Dozens Died in Andrea Doria Wreck Off Massachusetts Coast

The coastal waters of southern New England have seen their share of shipwrecks over the years.

The walls of the Seamen's Bethel in New Bedford bear the names of local fishermen and mariners who, through one mishap or another, found watery graves beneath the ocean.

Thousands of shipwrecks have likely occurred between Buzzards Bay and the tip of Provincetown.

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On Sunday, October 7, 1849, the brig St. John struck rocks at Grampus Ledge off the coast of Cohasset, Massachusetts, during a violent storm. The wreck claimed the lives of more than 100 passengers, including many children who were escaping the Great Famine in their native Ireland.

Another notable shipwreck involved the Italian Line luxury transatlantic ocean liner SS Andrea Doria.

On July 25, 1956 the 679-foot New York-bound Andrea Doria collided with the 524-foot eastbound passenger liner MS Stockholm of the Swedish American Line after 11 p.m. in dense fog off Nantucket, south of the Nantucket Lightship.

The U.S. National Weather Service says the Andrea Doria "stayed afloat for over eleven hours after the collision."

There were 1,706 passengers and crew aboard the Andrea Doria at the time of the crash. The Weather Service says, "1,660 passengers and crew were rescued and survived, but 46 people on the ship died as a direct consequence of the collision."

There were five fatalities aboard the MS Stockholm.

According to the Weather Service, "The evacuated ship capsized and sank the following morning and still lies there today."

The heavily damaged MS Stockholm returned to New York under its own power with a Coast Guard escort.

History.com says, "Neither (ship) was following the established 'rules of the road' for ocean travel" at the time of the collision.