Archibald Gracie IV

Archibald Gracie IV (January 15, 1858 – December 4, 1912) was an American writer, soldier, amateur historian, real estate investor, and passenger aboard . Gracie survived the sinking of the Titanic by climbing aboard an overturned collapsible lifeboat and wrote a popular book about the disaster.

Early life Archibald Gracie IV was born on January 15, 1858, in Mobile, Alabama, a member of the wealthy Scottish-American Gracie family of New York City. He was a namesake and direct descendant of Archibald Gracie, who had built Gracie Mansion, the current official residence of the mayor of New York City, in 1799. His father, Archibald Gracie III, had been an officer with the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War; in 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general. In 1863, the elder Gracie served at the Battle of Chickamauga; he was killed in action during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864. In that same year, Archibald IV attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He later attended the United States Military Academy (though he did not graduate) and eventually became a colonel of the 7th New York Militia. The ceremony was officiated by the Rev. Henry Y. Satterlee. Together, they had two daughters:

Constance Julie Gracie (1891–1903), who was crushed to death on June 7, 1903, in an elevator shaft in the Hôtel de la Trémoïlle in Paris while the family was vacationing in Europe. Edith Temple Gracie (1894–1918), a debutante who was married on December 15, 1917, to Dunbar Burchell Adams, son of John Dunbar Adams, president of the American Chicle Company. She died of pneumonia a little over a year later, on December 31, 1918, aged 24. Constance lost her share of the estate in 1917 in the failure of a brokerage house and had to be financially supported by the father-in-law of her late daughter. In 1925, she "married Humberto Aguirre de Urbino, who had represented himself as a Count. He fled later, and, Mrs. Gracie said, had taken $5,000 worth of her jewels. It was brought out then that he was not a Count, but a dishwasher." He spent much of the voyage chaperoning various unaccompanied women. They included the writer Helen Churchill Candee, 52, and three sisters, née Lamson, who were also in their fifties: Charlotte Appleton, Malvina Cornell, and Caroline Brown. All four women survived the sinking, but Edith Corse Evans, 36, who accompanied the sisters (and Gracie) did not.

Gracie socialized with a group he called "our coterie", joined by Candee, his friend J. Clinch Smith, and several others.

As the night wore on, the exhausted, freezing, and soaking wet men aboard the overturned Collapsible "B" found it almost impossible to remain on the slick keel. Gracie later wrote that over half the men who had originally reached the collapsible either died from exhaustion or cold and slipped off the upturned keel during the night. As dawn broke and it became possible for those in other lifeboats to see them, Second Officer Lightoller (who was also on the collapsible, along with Wireless Operator Harold Bride) used his officer's whistle to attract the other boats' attention; eventually lifeboats Nos. 4 and 12 rowed over and rescued the survivors of the overturned boat. Gracie was so tired that he was unable to make the jump himself. He was pulled into lifeboat No. 12, the last lifeboat to reach (the first rescue ship to arrive).

After the rescue Gracie returned to New York City aboard Carpathia and immediately started on a book about his experiences aboard Titanic and Collapsible "B". His is one of the most detailed accounts of the events of the evening; Gracie spent months trying to determine exactly who was in each lifeboat and when certain events took place.

Gracie died before he could finish correcting the proofs of his book. It was published in 1913 under the original title, The Truth about the Titanic. Since then, the book has gone through numerous printings and is currently available under the title Titanic: A Survivor's Story. Most modern editions also include a short account of the disaster by Jack Thayer, who also survived the sinking aboard Collapsible "B"; Thayer's account, privately published for his family and friends in 1940, is titled The Sinking of the S.S. Titanic.

Health and death

Gracie never recovered from the ordeal he endured in the sinking of Titanic; as a diabetic, his health was severely affected by the hypothermia and physical injuries he suffered. It was reported, though, that he was well enough to attend a Thanksgiving reception at the Hotel Gotham. Gracie fell into a coma on December 2, 1912, and died of complications from diabetes on December 4, less than eight months after the sinking. Gracie was so preoccupied with the Titanics sinking and work he had done on the subject that his last words were reportedly, "We must get them into the boats. We must get them all into the boats." He was buried in the Gracie family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City; many of his fellow survivors, as well as family members of victims, attended his funeral. He was the third survivor, and the first adult survivor, to die after the sinking.

Portrayals

Larry Gates (1956) – Kraft Television Theatre; A Night to Remember James Dyrenforth (1958) – A Night to Remember Bernard Fox (1997) – Titanic John Guerrasio (2012) – Titanic: Case Closed