which she said she did not know, and about the fate of her father, The Times reported.
She said Colonel Gracie had been in Europe recuperating from an operation and had said in a letter that he would return home with a much stronger constitution.
“It is too terrible to think of,” she said, “but I am hoping against hope that he has come through the perils of the accident without harm.”
Amanda Holpuch covers breaking news and other topics.
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