"Friday (the preceding Wed was dated 23rd Oct 1805) Wind ESE blows hard. Last night, as a large market-boat was sailing down the river Tamar, with the sheets belayed, the sails gibed near Cargreen, and she upset, by which occurrence three men and six women were unfortunately drowned. The three boatmen were saved by a boat passing by, who picked them up off the wreck. One of the young women was to have been married this morning."
I was specially interested in the story since I spent my early years in Cargreen, on the Cornish bank of the Tamar. The river is wide at this point and just below Cargreen is joined by the river Tavy. I recall my mother used to tell me that in the first decades of the 20th century, one the ways to travel to the shops in Plymouth and Devonport was to get the Cargreen waterman to row you across the river and then walk up through fields to the railway station at Bere Alston. Then you catch a train on the line which ran along the Devon bank of Tamar into Plymouth. Return was the same route - sounds hair-raising if the wind had got up during the day!
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