Thomas   Glading     The Story   last update 2/5/2018

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My Great Great-Uncle THOMAS GLADING

Thomas was born about 1825 or 6, the second oldest brother to my Great-Grandfather  BENJAMIN  GLADING .   In the  1841 census he was living with his siblings  at home (Rope Lane, St Clement, Ipswich.

George Glading            abt 1786            St Clement, Suffolk       Rope Lane, St Clement

Elizabeth Glading         abt 1791            St Clement, Suffolk       Rope Lane, St Clement

William                           abt 1826            St Clement, Suffolk       Rope Lane, St Clement

Thos                                abt 1826            St Clement, Suffolk       Rope Lane, St Clement

Elizth                               abt 1828            St Clement, Suffolk       Rope Lane, St Clement

Samuel                           abt 1831            St Clement, Suffolk       Rope Lane, St Clement

Benjamine Glading      abt 1833            St Clement, Suffolk       Rope Lane, St Clement

 

A Thomas Gladding   was baptised 22 Jun 1825 at St Clements,Ipswich.  The Witnesses were  George Gladding  and Elizabeth – so this is probably he.

He became a seaman.    On Aug 20 1842 Thomas Glading was admitted to the  Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital   (London?) age 17 height 5 feet 8 inches.  His record there  says he was a merchant seaman who had already spent 4 and a half years at sea.  He was discharged Aug 29.   The  reason given for his stay is hard to decipher.

 

 By 1856 he had worked his way up to be Chief Mate  of the American Barque Maria   [A barque (bark) is a sailing ship with at least three masts, all of them fully square rigged except for the sternmost one, which is fore-and-aft rigged.  Image shows a typical one].

 

In October 1856 the Maria was off North Carolina en route to Boston, delivering cargo of corn from Norfolk. 

 

It encountered a heavy NE gale and reports say it sprang a leak on the 14^th and the cargo shifted^.   On the 17th Captain Lincoln and crew were compelled to take to the boats and head for the Chicamacomico Banks.

 

 One of the longboats got safely to land, the other   was capsized by the breakers when it reached shore and the Captain’s wife Mrs Susan P Lincoln, Thomas ‘Gladding’ mate  one seaman William Holliday and the steward William Stevens (‘coloured’) were drowned. The rest of those who were in the boat were in the surf three hours and got ashore after great difficulty and with sundry injuries.

 

The Maria was later  found abandoned on its beam-ends sixty miles north of Cape Hatteras on the 19^th by the steamer Keystone State.   It was later towed into Charleston by the steamer Nashville on 21 Oct.

 

The bodies were found  (?where)   and buried in a graveyard in North Carolina  (still to establish exactly where)

 

To add to the tragedy:   The 1861 census shows, at 59 Rope Lane::

 

George                 1781                            Head

Elizabeth              1791                            Wife

Mary                      1833                            D-in-Law           Born USA!  husband at sea.

George                 1856                            Grandson        

 

(NB: a different census database shows them under surname Glating, at 59 Steam Mill Place)

 

So one of George’s sons had married an American girl and she had come to live in Ipswich, with their son George.  It was almost certainly Thomas  as she was from the US and the son was registered as George Thomas Glading    (birth 3Q1855 in Ipswich Volume 4A  Page 515).

 

The National Burial Index for England & Wales Transcription shows a Mary Glading Age 32   Birth year 1831   Burial date 27 Jul 1863  in Ipswich Cemetery. ( Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Record  3Q63 District Ipswich  Volume 4A Page 42).  

 

Sources:  Suffolk Chronicle 3/1/1857,     Baltimore Sun  23/10/1856   Daily Despatch 27/10/1856 and 25/10    NewYork Herald 28/10/1856