On the night of August 16, 1889, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, eight young women from North Carolina corked a note into a bottle and threw it over the side of the steamer State of Indiana. They didn’t expect to hear of it again. The “jolly set,” the Messenger of Wilmington, North Carolina, said later, “barely hoped even to hear of this missive.”
“Wafted Back From Mid-Ocean,” The Daily State Chronicle, Raleigh, North Carolina, May 3, 1890, page 4, reprinting the Wilmington Messenger. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.
A hundred teachers abroad
The young women were part of the North Carolina teachers’ excursion to Europe that summer. The Western Sentinel of Winston reported that the party left on Tuesday morning, July 2, just after the state Teachers’ Assembly adjourned. In New York four days later, the New-York Tribune wrote, “One hundred teachers from North Carolina will sail for Europe to-day on the steamer State of Nevada.” They would travel through England, Ireland and France, the Tribune said, and come home on the State of Indiana, sailing from Larne, in Ireland, on August 8.
The New-York Tribune, New York, July 6, 1889, page 10 (the second paragraph is about the North Carolina teachers). Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.
Thirty-five dollars to Glasgow
The State Line, which ran the State of Indiana, advertised in the Tribune that July. A cabin between New York and Glasgow or Belfast cost “$35 to $50, according to location of stateroom,” and a round-trip excursion ticket ran $65 to $90. Through tickets went on to Liverpool, London and Dublin at reduced rates.
The State Line’s advertisement, with the State of Indiana’s July sailing and the fares. The New-York Tribune, July 13, 1889, page 6. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.
The note
By the Tribune’s schedule, the State of Indiana was carrying the teachers home that week, though the note’s heading named New York and Liverpool. It began:
Mid Ocean, Aug. 16th, ’89. Stmr. State of Indiana, from New York to Liverpool.
We are a jolly set of North Carolina girls, off on a Summer trip. A happier set than is on this boat has never been found. We have had a gay time so far and expect to keep it up. We all are in the “Angel’s Retreat.”
They asked the finder to write to Miss Jeannie Allen at 406 South Third Street in Wilmington, or to Miss Helen Fowle of Raleigh, and they all signed it: Jeannie Allen, Helen Fowle, Sue Cumming, Anna Mebane, Mary Grimes, Emma Chadbourn, Jessie Kenan and Bella Skinner. Then the bottle went into the sea.
A walk on Virginia Beach
More than eight months later, at the start of May 1890, Jeannie Allen got a letter from a gentleman. One Wednesday evening, he wrote, he had been walking on Virginia Beach, near Norfolk, and picked up a bottle on the sand. He was about to toss it into the surf, but the young lady walking with him “called his attention to the note inside.”
The Wilmington Messenger told the story on May 2, and the Raleigh papers copied it the next day. “The finding of the note is a pleasant reminder of that jolly trip over the sea,” the Messenger said, “and the young ladies will all be delighted upon learning the circumstances.”
The Princess Anne Hotel and the boardwalk at Virginia Beach, Virginia, photographed between 1900 and 1910. Detroit Publishing Company. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, no known restrictions. Click the picture to see it full size.
Home to Third Street
The papers never printed the finder’s name, or the name of the young lady who kept the note out of the surf. But a bottle dropped from a steamer in the middle of the ocean drifted for months, came ashore on a Virginia beach, and in the end found its way to a house on South Third Street in Wilmington. It gave eight North Carolina girls their summer in Europe all over again.
Sources
- The Daily State Chronicle (Raleigh, N.C.), May 3, 1890, page 4 (“Wafted Back From Mid-Ocean,” from the Wilmington Messenger of May 2, 1890).
- The News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), May 3, 1890, page 4 (the same story, from the Wilmington Messenger).
- New-York Tribune (New York, N.Y.), July 6, 1889, page 10 (the teachers sailing on the State of Nevada) and July 13, 1889, page 6 (State Line advertisement).
- The Western Sentinel (Winston, N.C.), July 4, 1889, page 2 (the Teachers’ Assembly and the party leaving July 2).
- All newspaper images: Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Published 1889 and 1890, public domain.
- Photograph: “[Princess Anne Hotel, Virginia Beach, Va.],” Detroit Publishing Company, between 1900 and 1910, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, no known restrictions on publication.
- Cover: “[Princess Anne Hotel, Virginia Beach, Va.],” Detroit Publishing Company, between 1900 and 1910 (cropped). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. No known restrictions on publication.
