The Schiller made excellent time across the Atlantic, and by 7 May was nearing the Isles of Scilly - well ahead of schedule. At 8 o'clock that evening a thick fog descended. Within fifteen minutes, it was impossible to see the length of the ship.
Captain Thomas immediately took in sail and proceeded at 4 knots under power.
An hour later, with the Bishop Light not seen or heard, the Captain asked for volunteers from the male passengers to act as extra lookouts - with the prize of a bottle of Krug champagne to the first man to see the light or hear the fog bell. The prize was never collected.
At 10 o'clock that night the Schiller struck the Retarrier Ledges. She had passed inside the lighthouse.
The engines were immediately put astern and the fatally damaged Schiller pulled clear of the reef, but as she wallowed in the swell three huge waves in succession lifted her up and flung her back on the Ledges - this time broadside on.
The dense fog, heavy seas, the darkness, the slippery decks and angle at which she lay combined to magnify the horror of the catastrophe for those on board.
Complete panic broke out among the passengers. Men, women and children rushed to the boats screaming and crying and some of the men drew knives. Captain Thomas fired his revolver in the air to restore discipline. Eventually running out of ammunition, he was obliged to draw his sword to drive out the cowardly men from the 8 life-boats.
Two boats and their occupants were then flattened when the funnel crashed down on them, two others capsized after being cut loose from the painted-up chocks, and another two were smashed against the hull as they were lowered, drowning the occupants. Just two boats got away safely. 320 men, women and children were left aboard to face a night of mounting horror - and a rising tide.
They managed to fire the cannon half a dozen times before the powder got wet, and then rockets were sent up into the blanketing fog in a desperate attempt to attract the attention of those on shore.......
Meanwhile, on St Agnes, a cannon shot was heard and was assumed to be the normal report gun fired by ships as they passed the Bishop. It was also heard on St Mary's and a routine shipping report was sent to the Schiller's Agent in Plymouth.
....... back on board the Schiller things were desperate. By midnight she had developed an even heavier list and Captain Thomas ordered all the women and children into the deckhouse structure over the midships saloon. More than fifty huddled there, weeping mothers clutching bewildered howling children.
About 2 am, the Captain, the ship's doctor and the Chief Engineer were swept away by a huge wave that raked the ship from stem to stern. A succession of heavy seas continued to sweep the ship. One ripped off the deckhouse roof, the next hurled the occupants into the sea. Men would never forget those screams. The women and children sheltering there were all drowned.
Men started lashing themselves to the rigging, on each of the masts. One iron mast was swept away almost at once, taking all on it under water. The other stayed upright with men clinging to it. A Mr Percy urged them higher before having his brains dashed out by a loose chain as he reached the Crow's Nest.
Another passenger called West used Percy's body as shelter and survived to be picked up later from the sea.
On St Agnes, Obediah Hicks and his crew resolved at first light - 4 am - to take out the gig O & M into the huge seas and thick fog to investigate stories of more than one cannon shot being heard.
They rowed out past Melledgen and Corrigan, and along the length of the Western Rocks, and as the mist cleared for a moment, they saw to their horror a mast and some sails of a large ship protruding from Retarrier Ledges.
The crew of the O & M took the passage through the Neck of Crebawathen, shipping several big seas as they pulled on the sweeps to get nearer to the wreck......
They found the sea littered with debris. Above the pounding surf, they heard the dreadful screams of the men in the rigging and those clinging to wreckage. A huge piece of wreckage smashed the rudder of O & M and the danger of fatal damage to her 1/4 inch planking meant that Obediah Hicks had no option but to order his crew to row for St Mary's to raise the alarm. He was able to pluck 5 survivors, including Mr West, from the sea before turning away.
On the way, they alerted two fishing boats from Sennen which were sheltering from the storm and which then went to the wreck.
O & M reached St Mary's at 7 am, and by 8 am the mail-steamer Lady of the Isles was steamed up and took the St Mary's lifeboat and the O & M in tow. The big seas had the steamer's decks completely awash, and the O & M had to cut herself free when two of her planks stove in. The gig was lucky to reach land, the crew bailing frantically to stay afloat.
Lady of the Isles
The Lady of the Isles found a scene of desolation and horror. The remaining mast had fallen, taking those on it to their deaths and they found nothing but debris and bodies.
Various small boats continued to scour the seas for survivors and a few were found clinging to rocks. The two lifeboats that got away from the Schiller when she first hit the Ledges eventually landed on Tresco with 27 people including the only woman to survive.
Of the 355 souls that left New York, just 44 men and one woman survived. No children were saved.
AFTERMATH....
The vast number of bodies presented a problem. Some were embalmed for return to America in simple black-painted deal coffins, but the majority were buried in three mass graves in St Mary's churchyard. The granite had to be blasted with dynamite to make room.
Preparing the first of the mass graves
Mr Kornblum perished with his watches, as did Louise Holzmeister whose heart-broken husband erected a memorial to her in St Mary's church. Richard Williams survived and became known as "Schiller" Williams ever after.
310 souls - mostly German - were dead and the islanders, led by Mr Dorrien Smith, plunged into the deepest mourning.
The tragedy shocked the world. The practice of sounding a gun to report arrival was abandoned at once. Henceforth, it would be used only as a distress signal.
Schiller lifeboat at St. Mary's
Reporters flocked to cover the story. The kindness, compassion and sensitivity of the islanders won universal praise, as did the honesty of poor Cornish and Scillonian fishermen who handed in thousands of pounds-worth of recovered valuables and jewels.
Many of the bodies were disinterred after burial for identification by their grieving relatives.
Mr Franz Hauser from Iowa hired divers to find the bodies of his two sisters who perished. One was found held firmly in the clutches of a huge cuttle-fish with tentacles over twelve feet long. Mr Hauser died of shock three days later.
The Emperor and Empress of Germany distributed medallions and bibles to islanders, and gold medals to the coastguard and the lifeboat coxswain. Mrs Dorrien Smith was given a gem-encrusted bracelet.
There is an oddly chivalrous epitaph to the story...
Throughout the two World Wars that followed, the German Navy and Luftwaffe had instructions to spare both the Isles of Scilly and "The Scillonian" from attack - on account of kindnesses shown to their countrymen by islanders years before.
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