Thomas Moorhead, a ship-wreck'd mariner, who subsisted fifty-one days on the bodies of his comrades Taken off the wreck by the ship Monticello, and arrived at New-York, the beginning of May, 1809

This broadside contains a detailed prose narrative of a wrecked ship with a cargo of timber that prevents it from sinking. The crew dies one by one until only Thomas Moorhead is left. The prose headnote tells the tale as a newspaper release; the poem in ballad meter retells the tragedy with dramatic details. Moorhead’s cannibalism is accepted without condemnation and the poem ends with a prayer of thanks for God’s mercy. This broadside with sensational news and religious moral cast in rhyme (possibly conceived to the tune of Chevy Chase) must have been a commercial success to still be in print in Coverly’s shop four years after the shipwreck.

The incident is described in detail in the New York Evening Post of May 9, 1809, under the headline “Shipwreck and Miraculous Escape.” The broadside headnote may have been taken from this item. According to the article, the captain of the rescuing ship Monticello managed Moorhead’s return to health well by slowly adding food to his diet. But unlike the forgiving clerical author of the poem, the more superstitious crew shunned the unfortunate man when they learned how he had survived.