You know in those days hundreds of American fishing schooners used to come down to the Gulf every summer to fish mackerel . On one beautiful Saturday night in this October of 1851 , more than one hundred of these vessels could be counted from Markdale Capes . By Monday night more than seventy of them had been destroyed . Those which had escaped were mostly those which went into harbour Saturday night , to keep Sunday . Mr. Coles says the rest stayed outside and fished all day Sunday , same as through the week , and HE says the storm was a judgment on them for doing it . But he admits that even some of them got into harbour later on and escaped , so it 's hard to know what to think . But it is certain that on Sunday night there came up a sudden and terrible storm -- the worst , Mr. Coles says , that has ever been known on the north shore . It lasted for two days and scores of vessels were driven ashore and completely wrecked . The crews of most of the vessels that went ashore on the sand beaches were saved , but those that struck on the rocks went to pieces and all hands were lost . For weeks after the storm the north shore was strewn with the bodies of drowned men . Think of it ! Many of them were unknown and unrecognizable , and they were buried in Markdale graveyard . Mr. Coles says the schoolmaster who was in Markdale then wrote a poem on the storm and Mr. Coles recited the first two verses to me . '' ` Here are the fishers ' hillside graves , The church beside , the woods around , Below , the hollow moaning waves Where the poor fishermen were drowned . '' ' A sudden tempest the blue welkin tore , The seamen tossed and torn apart Rolled with the seaweed to the shore While landsmen gazed with aching heart . ' `` Mr. Coles could n't remember any more of it . But the saddest of all the stories of the Yankee Storm was the one about the Franklin Dexter . The Franklin Dexter went ashore on the Markdale Capes and all on board perished , the Captain and three of his brothers among them . These four young men were the sons of an old man who lived in Portland , Maine , and when he heard what had happened he came right down to the Island to see if he could find their bodies . They had all come ashore and had been buried in Markdale graveyard ; but he was determined to take them up and carry them home for burial .
He said he had promised their mother XXXXX take her boys home to her and he must do it .
On around from in into so than that to with