He Boarded the Titanic, Then Wrote a Letter: ‘It Is a Fine Ship, But I Shall Await My Journey’s End Before I Pass Judgment’
First-class passenger Archibald Gracie wrote the missive shortly after settling into his cabin on the doomed vessel. It just sold at auction for nearly $400,000
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On April 10, 1912, Archibald Gracie boarded the Titanic in Southampton and got comfortable in his first-class cabin. As crew members readied the ship for its inaugural voyage across the Atlantic, Gracie dashed off a letter to a friend.
“It is a fine ship, but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her,” he wrote.
His musings were eerily prescient: Just days later, the vessel collided with an iceberg and sank, killing 1,500 passengers and crew members. Gracie survived and went on to write a book about his experience.
Now, the letter Gracie wrote while onboard the Titanic has found a new owner. It sold for roughly $399,000 (£300,000) on April 26 during an auction held by Henry Aldridge and Son in Wiltshire, England.
“The stories of those men, women and children are told through the memorabilia, and their memories are kept alive through those items,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge tells NPR’s Rebecca Rosman.
The auction house has not revealed the identity of the buyer. The seller was a descendant of the letter’s recipient, A.P. Brooks. Brooks was a European ambassador who received it at the Waldorf Hotel in London, according to the lot listing.
The letter was postmarked on April 11 in Queenstown, Ireland, (now Cobh), one of the two stops the ship made before it sank. It was postmarked again in London on April 12. The stationary features the logo of the White Star Line, the company that owned the Titanic, and the words “On board RMS Titanic.”
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Gracie is among the famous survivors of the Titanic, in part because he shared his story by writing The Truth About the Titanic.
He was born in January 1858 in Mobile, Alabama, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. After attending elementary school in New Hampshire, he later enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point, though he didn’t graduate. Instead, he enlisted in the Army, eventually becoming a colonel in the Seventh New York Regiment.
Gracie had just finished writing a book about a Civil War battle when he decided to take a trip to Europe aboard the Oceanic. Instead of sailing on the same vessel for the return trip to America, he booked passage on the Titanic.
In his letter to Brooks, Gracie wrote that the Oceanic was “like an old friend.”
“While she does not possess the elaborate style and varied amusement of this big ship, still her seaworthy qualities and yacht-like appearance make me miss her,” he added.
After boarding the Titanic, Gracie spent most of the journey chaperoning several unaccompanied women. He also read books in the first-class library, chatted about the Civil War with a fellow passenger, swam in the ship’s pool and played squash on the vessel’s courts, according to the auction house.
On April 14, he went to bed early but was awakened around 11:40 p.m. When he realized the ship’s engines were not running, he left his room to see what was happening.
He returned to grab his life jacket when he realized the ship was listing. Then, he escorted the women he had been chaperoning to the boat deck, where they were loaded safely onto lifeboats. He stayed to help get other women and children into the remaining lifeboats.
Once all the lifeboats were gone, Gracie then helped the crew retrieve several collapsible lifeboats. Soon after, the ship began to sink and Gracie was pulled beneath the waves. He managed to get to the surface and clamber onto an overturned collapsible lifeboat, along with a few dozen other men.
He spent the night atop the lifeboat in the frigid darkness. Many of the men who had originally reached the vessel did not survive the evening, according to Gracie. In the morning, other lifeboats rescued Gracie and the remaining survivors, who were then picked up by the Carpathia.
“The hours that elapsed before we were picked up by the Carpathia were the longest and most terrible that I ever spent,” he told the New York Tribune. “Practically without any sensation of feeling because of the icy water, we were almost dropping from fatigue.”
Safely aboard the Carpathia, Gracie returned to New York City and immediately began writing his book. But his health had suffered because of the ordeal. Gracie, who had diabetes, endured hypothermia during his night on the North Atlantic. He died eight months later on December 4, 1912. His book was released the following year.
According to the auction house, the letter is the only known correspondence in existence from Gracie aboard the Titanic.
“It is impossible to overstate the rarity of this lot,” according to the listing. “A truly exceptional museum grade piece.”
