Virginia Beach: Norwegian Lady

Newer bronze
statue.

Thousands of tourists pass this statue called the Norwegian Lady located on the 25^th Street boardwalk in Virginia Beach, Virginia every summer. Few of these tourists know the incredible story connected to this statue.

This story includes a shipwreck, tragic deaths, heroic rescues and a haunting that has occurred for over a century.

On March 3, 1891, the small 3-masted bark called Dictator sailed out of Pensacola, Florida headed with its cargo of yellow pine lumber to England.

Another view of the bronze statue.

On board was its Captain, J.M. Jorgensen, his 15-man crew, his wife Johanne Pauline and his young 4-year old son, Karl.

Three weeks out, the Dictator was just north of the Bahamas Islands when she ran headlong into a violent nor’easter. She was tossed about by brutal hurricane-force winds and huge waves.

Two of the ship’s five lifeboats were swept overboard and lost. The ship then sprang a leak.

Captain Jorgensen wanted to ride the storm out but his crew insisted he alter his course. The Dictator headed toward Hampton Roads, Virginia, to make repairs.

On March 27^th the ship was spotted off the coast of Virginia Beach.

A large crowd gathered at 9:30 a.m. at the Princess Anne Hotel at 16^th Street. These witnesses watched in horror as the ship struggled—headed north.

Within the hour the Dictator foundered on a sandbar three-hundred yards offshore.

Rescuers onshore desperately shot a buoy cannon with a line to the ship but the high winds fought their efforts.

The ship by this time had lost three more of its remaining four lifeboats. Captain Jorgensen sent four crew members in the last lifeboat. They barely made it to shore through the crashing surf.

After several more attempts, the line from the beach cannon reached the Dictator. This line was then secured to the top of the ship’s main mast.

The ship was rolling so violently that the first crew member sent out on this line clung tightly as the line tightened and then went limp. This man was flung into the ocean and then high into the air but he managed to make it ashore.

Several more crew members were able to climb across the line, hand over hand, and made it to the beach.

The Captain then wanted his wife to try it but she paralyzed with fear refused. So the Captain dispatched several more of his crew—and most made it.

The Dictator trapped on the sandbar and mercilessly pounded by the waves was now breaking up. The line was no longer an option.

As a last resort, the Captain strapped his son to his back and lowered himself into the water that was now littered with the pine boards from the ship’s cargo. The violent surging waves ripped his son from his back and Karl drowned.

His wife Johanne, lowered herself into the water with one of the remaining crew members on board—neither made it to shore alive.

The Captain washed ashore and was later found unconscious on the beach--he survived.

The next day, the robust female wooden figurehead from the Dictator was found and placed on the boardwalk as a makeshift memorial to those who had lost their lives.

The bodies of the crew that didn’t make it, as well as Mrs. Jorgensen were buried at the Elmwood Cemetery in Norfolk.

Little Karl’s body was found several days later. A beachcomber saw it near 7^th Street. This man not knowing it was connected to the Dictator wreck took the body to his minister. Karl then was buried at this church south of Rudee Inlet.

Within days, witnesses reported hearing the eerie sound of a child crying for his mother in this cemetery. These cries continued to be heard day after day.

When the minister found out the body of Captain Jorgensen's son had never been recovered he put two and two together.

Karl’s body was then exhumed and reburied at Elmwood Cemetery next to his mother’s grave. After this, the ghostly cries were never heard again.

Postcard of the original figurehead from Dictator.

The original wooden figurehead of the Norwegian Lady decayed over the years. In 1962, a bronze memorial, crafted by Norway’s famed sculptor, Oernulf Bast, replaced it.

This Norwegian Lady statue stands on the boardwalk gazing out over the Atlantic Ocean. It is a memorial to those lost in this tragedy.