BUFFALO, N.Y. — This week's Unknown Story of Western New York marks a grim anniversary. The sinking of a ship deemed "unsinkable," and the local connections aboard the maiden voyage of The Titanic.
Even after 112 years, the images are still eerie. The Titanic lying on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. A grim reminder of a disaster that took 1,503 lives, a silent gravesite, filled with so many stories and, like so many other things, a Buffalo connection. Anthony Greco, of The Buffalo History Museum, says that is understandable, "Turn the century, the 8th largest city, so of course, a lot of people have connections to Buffalo. So Titanic hits the iceberg 11:40 pm, april 14th 1912. On board were two people from Buffalo."
Henry Sutehall Jr. of Kenmore, was on the trip of a lifetime, travelling with a friend, Howard Irwin, around the world. "Henry and his friend Howard had taken this two year-long holiday. They were traveling to San Francisco, hitting all the major cities in between. They went to Egypt, England, Australia. Actually in Australia, Henry meets a woman, allegedly falls in love with her and his intent is he's gonna come back to the states and eventually go back to Australia to marry her."
Henry was a trimmer by trade, installing and repairing upholstery in carriages and cars, but was working his way through his trip as a musician, playing the violin. Henry was on the final leg of that trip. he never made it back to Australia, or home to Kenmore. Henry was travelling third class and had no chance of making it to a lifeboat. If his body was recovered, it was not identified.
He is remembered on a stone in Tonawanda's Elmlawn Cemetery. About 5 miles south of that is another marker, at Forest Lawn, memorializing Edward Austin Kent, Titanic's other Queen City victim.
Greco says, "Kent was an established architect. He's in his late 50s at the time of his death. He has buildings in Buffalo, Toronto, the Chautauqua." Kent's legacy is all over Western New York in the building's he designed. On Main Street in the Theater District he worked on the former Otto store, right next door to Shea's Buffalo. You can also see his work on Cleveland Avenue and the former Chemical #5 Fire Station, and at The Unitarian Universalist Church at Elmwood and Ferry. Inside a plaque also celebrates his life.
Greco says Kent is remembered for his work here in Buffalo, but also for his heroics on Titanic. "He's one of the people who gives up a spot of his own to help women and children. On board, one of the women that he was acquaintances with on the ship, Helen Churchill Candee, she was a writer and a journalist. He actually kind of bumped into her and helps her, and right before she goes on to the lifeboats, she gives him a locket with the miniature likeness of her mother. He takes it puts in his pocket for safe keeping and intending to get it back to her when they get back to the United States." Although he never made it back, his body was recovered and keeping his word, even in death, that locket made it's way back to Helen Churchill Candee.
Kent and Sutehall were the only ones from the Buffalo area, but there were also 30 other people from Southern Ontario and the greater Western New York region. If you would like to hear many more details about titanic and the history, Greco has launched his latest podcast this morning that focuses on the disaster, you can access it through the History Museum's Website.
You can watch more Unknown Stories of WNY on the WGRZ YouTube channel.