Crossing the Atlantic: What Happened to the Ships John Ganon and Olympus?

Emigration by Sea

When James and Isabella Wood emigrated to Texas in 1851, they set sail from Liverpool, England bound for New Orleans, Louisiana.  They traveled on the John Ganon, ship’s captain was Hamilton.  This information is found on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website.  I found a great account of emigration from Scotland to the United States that was written by members of the Church of Latter Day Saints.  Their first hand descriptions make me thankful that I didn’t cross the Atlantic by ship back in the 1800s.

The Mormon saints traveling to Texas were on board the ship Olympus.  There is a rendering of that ship in the article linked above.  Both the John Ganon and the Olympus are traveling to the same port (New Orleans) at the same time.  They arrive in New Orleans at about the same time as a newspaper article from New Orleans reports that both ships have arrived.  The ships can’t just pull into the port.  Either they have to be piloted in or they have to be unloaded onto barges and all passengers and cargo brought into port.  That is all pretty clear cut and then, things go gang angley.  When the passengers arrive in the port of New Orleans, suddenly, the Wood family (and the Park family and John Patterson) are manifested not only on the John Ganon, but also on the Olympus.

Ships Manifest Mystery

This is where is gets weird.  On the Secretary of State link above, the Wood family are manifested on both the John Ganon and the Olympus (as are all the other passengers).  This does not happen anywhere else in the Louisiana SOS records.  A bit of poking around and I found that there was a large group of Mormons traveling on the Olympus and they recorded their experiences.  Many told of the great storm and the damage their ship (The Olympus) sustained.  I haven’t found any records of the John Ganon being damaged.  Is it possible that the John Ganon rendered aid to the Olympus and that they limped into New Orleans together, their passengers mixed due to the John Ganon taking some of the Olympus passengers for part of the voyage?  Maybe.

A Proposal

What is interesting, when viewed with this new information about the storm and the damage to the Olympus, is the family story we have all been told.  Remember the tale about the ship’s captain having the life boats lowered and the crew rowing the children around in the ocean when they “ran out of wind”?  What if there was still “air” but the captain halted forward progress in an attempt to avoid the massive storm that crippled the Olympus?  What if the rowing children around on the ocean was really part of the rescue attempt and what the Wood children remembered was actually the transfer of passengers from the damaged Olympus to the John Ganon?

I know it is a lot of “what ifs”, however, something out of the ordinary happened to cause the double manifestation (especially when coupled with the accounts of the storm damage to the Olympus).  What do you think happened?