The Haunted Schooner Jenny
The Jenny is a ghost ship you might not have ever heard of...but its story is worth reading. The Jenny was found frozen inside of an ice-barrier of the Drake Passage in 1840, almost 20 years after it first disappeared in 1823.
One of the most haunting aspects of the Jenny was the last entry in the log book, “May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I am the only one left alive.” The captain, who wrote this message, was found still sitting in his chair with the pen in hand when the whaling ship that discovered the Jenny came upon them. Ironically, the ship that found the doomed Jenny was named Hope.
According to the German Geographical magazine, Globus. While the story is recounted by an anonymous crew member of the Hope, the details seem to match up.
The article recounts the initial experience of the crew of the Hope, they believe the Jenny was caught when in an ice wall and remained hidden until it broke open. The crew of the Hope sighted a battered ship, before they realized it was a ghost ship. Although it was battered, it appeared to be manned...in fact, seven men were even standing at attention on the main deck.
However, as the Hope approaches, they realized that these men were not dutifully standing at attention in the cold, Arctic weather...they were frozen solid.
Captain Brighton, of the Hope, was the first to board the Jenny to investigate. Below deck, he came across the Captain, eerily frozen solid writing his last entry in the ship’s log.
Some reports say that the crew of the Hope buried all those frozen aboard, including the Captain’s wife and dog, at sea. Others say that they left everything as is, except the log book which they took, abroad. Whatever condition the crew of the Hope left those poor souls on the Jenny one thing is for certain: the Jenny still sails on in the Antarctic waters but has never been seen since.
While some believe this story to be entirely fictional...one can only imagine the horror that befell the crew of the Jenny if all this is true.
The above image is an Illustration from a novel The Ghost Ship by John Conroy Hutcheson and is in the public domain.