Dead or alive! How a sea captain's death in Lewes fueled sensational story
“Capt. George Newton of the schooner Anna Shepard,” the New York Sun reported on March 12, 1873, “fell overboard yesterday morning while entering the harbor of Lewes, Del., and was drowned. The body was recovered.”
Capt. Newton’s unfortunate demise set off a chain of events that would end in one of Delaware’s most curious unsolved mysteries.
How Newton fell overboard was not reported. The hazards of a sailing vessel were many. In a strong wind, a listing schooner created tilting slippery decks that could easily send a sliding sailor overboard. While adjusting a sail, a wayward boom could sweep across the top deck knocking anyone in its path into the drink.
Whatever the cause, Newton was swept into the waters off Lewes on March 11, 1873. After the schooner’s crew pulled Newton from the bay, all attempts to revive him failed. The sailors anchored the schooner and took the captain’s body ashore to Lewes, where they arranged to have it shipped by railroad to New York.
An investigation by the New York Times uncovered an entry in the records of the Health Department that read: “March 13, 1873 — Permission is granted to the Adams Express Company to remove the body of George Newton from Lewes, Del. for interment at Port Jefferson, Long Island. Cause of death, drowning.”
The documentation from the New York Sun and the Health Department records seemed very clear, and the case of George Newton’s death appeared to be closed.
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A month later, however, the story was reborn when the Philadelphia Press printed a sensational story under the headline, “A Miraculous Escape, A Supposed Corpse Comes to Life.”
The newspaper’s account of the incident was reprinted in several newspapers, outlining how the sea captain died, the shipment of his corpse, and an astounding turn of events. When the train reached New York, some irregularities were discovered in the death certificate.
According to the Philadelphia Press, “It was at last concluded to open the [inner and outer] cases, and when this was done the man was found to be alive. The best medical aid was immediately called in, and it was ere long thought possible to remove the captain with safety to the Bellevue Hospital, where he now is. He is not only doing well, but there is every probability of his speedy and permanent recovery.”
Curiously, Philadelphia Press gave the sea captain’s name not as George Newton, but as S. H. Mills. When the New York Times learned of the story, the editors of the paper sent a reporter to follow up on the incident, and a search of the records of Bellevue Hospital failed to turn up any patient by the name of Mills.
In addition, no one at the Adams Express Company could remember reviving a man who had been shipped to them in a coffin. The Times did confirm that the dead captain’s name was Newton, and not Mills, but there was no hint of the deceased mariner springing to life when the coffin was opened.
Despite the New York newspaper’s debunking of the story of a corpse returning to life, it continued to be reprinted in a number of newspapers for several weeks.
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Journalistic standards in the 19th century were on a par with those of today’s Internet, and the newspapers at that time often ran stories that today would be called “fake news.” Although most of these stories were the result of sloppy journalism, some fake news reports were politically motivated.
Sensational articles that would boost sales were also printed by editors, who would not let the facts get in the way of a good story, The Times hinted that that was the case when it concluded that Newton was “no doubt, the unfortunate gentleman whose corpse has furnished a subject for the imagination and pen of a Philadelphia reporter.”
Principal sources
Sun (New York), March 12, 1873,
New York Times, April 14, 1873.
Wilmington Daily Gazette, April 15, 1873.
New York Dispatch, April 20, 1873.
This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: How the 'death' of a sea captain in Lewes became an unsolved mystery
