"wrecker", someone causing a shipwreck -- 1797; 1807, 1819; antedate 1820

[Joel S. Berson]

1)  1797:

Such is a picture of the world. ... The hungry wrecker, on some rocky
coast, sees, with exultation, the ship that the tempest hurls on
shore, and greedy of spoil, hastens to gather the plunder, while he
leaves the forlorn mariner to perish in the waves.

Commercial Advertiser, [New York]; Date: 10-06-1797; Volume: I;
Issue: 5; Page: [2]; col. 5.  (Reprinted in a few additional
newspapers that year.)  EAN.

"wrecker", n.1, sense 1.a., "One who causes shipwreck, exp. for
purposes of plunder by showing luring lights or false signals; a
person who makes a business of watching for and plundering wrecked
vessels; also, one who wrongfully seizes or appropriates wreck washed
ashore.", antedates OED2 1820--.

The 1820 quotation is also New York -- Washington Irving.

(There are many instances in EAN of "wrecker" = ship in the
1780s/1790s/1800s, from the West Indies -- perhaps not surprisingly,
since this is American newspapers.  But see the next!)

2)  1807 -- requiring more than a little transcription to get the
drift (so to speak).  Underlines indicate italics; capitals are
sometimes small caps.

For the Farmer's Cabinet.
           THE LISTENER. No. 9.
      That men should seek too build their own profit and advancement
on the misfortunes and misery of others, seems rather inconsistent
with the dictates of humanity; but in noting the manners of mankind,
it requires much more labor to point out facts as they exist, than to
describe things as they should be. ... our species is by no means
destitute of characters, to whom we shall do no injustice if we
compare them to certain kinds of feathered and unfeathered animals,
usually called _birds_ and _beasts_ OF PREY.--- ...
      The most frank and undisguised, and at the same time, perhaps,
the most honest and serviceable of these _men of prey_, whose
character has yet come to my _hearing_, are a set of men in the
West-Indies, called
           WRECKERS---
      Of whom we are informed that they are licensed by the Governor
of the Bahamas to cruise among those islands for the benefit of
salvage, which they receive on all property they may chance to rescue
from the waves.
      ... It is said that on a small key near the passage between
Cuba and St. Domingo, there have been lately planted some cocoa nut
trees, with the intent that when grown they may serve as a warning to
mariners to keep clear of the shoals; but some uncharitable people
have insinuated, that the wreckers will never suffer these trees to
grow up, lest they prove prejudicial to their trade. Whether these
suspicions are probable or not, we shall leave to the reader's
determination, after quoting the following dialogue held by Mr.
Kinnon with one of this kind of gentry, whom he fell in with in
passing through the Bahamas.
      "Kinnen. From whence came you?
      Wrecker. From Providence---last from Philimingo bay, in
Icumy.  [omitted footnotes identify these three places.]
      K. Where are you bound to?
      W. On a _racking_ voyage to Quby[?] and the westward.  [The
uncertain letter looks like a long ess shape (but not a long ess
letter) superimposed on an oval, lower-case o -- or perhaps a pair of
long ess shapes, the right one higher than the left.]
      ...
      K. ... Then certainly you must have had many opportunities of
being essentially serviceable to vessels passing the Gulf Stream, by
directing them to keep off from danger, with which you made it your
business to become acquainted.
      W.  Not much of that: they generally went in the night.
      K. But then you might have given them timely notice by making
beacons on shore, or by showing your lights.
      W.  No, no, [_laughing_] we always put them out, for a better chance.
      K. But would there not have been more humanity in shewing them
their danger?
      W. [figure of hand with outstretched finger pointing to the
right] _I did not go there for humanity---I went_ RACKING."
      So much for _Sea Wreckers_.---If what I have _heard_ is
correct, (and I fear it is) these are not the only people in the
world of similar disposition, but a great many individuals in various
professions, are richly entitled to the appellation of---_Wreckers_.

Farmer's Cabinet [Amherst, NH]; Date: 07-07-1807; Volume: V; Issue:
36; Page: [1]; col. 4.  [This source does not come up via searching
for "wrecker".]

Reprinted July 20, 1807, Poulson's American Daily Advertiser
[Philadelphia]; July 21, 1807, New-York Spy; July 24, 1807,
Alexandria [VA] Advertiser; July 28, 1807, Newburyport [MA] Herald;
Aug. 19, 1807, City Gazette [Charleston, SC]. EAN.  Also Misissippi
[sic] Herald & Natchez Gazette, Friday, November 13, 1807; Issue 45;
col A.  [19th C. U.S. Newspapers]

I, like the author, do not vouch for the historical presence of
wreckers facilitating wrecks at this date in the West Indies.  But
the word seems to attain that sense in this article.

I sense a progression from the n.2 senses of "wrecker' = "A ship or
vessel employed in salvaging sunk, wrecked, or stranded vessels."
(sense 2.a; 1789), and "a person engaged in salving" (sense 1.; 1804)
-- to the n.1 senses: first = "a person who takes advantage of a
vessel wrecked on shore"  -- and then = "someone who facilitates, or
causes, a shipwreck for the plunder".  And here, the wrecker *puts
out* warning lights, rather than setting false ones.

3)  1819 -- a "wrecker" ship outside the law?  Or merely acting under
the law of salvage?

[Apparently from Alexandria.]
Walker, of Hallowell, got on the rocks---was considerably damaged,
and the cargo pilfered by the wreckers.

Baltimore Patriot; Date: 04-20-1819; Volume: XIII; Issue: 92; Page:
[2]; col. 5.  EAN.

4)  1819 -- metaphorical use, and here *setting false* lights.

The great WRECKER OF SOULS is throwing out _false lights_ to deceive
you! A _mist_ hangs over his Coast, by which many an unwary Mariner
has been blinded to his everlasting ruin.

[In an article titled "Marine Bible Society", an address by Mr. S. B.
Ingersoll which "was not actually delivered before the Society [in
New Haven on April 6 last], but is now inserted ...".]

Boston Recorder; Date: 05-22-1819; Volume: IV; Issue: 21; Page: 82; col. 4.

Joel

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