Angel Gabriel (ship)


The Angel Gabriel was a 240-ton English passenger galleon. She was commissioned for Sir Walter Raleigh's last expedition to America in 1617. She sank in a storm off Pemaquid Point, near the newly established town of Bristol, Maine, on 15 August 1635. The sinking occurred during a hurricane in the middle of the Great Migration.
The ship was initially built as the Starre in 1615 and renamed the Jason by Sir Walter Raleigh for use in his second expedition to Guiana in 1617. Following Raleigh's return it was seized and became a merchant ship, renamed the Angel Gabriel.
A stout ship designed and built to cope with combat, even as a merchant ship, the Angel Gabriel was involved in many further skirmishes between 1618 and 1635, including a notable engagement in 1627 off Cales where it was boarded several times but was able to clear its decks each time and eventually beat off three Spanish ships. This was possible because the defenders were able to retreat into the forecastle and sterncastle, which had reinforced bulkheads fitted with gunports for small cannon and shoulder weapons.

1635 voyage

From England to Massachusetts in a fleet of five ships, the Angel Gabriel joined the James, the Elizabeth, the Mary and the Diligence. As they approached New England, an unusually powerful early season hurricane struck, known as the "Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635", and the James and the Angel Gabriel were forced to ride it out just off the coast of modern-day Hampton, New Hampshire. According to the ship's log and the journal of Increase Mather, whose father Richard Mather and family were on the James, the following was recorded:
All one hundred-plus passengers aboard the James managed to make it to Boston Harbor two days later.
The Angel Gabriel was wrecked off the coast of Maine, but the smaller, faster ships, the Mary, the Bess, and the Diligence outran the storm, and landed in Newfoundland on 15 August 1635.
Several plaques commemorating the loss of the Angel Gabriel have been placed near Pemaquid. One reads:

Passengers on the last voyage

Official records state that William Furber, Samuel Haines, and the Cogswells were aboard; the other passengers on the list are reported in family records, genealogies, and other secondary sources.