John Handran 1852-1885 Medal of Honor recipient

This is the story of a cousin lost at sea.  Ho Hum you might think.  We have several ancestors who have been lost at sea, what's the big deal?  In every person's life there is a story  and this is the story of a hero.

Our grandmother Catherine (nee Pierce) Ryan's mother Edith was a Handran before she married William Pierce.  This is how we are connected as cousins to John Handran (technically 1st cousins 4 times removed.  First cousins are children of our aunts and uncles (not just strictly our parents siblings, but all the "great", "grand" and other aunts and uncles)  Times removed refers to the number of generations difference between the two. 

John Handran was lost at sea aboard the Schooner Cleopatra Dec 26, 1885.  He left a wife and 3 very young children just a day after Christmas that year.  I don't know how long the fishing trip had been at the time of the accident, but it is certain he and the rest of the crew were not home for Christmas that year.

This is a picture from Frederick Bodin of Good Morning Gloucester of that time period and I like to imagine it reflects what it must have looked like seaside in the 1880s in Gloucester

He calls it "Return of the Fishing Fleet Circa 1800"

The Cleopatra story inspired an epic poem "The Ballad of the Cleopatra" available on Google Books from Cornhill Magazine .  I encourage you to read it when you have a chance as it gives an interesting viewpoint from a fisherman's perspective.  A storm came up and swept 3 men into the ocean, John Handran was one of them.  Another crewman died on the deck.  A distress flag was raised and seen by a Brisith vessel, the Lord Gough.  As they prepared to send a rescue boat, the distress flag was taken down.  The potential rescuers were confused by this but continued their mission.  Apparently the captain and crew of the Cleopatra took down the distress flag so as not to put other sailors in danger by attempting to rescue them.  This seems a very brave decision to me and speaks to the nature of Gloucester fishermen.  The remaining crewmen were rescued and delivered to the Philadelphia port. 

I suspect John understood the dangers of his livelihood all to well and he acted accordingly by taking out an insurance policy on himself from an organization called the Massachusetts Catholic Order of the Foresters.  I ordered copies of their papers for families I thought might be ours and John's were among the papers I received.  They are extensive in detail just like today's insurance companies use our habits to determine risk and calculate cost. The details provide a rich picture of this man and his family.  One of the questions in the medical examination area of the papers asks: "Does the applicant use ardent spirits, beer or tobacco?" John's answer is difficult to decipher as it is smudged, but it is clearly not a simple "No".   He was 5'3" and 132 lbs--not a big guy at all.  This policy was only 5 months old when he died and paid the widow Sarah one thousand dollars.

These papers also indicate that John's father and two brothers were both "drowned at sea"--the fishing life took a devastating toll on this family.  John's certificate of death from the Order of Foresters says "Handran was drowned at sea.  He was washed from the deck of the vessal and sank after a few moments of struggle. This is the testimony of some of the crew who have come home."  I found these words haunting.

You see, John died at sea as a recipient of a peacetime Medal of Honor awarded by President Ulysses S. Grant for heroism in rescuing a shipmate who was swept off the US Steamer Franklin near Lisbon Portugal in 1876.  From the New York Herald:  ""poor Henry O'Neil seemed about to pay with his life the penalty for having gone to sea without learning to swim" when two sailors "were soon in the water making for the spot.  One of them, Edward Madden, held a rope's end.  The rope proved too short, the icy waters chilled him, to let go the rope was to lose his own life, and he returned.  The other, John Handran, seaman, kept on with vigorous strokes.  This was not the first time he had risked his life to save a shipmate.  As he approached the drowning man with admirable coolness he kept clear of his struggling efforts to clutch, swimming round until he could grasp him with his right hand just so as to keep his mouth above water". 

It seems fated that John should drown at sea, leaving a very proud story for his children and their descendants.  It brings to mind Tim's service in the Coast Guard, for which we are all grateful and proud-- as we are for all in the family who served.  I'm sure John would not have thought his actions were heroic but it's a story that needs to be told after all these years gone by.