Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1898 — TERESA IS SUNK. [ARTICLE]

TERESA IS SUNK.

Fpauish Cruiser Raised by Hobson Lost in a S-torm. The sea has swallowed the cruiser Infanta Maria Teresa, sunk at Santiago and raised by Constructor Hobson. The cruiser left Caimanera, Cuba, on the morning of Oct. 30 for New York. On Nov. 1 she was abandoned in midocean in a sinking condition. She could not weather the gale prevailing. No lives were lost. The cruiser left Cuba in tow of the repair ship Vulcan and accompanied by the ocean tug Merritt and the collier Leonidas. The crew of the cruiser, 136 men, arrived in Charleston, S. C-, on the Merritt The Maria Teresa was steaming through what is known to mariners as the crooked passage, thirty miles off San Salvador. While her own engines were in use she was not under her own steam, being in the immediate tow of the Vulcan, while the Vulcan in turn was in tow of the wrecking tug Merritt. The weather grew rough and there was indication that a heavy tropical storm was at hand. The cruiser began leaking badly and the situation soon became critical. To take the officers and crew off the illfated cruiser was both a dangerous and a difficult task, but it was accomplished, and all were saved. After the men aboard the Teresa were taken off by the Merritt, the Vulcan, which was towing the disabled cruiser by a fifteen-inch hawser, proceeded for four hours longer to tow her toward Norfolk. Despite the possibility of the Teresa sinking at any minute and pulling her consort down after her, the Vulcan held on manfully to the former Spaniard until it was believed that to tow her longer was to sink with her. It was then that the great hawser was cut. As the surfboat of the Merritt drew away with her last load of rescued sailors, it was evident the Maria Teresa could remain afloat but a few momenta more. Her propellers were showing above the water and she had sunk very low forward. She was evidently going to plunge head first into the sea. That was the last glimpse qaught of her.