Those new and ghostly 3D scans of the Titanic, showing in remarkable detail the “unsinkable” liner more than two miles under the sea, reflect an ageless tragedy with strong links to Rhode Island both past and present.
Not the least of these involves ocean explorer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck in 1985 and even today, at age 80, is still a professor of Oceanography at URI.
Ballard is also noted for his discoveries of the German warship Bismarck off France and the remains of John F. Kennedy’s torpedo boat, PT 109, in the Solomon Islands.
His long association with the state university goes back to 1974, when he earned a doctorate there in marine geology. After many years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, he joined the URI faculty in 2001.
Ballard’s discovery of the Titanic 73 years after its storied sinking sparked renewed interest in the liner’s local connections, since a dozen people with Rhode Island ties – half of whom died –were aboard when Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
Among the casualties was John Jacob Astor IV, one of the world’s richest men and owner of Newport’s Beechwood Mansion. He was among some 1,500 others who lost their lives that night 400 miles off Newfoundland.
Locals returning to the U.S. on the ship, which had embarked from England on its maiden voyage, came from all walks of life and were traveling in circumstances ranging from first-class to steerage.
One who for decades told the Titanic’s story from personal experience was a second-class passenger just eight years old at the time, Westerly’s Marshall Drew.
Drew, a ukulele-strumming artist, teacher, photographer, and patron of the arts who died at age 82 in 1986, was a favorite of newspaper reporters. They sought him out on every significant anniversary to reprise a story that will be recounted as long as maritime stories are told.
The boy, who with his Uncle James and Aunt Lulu had been visiting family in England, was asleep in their cabin when the Titanic shuddered.
His uncle, who had been smoking a cigarette on deck, hurriedly returned and brought his wife and nephew to a lifeboat. Rescued by the approaching liner Carpathia, they survived. But Uncle James, complying with instructions of “women and children first,” stayed behind and was never seen again.
The Encyclopedia Titanica, a website documenting all things Titanic, notes how Drew recalled “a perilous drop to the ocean in his lifeboat, with the pulleys jamming… and the Titanic listing right out of the ocean, with the sounds of heavy machinery crashing toward her bows, the sight of people falling from her decks and the sounds of those people struggling in the freezing water.”
Although he was born on Long Island, Drew later spent much of his life in Westerly, where his family had interests in the town’s quarrying industry. He’s buried in Westerly’s River Bend Cemetery.
Shortly before his death, Drew told an interviewer, “This Titanic thing – it’s always been with me.”
His headstone, which describes him as a teacher, artist, and friend, links him forever with that terrible night on a frigid sea: Carved into its granite is a profile of the doomed ship whose historic demise would continue to define him, both in life and beyond.
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.