Mackay Bennett’s Bell

The Mackay Bennett like the Carpathia is closely linked to Titanic history. The Springfield (Massachusetts) Daily News Tuesday April 30 1912 described the arrival of the cable repair ship in vivid detail. The pitiful few of the Titanic’s victims retrieved from the broad waters of the Atlantic reached port today. The Mackay-Bennett with the bodies on board was reported off the first buoy at the harbor entrance at 8.00 am and immediately afterward at a signal from the bells in the churches the flags on every building in the city were dropped to half staff. As the Mackay-Bennett slowly steamed up three and a half miles of the harbor the bells in church towers tolled solemnly at minute intervals and thousands of the city inhabitants hurried to points of vantage along the waterfront to catch the first glimpse of the ship with her cargo of dead.