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| NOAA Photo Library - Homes
Destroyed by the Storm Surge - Galveston, TX 1900 |
1900 Storm coffin story a myth?
GALVESTON — It swept across this barrier island
103 years ago today, the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, a
hurricane that brought an end to 3,600 buildings and more than 6,000
lives.
The Great Storm’s winds blew at more than 130 mph and the storm surge
reached 15.7 feet at its pinnacle — 7 feet above the island’s highest
point at the time.
As is the case with any historic event, a multitude of personal tales
and odd events have endured, adding color and intrigue to the Great
Storm’s infamy.
 Descendants
of those who witnessed the 1900 hurricane tell of ships washed ashore
and ancestors trapped beneath buildings, many of the stories
culminating in a heroic flourish. But one story more than the
thousands of others gained international notoriety — the legend of
actor Charles Coghlan endures five score after the event, a story so
bizarre it’s retold from books dedicated to strange coincidence to Web
sites given to tales of the paranormal.
Legend claims Coghlan, an Irish-born actor of significant fame in the
late 1800s, died while performing in Galveston on Nov. 27, 1899.
Published versions of the story differ regarding the type of casket
that held Coghlan’s remains, but the stories agree that he was buried
in Galveston.
The Great Storm, according to the tale, unearthed Coghlan’s coffin and
washed it out to sea. Eight years later, the legend says, Coghlan’s
coffin was found by fishermen near his rented home on Prince Edward
Island, Canada, where he was identified by an inscribed metal
nameplate on the casket.
One version of the story appeared in a 1979 book by Alan Vaughn; a
slightly different telling is published on a Web site called
Paranormal Canada. The tale is also told — with minor differences in
detail — on dozens of independent Web sites.
The legend spread after the story was widely published as a Ripley’s
Believe It or Not syndicated feature. It was republished and discussed
at length in Ripley’s first book, published in 1929.
The original Ripley feature said: “Charles Coghlan comes home! He died
in 1899 and was buried in Galveston. When the tragic flood came his
coffin was washed out to sea and the Gulf Stream carried him around
Florida and up the coast to Prince Edward Island — 2,000 miles distant
— where he lived.”
Charles Burney Ward wrote for the Ripley book that Coghlan’s daughter
had searched unsuccessfully for 27 years for her father’s remains
until she saw the Ripley feature in the Saturday Evening Post. As Ward
told it, Coghlan’s daughter demanded to know where Ripley got his
information. Ripley attributed the story to famous Shakespearean actor
Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, a contemporary and friend of Coghlan’s.
Ripley Entertainment spokesman Edward Meyer said the Coghlan story is
one of Ripley’s best known. “We’ve had a lot of questions about this
over the years, but mostly from Prince Edward Island,” Meyer said.
“It’s definitely a well established part of Ripley lore.”
But is it true? “Everything that Ripley printed we stand behind as
true to the best of our knowledge,” Meyer said.
The legend, as told and retold, often contains obvious falsehoods.
Some accounts claim Coghlan was born on Prince Edward Island, but both
The New York Times and The Galveston Daily News reported in the
actor’s obituaries that he was born in Ireland. It is also claimed
that Coghlan died on stage in Galveston while performing as Hamlet,
but again newspaper accounts of the day contradict the legend.
The Daily News reported on Nov. 28, 1899, that Coghlan had been
staying at the Tremont Hotel for about a month.
Although he was supposed to appear in a play he wrote entitled “The
Royal Box,” an understudy played the role as Coghlan was stricken with
gastritis as soon as he arrived on the island.
“That year Coghlan was playing Hamlet in Galveston, Texas, a small
dusty town in the southeastern part of the state,” says the account
published at Paranormal Canada. “He was 57 years old and at the peak
of a brilliant career when he died on stage. A week later, Coghlan was
lowered into a granite vault in a lead-lined coffin on Galveston
Island.”
A Nov. 27, 1997 account by a non-staff member published in The Daily
News concurred. “Also inundated was the cemetery in which had been
buried, with many coffins, including his, swept out to sea on a tidal
wave, never to be recovered,” the story said.
The story also quoted Henry Hibbert’s “A Playgoer’s Memories” as
saying Coghlan’s body was washed up on a Pacific shore — a quote that
does not speak well of Hibbert’s geographical knowledge.
But it’s unlikely that Coghlan was even buried in Galveston, much less
washed to sea during the 1900 hurricane. Both The New York Times and
The Galveston Daily News reported on Nov. 28, 1899, that Coghlan’s
body would be sent immediately to Prince Edward Island for burial.
The following day, the Daily News published a follow-up story that
said Coghlan’s widow intended to have his remains cremated, in keeping
with her husband’s wishes. Since the nearest crematorium at the time
was in St. Louis, the widow planned to take Coghlan’s body with her to
New York, where there were family members and a cremation could be
accomplished.
The Daily News reported that Coghlan’s body was at the Levy Brothers
funeral home, awaiting transport to the East Coast.
But there, attempts to verify precisely what became of Coghlan
abruptly halt. Although the funeral home is still in operation, a
spokes-man said all records from that time — which would have
conclusively established the disposition of the actor’s remains — were
lost in a 1979 fire.
What remains is a tantalizing tale from the Great Storm — believe it,
or not.
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