Titanic, 100 Years Later: Survivor From New Britain Suffered The Rest of His Life

William T. Sloper of New Britain found a seat on the first lifeboat launched after the Titanic began sinking but was falsely accused of impersonating a woman to get the seat. He spent the rest of his life defending his reputation.

Anyone who knows anything about the Titanic disaster believes that there was a certain protocol for those who boarded the scarce lifeboats onboard the ill-fated ship — or was there?      Actually, the “women or children only” rule was in effect only on the port side of the ship; “women or children first” was the rule on the starboard side. Furthermore, a 14-year-old girl in first class was considered a child; a 14-year-old girl in third class was considered an adult. These variations in protocol are important in understanding the sad case of William Thompson Sloper, a 28-year old stockbroker from New Britain who survived the sinking. Check out the some of the items that sank with the Titanic Son of Andrew Jackson Sloper, a New Britain …

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Titanic, 100 Years Later: Cultural, Culinary Items Went Down with the Ship

The cargo manifest on the ill-fated ship was as diverse and interesting as the passenger list was.

Despite the common belief that there were mostly British, Irish and American citizens aboard the RMS Titanic, the truth is that 29 different nationalities were onboard. The cargo manifest for the Titanic contained articles as diverse as the nationalities of the people onboard the ill-fated ship.      Consider the following items that went to the bottom along with the ship: Three very rare books were also lost to the sea. Harry Elkins Widener, a 1907 Harvard graduate and an avid book collector, had purchased several rare books to bring home on the Titanic, including a very rare first edition of essays by Francis Bacon. Harry saw to it that his mother and her maid were safely placed in a lifeboat and then stepped back. Later, William Carter…

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Titanic, 100 Years Later: Nearby Titanic Museum is a Hidden Treasure [VIDEO]

Don't be fooled by appearances: This museum contains some outstanding artifacts and is well worth visiting.

Edward Kamuda, founder of the Titanic Historical Society (THS) and curator of its Titanic Museum, remembers well how he first got hooked on the story of the Titanic. He was in junior high school in Indian Orchard, a part of Springfield, MA, in the early 1950s, and his teacher required the class to read an essay and write about it. Ed chose “A Great Ship Goes Down,” by Hanson Baldwin. It was about the sinking of the Titanic. The experience changed his life. Edward S. Kamuda started the Titanic Historical Society’s collection of survivors' artifacts in the early 1960s, and he and his wife, Karen, have been caring for it ever since. The collection is housed in the back room of his family’s jewelry shop at 208 Main St. in Indian Orchard. …

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Mick Johnson

12:33 pm on Thursday, April 19, 2012

A Little Boat That Was Wound Up And Swam Around The Bath-Tub On Friday Nights...Didn't You Know That??   more ›

Titanic, 100 Years Later: A Profile of the Connecticut-Bound Passengers

Thirty-three of the passengers on the Titanic were headed to Connecticut. Eighteen of them never made it when the unthinkable happened to the "unsinkable."

  Margaret Kelly, the eldest daughter of James Kelly of Kildare County in Ireland, had been working in a corset factory in New Haven for two years when, in early 1912, she bought her father a third-class ticket to come across the Atlantic on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and visit her.   The plan was that James would work for a while and save enough money to send for his wife, Kate, and his five other children to join them. But the reunion never happened, cut short by one of the worst maritime disasters in history. Kelly's body was found by the cable ship Mackay-Bennett and buried at sea. The heartbreak for the Kelly family didn't end there — his son, Thomas, was killed in action four years later during World War I. Eventually, Kate and…

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Titanic: 100 Years Later

A century after the “unsinkable” ocean liner sank to the bottom of the north Atlantic, Patch takes a look at some of the Connecticut connections to one of the worst — and certainly the most famous — maritime disasters in history.

  As midnight approached on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic was steaming confidently toward New York Harbor on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, with 2,224 passengers and crew members aboard. Less than three hours later, the massive luxury liner that had been heralded as unsinkable lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland, more than 1,500 of its passengers dead or on their way to perishing from exposure.  Among the casualties that night were some of the richest and most notable people of the times, including Astor fortune heir John Jacob Astor IV, pioneering newspaperman and mystery writer Jacques Futrelle, noted American painter, sculptor and writer Francis David Millet and …

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Urban Archeologist: Before Twitter it was Called Sending a Post Card

The lost art of the post card.

The post card is an interesting phenomenon; once a common form of correspondence, it may someday be referred to as the painfully slow predecessor of Twitter. A few words scribbled quickly in a box of limited space, open for anyone to read, but making sense only to the recipient. Post cards can be very collectable, but I never knew why until I started blogging about them. Realization — They are visually addictive. As a novelty of communication and a form of advertising, around since the 19th century, there are still millions of post cards out there. They were printed on thick paper stock to survive the handling of the Postal service, which also ensured their longevity. The images, whether cartoon, photo or lithograph stand as historic …

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Abraham Lincoln, The Poet

When presidents are ranked by historians, Abraham Lincoln consistently appears near the top as one of America's greatest. While being a great executive, Lincoln also had a love for verse.

Abraham Lincoln, the man who delivered the Gettysburg Address. Abraham Lincoln, the man who helped end slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln, the man who led the Union during the Civil War, ultimately saving America. Abraham Lincoln, the poet? According to the Library of Congress, Lincoln regularly read poetry throughout his life. As a teenager, the boy who would become the 16thPresident of the United States took to writing it as well, carefully crafting verses as he dragged his quill across paper or scribbled a few lines here and there in the margins of his textbooks. There was a poem that stuck out above all others for Lincoln. It was William Knox's Mortality. Lincoln memorized the poem, often reciting it, but did …

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Valentine's Day: More Than a Hallmark Holiday?

Sending flowers, cards, candy, etc. Are we being fleeced?

Today is Valentine’s Day. While the romantic might jump on yet another opportunity to express their feelings for their immortal beloved, the cynics argue February 14 was concocted as a holiday by a group of sinister portly men who smoked cigars and drank bourbon, all the while wiping juices that dripped down their fat chins from porterhouse steaks while they dined in some dark room at Hallmark headquarters, nefariously plotting how to extract even more money from the not-as-fabulously well-to-do. And if the latter were true, those men would have come up with a great plan. According to theGreeting Card Association (yes, there is such an association), with an estimated one billion cards sent each year, Valentine's Day ranks just behind …

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Wilton History

Horse Thieves and Counterfeiters

A look into Wilton crime from over 100 years ago.

While far from being a hotbed of criminal activity, Wilton has never been free of criminal activity. These two quick anecdotes come from Robert Russell’s Wilton, Connecticut: Three Centuries of People, Places, and Progress which is available to purchase or rent at the Wilton Library. The information in this article comes from pages 356-57 of Russell's book. According to Russell, on the morning of April 12, 1908, during Sunday services at Wilton’s Congregational Church, two men jumped into a horse and carriage stationed right behind the house of worship and took off in a trail of dust. Using a car (probably a Ford Model T), Norwalk police gave chase to the bucking thieves, but their pursuit proved fruitless. Apparently back then, the …

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Ambler Making Hay Despite Cloudy Funding

Ambler Farm receives approval to go ahead with its second phase of construction and renovations on the Raymond-Ambler House.

Ambler Farm is still planning on making hay in the coming year, even if the shining sun is being blotted out by a cloudy economic forecast. The farm and the town began a large bonding initiative in 2007 to restore the Raymond-Ambler House and make various improvements around the property. The $1 million project was to be split into two payments, both of $500,000, with one coming that year and another set for 2011. Unfortunately, the second $500,000 installment is being delayed due to the tight constraints of Wilton's FY 2011 budget. Luckily for the Friends of Ambler Farm's board, they have been biding their funding carefully. "We've been trying to backtrack and make the project fit into the town's budget process," said Ann Bell, the board'…

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Christian Camerota

11:54 am on Thursday, April 29, 2010

It's a slightly archaic use, and it's almost always paired with time, but I believe you can well bide your funding...the word can be used to mean "to endure" or "to bear," which was supposed to be the tacit implication here.   more ›