A letter written by Col. Archibald Gracie, a first-class passenger aboard the Titanic, sold for £300,000 at Henry Aldridge and Son auction house on Saturday.
Sent days before the ship sank, costing the lives of around 1,500 people, the letter was written by one of the vessel’s 700 survivors. He survived after being “swirled” under the ice-cold water before finding safety aboard a raft.
“It is a fine ship, but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her,” Gracie wrote in the letter.
That one sentence has resulted in the letter being described as “prophetic," as the Titanic had been extensively advertised as “unsinkable.”
Gracie had written the letter on April 10, 1912, and sent it to a European ambassador, the great-uncle of the seller. The letter arrived in London on April 12, two days before the tragedy.
הצגת פוסט זה באינסטגרם
The auction house told the New York Times that the letter had been anticipated to sell for around £60,000 but far exceeded their expectations.
"The stories of those men, women, and children are told through the memorabilia, and their memories are kept alive through those items," Aldridge said in an email to NPR.
Who was Col. Archibald Gracie?
Gracie, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, came from a distinguished family. His father was an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and he was reportedly the descendant of Archibald Gracie, who built Gracie Mansion in 1799. He had made a name for himself in real estate investments.
He wrote a book titled The Truth About The Titanic, sharing his personal story of survival. He did not live to see his work published.
Only eight months after surviving the disaster, Gracie perished. While he is officially thought to have died as a result of complications relating to his diabetes, the New York Times reported that his family and doctors believed he had never recovered from the shock of the Titanic.
“When the ship plunged down, I was forced to let go, and I was swirled around and around for what seemed an interminable time,” Gracie told the New York Tribune. “Eventually, I came to the surface to find the sea a mass of tangled wreckage.”
Once aboard a raft, he floated until the R.M.S. Carpathia eventually rescued him. Over half the men who had originally reached the lifeboat died from exhaustion or cold, he wrote.
“The hours that elapsed before we were picked up by the Carpathia were the longest and most terrible that I ever spent,” Gracie said. “Practically without any sensation of feeling because of the icy water, we were almost dropping from fatigue.”
Gracie’s letter is not the first piece of Titanic history sold by the auction house, as a violin played aboard the ship sold for over $1.6 million in 2013. It is believed bandleader Wallace Hartley once played the instrument.