Died Alone On His Boat

Captain Edward W. Irwin’s Sudden Death

Stricken With Paralysis on Monday Night While at Perth Amboy on the Schooner Jorden Woolley

Capt. Edward W. Irwin of Red Bank, died suddenly at Perth Amboy on Monday night on board the schooner Jorden Woolley owned by Capt. Thomas P. Brown. Capt. Irwin started for Perth Amboy on Saturday morning for a cargo of coal. It was his first trip of the season. With him on the boat were William Henrehen and Charles Cox. They loaded the schooner with coal on Monday and were to have started for Red Bank early yesterday morning. On Monday night Henrehen and Cox went ashore. When they returned to the boat about ten o’clock they found Capt. Irwin dead. He was lying on the bunker. He had turned a chair on the bunker and put his coat over it so as to make a comfortable headrest. Mr. Irwin told Henrehen and Cox when they went ashore that he was going to take a bath while they were gone. He had put a kettle of water on the stove and had apparently lain down for a rest while the water was boiling. Death came to him while he was lying there, through the medium of a stroke of apoplexy. Capt. Irwin had always enjoyed the best of health.

Capt. Irwin was 67 years old. He was the son of William Irwin and was born at Middletown in a house that stands near the junction of the Middletown and Chapel Hill roads. He went to sea when he was ten years old and he followed seafaring and boating up to the time of his death. He was assistant pilot on the steamboat Jesse Hoyt when that boat ran from New York to the Sandy Hook dock. For many years, and until the packet business was superseded by the railroads, he ran a schooner from Red Bank to the New York markets. He at one time carried sand by schooner from Highland Beach to the foundries at Elizabethport. The schooners that he had captained were the Hiram B. Edwards, the Lawrence Price, the Belle and the Jorden Wolley (sic). None of the men are now living who were running schooners up the Shrewsbury when Capt. Irwin first engaged in that business. Among those who were engaged in the business at that time and have since died are Captains Henry Parker, Forman White, Jack Collins and Leonard Seeley.

Capt. Irwin married Johanna Springsteen of Fair Haven about fifty years ago. He moved to Red Bank shortly after his marriage and had lived here ever since. His wife died about three years ago. Two grown-up children survive him. They are Mrs. Henry Wood and Charles P. Irwin of Red Bank. He leaves also six brothers and sisters. They are Daniel W. and Thomas Irwin of Chapel Hill, Harrison Irwin of Long Branch, Mrs. Winfield Price and Miss Libbie Irwin of Oceanport and Mrs. Helen Mount of Brooklyn. One other brother, Adelphus Irwin, died at Navesink several years ago.

Capt. Irwin served eighteen months in the civil war, being a member of the First New York Volunteer Engineers, Company K. He was a member of Arrowsmith Post of Red Bank.

The funeral will be held to-morrow at two o’clock at the house and will be conducted by Rev. Charles E. Hill. The body will be buried in the Rumson cemetery.

Source: Red Bank Register, Wednesday, Mar 28, 1900

Some additional excellent resources for your research are:

• New Jersey Census, 1772-1890 - Ancestry.com

• Calendar of New Jersey Wills, 1670-1760 - Ancestry.com

• Interment.net - NJ ~ New Jersey Cemetery Transcriptions on the net.

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