Naming the General Arnold's lost sailors

Bob Jannoni and Lou Cook at the Burial Hill monument to the General Arnold casualties. (Emily Wilcox/Globe Correspondent)

The brigantine General Arnold was heading south out of Boston, carrying supplies and reinforcements to struggling Revolutionary War troops in the Carolinas, when, on Dec. 25, 1778, a northeaster hit the New England coast. Hurricane-force winds and blinding snow forced Captain James Magee to seek shelter in Plymouth Harbor.

It was a mistake.

The ship ran aground on White Flat, a treacherous sandbar half a mile from shore and safety. There, as the storm raged on over the long Christmas weekend, 72 sailors and officers died, most freezing to death on board, as icy waters flooded the hull.

Rescuers later found the frozen bodies of men clutching one another in a desperate attempt to keep warm on the open quarterdeck. Fewer than a third of those on board survived.

The dead were buried in a mass grave on Plymouth's Burial Hill, their names unknown. A monument there, erected years later, commemorates those who perished in what has been remembered as the biggest maritime loss of the Revolutionary era.

Now, two local men, along with a North Shore colleague, are trying to identify the unknown mariners so they can be properly honored.

"This is to get Congress and the Senate to recognize them like they would any missing-in-action hero," said Bob Jannoni of Carver, a history buff with a particular interest in New England shipwrecks.

Jannoni has joined with Plymouth monument maker Lou Cook and Ipswich author and editor Lenny Cavallaro in the effort. The men are familiar with the topic; they are the authors of "Solved: The Mystery of the General Arnold," a self-published book written last year about the disaster and its aftermath.

Going beyond the narrative tale, and unearthing the individual identities of the victims, is hard work. The captain hadn't had time to document the names of everyone on board before the catastrophe hit.

A few of the names have been uncovered so far. A survivor of the wreck, Barnabas Downs, whose frostbitten feet were amputated, chronicled 12 of the unknown sailors in his account of the grounding. On their own, the authors have come up with six more names, leaving 54 sailors still unknown.

To fill out the list, Jannoni and crew are checking historical archives and old Continental Army records, as well as conducting some genealogical detective work. For instance, "a negro" was an entry they found on a document pertaining to who was on board the Arnold. They cross-referenced that entry with information they found in a book that refers to a "negro on board named Boston Crocker."

They are also putting out a media alert hoping to identify people who know they had a relative serving on the now-famous ship. That's how they found Toni Turk.

Turk, the mayor of Blanding, Utah, is a direct descendant of Fortunatas Bassett, a 31-year-old lieutenant who shipped aboard the General Arnold. Turk, himself a genealogist, recently paid a visit to Jannoni and Cook in Plymouth, where he retraced the steps of his ancestor.

One of Turk's stops was to Plymouth's 1749 Courthouse where the sailors' bodies were brought after the tragedy. Many locals and tourists claim the courthouse is haunted by these men, creating yet another chapter in the ongoing mystery of the ship and her crew.

Cook, a former diver involved in historic ship salvage operations, is planning to erect two granite tablets next to the existing monument - one stone to illuminate the faded words on the original monument and another marker to name the sailors buried there.

"Do you know this is one of the worst maritime disasters of the Revolutionary War?" Jannoni said. "Abraham Lincoln said, 'A nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.' "

Jannoni, Cook, and Turk urged anyone with information regarding the sailors' identities to contact them through their website, briggenarnold1778.com, or via e-mail at bobbarb123@comcast.net.

Emily Wilcox can be reached at chrisemily@aol.com.