Be warned--this is a pretty gruesome tale. Three hundred years ago this week a British merchant vessel called the Nottingham Galley went down off the New England coast near the town of York, in what is now Maine. All 14 members of the crew survived the shipwreck and the storm, but found themselves marooned on a barren piece of rock known as Boon Island. Eventually, after around three weeks, the remaining 10 crew members were forced to take desperate action to stay alive when the ship's carpenter died of starvation.

Maine historian and writer Andy Vietze who writes about the incident in the current edition of Downeast Magazine and who's working on a book about it, takes up the story.

The York Historical Society will be commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Boon Island (pictured left) shipwreck tomorrow afternoon in a ceremony featuring a number of speakers. Also tomorrow, the Maine State Museum will begin a three-month exhibition showing artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Nottingham Galley.