"Captain Frederic Hinckley...was sailing on the ship Living Age when she hit a reef in the Pacific...escaping aboard a raft to Pratas Island." - A Pilgrim Returns to Cape Cod (2018)
"Frederic Hinckley...died suddenly yesterday...he went to sea as a boy...passed 16 years at sea, mostly in the China trade...while aboard the Living Age, his ship wrecked on Pratus Shoals, after 36 days on the wreck the men made their way to Pratus Island on a raft." -Boston Globe, March 25, 1918
"Day by day the Living Age nosed her way through the dangerous shoals of the China Sea...Captain Hinckley...realized that the ship was near Pratas Shoal...crushing her bow against the rocks and stuck fast." - Old Shipping Days in Boston (1918)
"Frederic Hinckley relates his thrilling personal experiences, back in 1855, when during a cruise on the ship Living Age he was "Wrecked on a Reef in the China Sea," told in forceful style which quickly catches and holds the interest, tells of danger and privation and moreover, is a true narrative." - The Standard
Does the United States have a historic claim to Pratas Island in the South China Sea, due to its occupation of the island by wrecked U.S. sailors in 1855?
As Captain Frederic Hinckley (born 1839) relates in his short 1898 book "Wrecked on a Reef in the China Sea, " in 1855 while serving as second mate he went down with the clipper ship Living Age on a reef in the China Sea and escaped on a raft to Pratas Island where he was cast away for over a month.
The ship "Living Age" started in May, 1855, from Boston for a voyage around the world. This voyage of the "Living Age," which before its end was to cost some lives, was from the beginning, Captain Hinckley recalls, unlucky. There was no fault in the building of the ship. New England toil had been put into her, probably in Medford, and New England ships were stanch and fast. For thirty days in midwinter the "Living Age" beat around Cape Horn. Food was short, and scurvy had broken out among the sailors, and after a hundred and fifty-three hard, long days, the ship finally put into Honolulu harbour, where she delivered her freight and went on to Shanghai.
After leaving Shanghai they sailed down between Formosa Channel and the Chinese coast, moving very cautiously, and with constant watchfulness, knowing the perils, and doing their best to avoid them. Day by day the "Living Age" nosed her way through the dangerous shoals of the China Sea.
Then disaster struck as Hinckley who was on watch had just reached the main hatchway the ship, sinking in the hollow of a huge wave, struck bottom with a tremendous crash. What actions would the crew take to salvage their lives after this disaster?
The Pratas Islands, also known as the Dongsha Islands, are an atoll in the north of the South China Sea consisting of three islets about 340 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong. The People's Republic of China claims the islands, but the Republic of China (Taiwan) controls them and has declared them a national park. Hinckley was a castaway for more than a month on the main island of the group—Pratas Island—the largest of the South China Sea Islands.
