Revenge of the Martha Dunn
by Tom Slemen

In 1802, a Liverpool clipper ship named the Martha Dunn set sail from Havana to Liverpool, England with a cargo of 200 hogsheads of rum and 700 sacks of cane sugar. The Martha Dunn was captained by William Benedict, a Liverpool-born mariner who had been reared in Pennsylvania.
     The bond between a captain and ship is well-known in maritime circles, but Captain Benedict's fondness for the Martha Dunn clipper was nothing short of a love affair. The captain frequently talked to his vessel and on some occasions, he would affectionately stroke and pat the ship's bowsprit. The crew were used to the captain's idiosyncrasies, and in a way, they also felt as if the ship had a personality of its own.
     A fortnight after leaving Havana, the Martha Dunn sailed into Liverpool Bay in the middle of the night. A thick fog was hanging over the waters, and the lookouts could see nothing. All they knew was that they were near to the Wirral Peninsula.
     Then they saw a light flickering in the distance, and they assumed it was the beam of the Mersey lighthouse guiding them to their destination. Captain Benedict and his men thought they would soon be berthed at the Salthouse Dock, ready for a well-deserved drink in the waterfront taverns.
     Minutes after the helmsman changed course, the rays from the lighthouse glimmered and died. By now, Captain Benedict and the crew of the Martha Dunn must have realised that the light they had seen was from the lantern of the ruthless men known as the "wreckers". The wreckers lured unsuspecting ships onto the treacherous rocks of the Wallasey coastline by waving lanterns which the sailors mistook for the safety of a lighthouse. Their evil trick certainly worked upon this foggy night, because the Martha Dunn smashed into rocks and almost capsized. Captain Benedict and all of the crewmen were thrown into the sea. Three of the crew drowned, and one's back was fatally broken as he was hurled onto the rocks. Only Captain Benedict and one member of the crew managed to swim to land, but as soon as they reached the pebbled foreshore, the exhausted men were clubbed to death by one of the wreckers. The captain and his crewman were mercilessly battered because maritime law stated that a ship could not be legally salvaged if her captain or just one of the crew survived.
     The band of wreckers who murdered Captain Benedict and his crew were a particular callous and organised gang of men who were looked after by the infamous old woman known as 'Mother Redcap', who had a notorious inn on the edge of Liscard Moor. At Mother Redcap's inn, the wreckers and smugglers of Wallasey hid their loot from the law and the customs officers.
     Upon this foggy night, something weird happened. The wreckers rowed out towards the Martha Dunn, ready to claim her cargo of rum and sugar, but when the lifeboat was just a few hundred feet from the clipper, a wind suddenly started to stir. The strong breeze wafted away the fog and filled the Martha Dunn's sails. The clipper started to back off the rocks.
     The wreckers in the lifeboat watched in amazement as the deserted ship sailed out to sea. They tried to catch up with her, but it was no use; the Martha Dunn was picking up speed as the wind from nowhere blew her into the darkness.
     Henry Hargreaves, the evil man who had bludgeoned Captain Benedict and his crewman to death, urged his companions in the lifeboat to keep on rowing after the derelict ship, but they refused, saying that the wind was too strong.
     At first light, Henry Hargreaves and five of his cronies spotted the Martha Dunn sailing erratically in the direction of Hilbre Island, so they decided to take a small single-masted fishing vessel out to the clipper.
     This proved to be a big mistake. In full view of the crowds who had gathered on the shore to watch the salvage operation, the Martha Dunn suddenly performed a U-turn as if someone was at her wheel. She started to accelerate towards the fishing vessel. Henry Hargreaves looked on in sheer terror. The Martha Dunn came careering past the fishing boat and although it missed hitting it by just a matter of feet, the wake of the clipper almost swamped the boat.
     The two seamen with Hargreaves said the Martha Dunn was a possessed ship and advised the wrecker to return to land. But Hargreaves was a greedy man, and the thought of someone else claiming the cargo of the Martha Dunn was too much for him to bare. Hargreaves called his associates superstitious cowards. But minutes afterwards, the Martha Dunn was closing in on the fishing boat again, and this time she rammed it head on and cut right through the vessel, splintering her hull to matchwood. One of the fishermen died in the collision, and the other one bled to death in the water with a wooden splinter in his neck. Henry Hargreaves clung onto a broken-off length of the boat's mast. He saw the accursed clipper drift off into the early morning mist.
     Hargreaves turned and started to swim for the shore. Then he noticed that the crowd on the shore were roaring with excitement. The wrecker glanced over his shoulder and was instantly seized with panic. The towering hulk of the Martha Dunn was almost upon him. Hargreaves was heard to scream as the hull smashed into him. His broken body was later found on the sands of Hoylake, half-eaten by the crabs. No one knows what happened to the Martha Dunn, but there were many strange tales about her fate.
     According to one legend, when the body of Captain Benedict was being buried in a churchyard overlooking the sea near Neston, the deserted Martha Dunn came down the River Dee and sank within sight of the startled funeral mourners. It was as if the derelict ship had decided to join her beloved captain in a supreme act of loyalty...

Source: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Screen/8768/martha.html