Mary Glynn Declares Young Irishman Refused Seat in Lifeboat
Maritime speed mania was the cause of the accident off the Newfoundland banks last Monday morning, which took as its awful toll 1,535 human lives and more than $10,000,000 worth of property, according to Miss Mary Glynn, nineteen years old, of Feakle Couty [sic] Clare, Ireland, the first steerage survivor of the disaster to reach Washington. Miss Glynn is visiting her cousin, Mrs. D. D. Courtenay at 715 North Capitol street.
“There were many women and men who proved themselves brave after the ship struck, but of them all I think a young fellow named Gallagher deserves best mention. I don't know the man's first name. You could hardly call him a man, as he was scarcely twenty-one years old. We called him Mr. Gallagher, and further than that he was an Irish-American, who was returning from a visit to his relatives in Ireland, no one seemed to know anything of him.
"Young Gallagher arose with us and while helping us into the boat continued chanting the prayers. He knew it meant death to stay on the ship, but refused to take a seat in the boat. 'I might weight the boat down too much,' he said as we pulled off. Then he yelled back, ‘God bless you all,' and stood there watching us as the big ship sank lower and lower into the water. He was the real hero of the steerage."
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