The Karma of the SS Champion
On Thursday April 7th, 2022, I was scrolling through old dive photos and found a very special photo. The photo was of my daughter Sarah Cassway, Brian Sullivan, Alan Edmond and myself with 2 portholes from the wreck of the sunken paddle wheel steamship Champion. For anyone who knows the RV Explorer team, the Champion holds a very special place. It has always been a “go-to” wreck for us and in the words of Brian Sullivan, “it just feels like home”.
On this day April 7th 2022, I uploaded this photo on the RV Explorer Facebook page as a throwback Thursday post. The caption said “TBT 2015. Sarah’s first porthole found on Champion”
Here is an abridged background on the Champion, taken from Gary Gentile’s Shipwrecks of New Jersey- South. For the complete story see https://www.ggentile.com/book-store/p/shipwrecks-of-new-jersey-south to order your copy.
The Champion was largest iron hulled ship of it’s time when built in 1859, by Harlan & Hollingsworth in Wilmington Delaware. The Champion was built for shipping magnet Cornelius Vanderbilt. At more than 1,400 tons, 234’ feet long, the Champion had ninety-six staterooms, sleeping accommodations for 738 people, and could carry 400 tons of freight plus coal as fuel.
The ill-fated Champion had a short but busy career in her 20-year life. Besides “rounding the horn” from New York to San Francisco, the Champion made two round trips from Panama to San Francisco and eventually made her way back to the east coast via the Horn one more time. The Champion was later used by the War department as a troop transport ship during the Civil War. After the war, the Champion was sold to the New York and Charleston Steamship Company.
On the early morning of November 7th 1879 the Champion was hit by the sailing vessel Lady Octavia and sank in 3 minutes. The Champion took to the bottom more than half of her sixteen passengers and 39 crew members. Of the lost crew members was the purser John Reid Moffett.
OK, back to 2022….
After my Facebook Post, I received a message from Doug Proctor.
Doug and I scheduled a phone call for the next day. Doug explained that his Great Great Grandfather was the purser on the Champion and went down with the ship.
After our phone call, I boxed up a bunch of Champion artifacts and shipped them to Doug. As we get older, the artifacts that we have in our homes have memories to us, but the meaning and importance has faded with the years. When presented with the opportunity to share these artifacts with a real person who shares a DNA trail to a shipwreck and a lost sailor the choice is easy.
When Doug received the package, he sent me the following e-mail.
Rustin,
I have tried to sit down and think about how to put on paper all the feelings that I have had since first seeing the picture of your daughter and you with portholes from the Champion and through my conversation and e-mails from you culminating in receiving Champion artifacts from you in the mail. I have been blown away by the kindness you have shown me in providing so much information and artifacts in regards to the Champion.
For many years I have wondered about my great great grandfather, John Reid Moffett, who I had seen in family papers listed at “lost at sea”. I had many questions concerning him and his death but had little information and thought I probably would never have answers to those many questions. I first saw a Facebook post that you had made about a year ago under the name of RV Explorer and I learned that you did diving on wrecks in the New Jersey area. I have followed that site ever since. Your response to my message to you after I saw your portholes picture has opened up an exciting time for me in learning answers to many of my questions. I have shared your information and pictures with my family as well as cousins who are also very interested in all of this too.
I would have to describe my feelings of all this as excited, blown away, grateful and curious for more. It has been hard to concentrate on doing my normal daily schedule because I keep thinking how lucky I was in seeing your Facebook post. All of this has given me a more personal connection to a long ago ancestor that I didn’t have much information about. He doesn’t even have a memorial burial location. Now he has become more real to me. All thanks to you!!
Again, many many thanks for your graciousness to me. I really do appreciate it!!!
Happy Easter!!
Doug Proctor
This e-mail was all the thanks I needed. Doug was clearly happy and the artifacts now have a home in an ancestor of the Champion tragedy.
But the story does not end here. Yesterday in the mail I received a lovely note from Doug.
Rustin,
Thank you so very much for your kindness to me with all the information, artifacts and pictures you have shared with me!!
Doug Proctor
This note was accompanied by a check for $500.00. Now I was blown away. This money was split and donated to Deb Whitcraft’s Shipwreck Museum in Beach Haven, NJ and the Cape May County Museum in Middle Township, NJ.
Keep diving and connecting history with real people.
End.