The Sun

EIGHT BODIES FLOAT ASHORE

PROBABLY FROM SOME VESSEL WRECKED IN THE SOUND.

Men Out Sailing Find a Floating Spar Attached to a Sunken Wreck-Sloop Captain Thinks a Big Schooner Has Been Wrecked Near Wading River, L. I.

PORT JEFFERSON, L. I., Sept. 7.-The bodies of eight men, apparently those of sailors from some boat lost in the Sound. have floated ashore on the Long Island coast between this place and Wading River since Saturday. Two of the bodies are those of negroes. The first one was recovered on Saturday afternoon at Belle Terre. It is that of a large and powerful man, clad in oilskins. There was nothing in the pockets except some buttons and $12, which had been sewed into one of the pockets.

Three bodies have since been found at Wardencliffe. three near Wading River and another at Belle Terre. All of the bodies had to be buried immediately after being viewed by Justice Hawkins.

It was at first supposed that they came from the schooners wrecked on Aug. 25 but it is now believed that they floated in from a wreck which has not been reported. Stony Brook reports that in the Sound. about three miles off Crane Neck Point there is a sunken wreck which does not seem to have been reported. The wreck lies in such a position that under the prevailing winds bodies would be likely to float ashore from it to this section.

On Friday afternoon Edward Davis and two other young men , while out sailing. saw a floating spar with a piece of old sail attached to it. They tried to save a couple of blocks on the spar and found that it was held to the bottom by a sheet. The spar was broken in several places, so the young men took the tip of it, some of the sail. hoops and some of the blocks and brought them ashore. They saw that the rest of the spar with the sail was left fast to the wreck.

Later in the day Capt. Hawkins, of the sloop Santa Maria, came upon the floating spar and sail. He says that, judging from all he could see, the vessel was probably a three-masted schooner of from 750 to 900 tons. She lies in about 75 feet of water. There is no mark on any of the things afloat to indicate the name of the vessel. and nothing has drifted ashore so far as known that indicates a wreck at that point.