The Key West Historeum, built on the site of Amos Tift’s warehouse overlooking
Mallory Square—complete with a 65-foot spotting tower—offers a vivid
display of the wreckers’ trade. Through the modern technology of multimedia
video, computer graphics, and sound, visitors hear and see the wind and the
fury of the angry sea, the whipping of torn sails, the rupturing of the ship’s
keel, the tearing of timbers, and the screams of terrified passengers on the
ill-fated night when the packet ship Isaac Allerton crashed on the reef not
three miles from where they sit safely and comfortably.
On August 5, 1856, the Isaac Allerton foundered in a hurricane over 5-fathom-deep
Hawk’s Channel and dashed up on Washerwoman Shoals. More than twenty wrecking
sloops and four hundred men labored for three days to salvage the cargo before
the ship went to the bottom. A bronze statue commemorating the intrepid daring
and bravery of the wreckers stands in Founder’s Park.
In 1985, modern-day treasure hunters Ray and Steve Malloney, descendants of Walter
Malloney, Asa Tift’s attorney in settling the salvage award 135 years
earlier, found the remains of the Isaac Allerton and brought up those vestiges
of another age. Part of what they retrieved fills the Historeum’s display
cases: a gentleman’s top hat, a lady’s lace glove, and shoes; silverware,
china by the barrel, and candlesticks; jewelry, buckles, buttons, and broaches;
scales and telescopes; ivory and meerschaum; inkwells and paperweights—all
things very ordinary. Viewing these bits and pieces of people’s lives and
business in nineteenth century America, it’s easy to be transported back in
time.
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Key West Shipwreck Historeum and Museum