The great war has come quite near to Edgartown people this week in the sinking on Saturday last, Aug. 10^th, by a German Submarine, of the fine fishing schooner Progress of this port, Capt. Robert Jackson, one of the most dauntless and successful fishing masters sailing from this place. The sinking occurred on the southeast part of Georges Banks, about 160 miles east southeast of the island of Nantucket, where the Progress and a dozen or more others of the swordfishing fleet were at work securing what would have been very successful fares, had not the Gernman sunk the most of them.

The Progress, which sailed on this trip Aug. 2d, had 65 swordfish on board at the time of her sinking, valued at $2500. The vessel was valued at $8,000, and Capt. Jackson only just before starting on this trip had placed an insurance of $6000 upon her. She was built in 1915 at Thomaston, Me.

Capt. Jackson's crew on the trip was composed of the following named: Albert Porter, Louis Doucette, George H. Thomas, Mattie Richard, Claude Wagner, of Edgartown, and Thomas Merchant of Boston.

Of the above, Thomas, Porter, Richard and Marchant got away from the Progress in a dory earlier than did Capt. Jackson and the two others and were soon lost to view, and although intelligence of their having been picked up has not reached Edgartown at the time of this writing (Wednesday noon), still it is the opinion of local fishermen that they have been picked up and will be landed, as have some of the crews of the vessels sunk. The four are said to have provisions and water for about six days. Announcement of their safety is expected at anytime.

(Later – Thursday morning. - A telegram received in Edgartown early this morning announces the safe arrival in Boston of the four missing men.)

Directed by the officers of the submarine Capt. Jackson, Doucette and Wagner got away from the Progress just before noon, and soon after their leaving, the vessel was blown up by a bomb the Germans had attached to her hull and she sank out of sight, the second one of the fleet destroyed. The Germans, by shell fire or bombing, destroyed nine vessels altogether and that afternoon and night some sixty men, in some twenty-five dories, were adrift on the Atlantic, nearly 200 miles from land.

Capt. Jackson, with Doucette and Wagner, after vainly endeavoring to locate the other dory containing Porter and the three others, headed their boat towards the coast, and after proceeding some eighty or ninety miles were picked up by the Gloucester trawler Acushla and landed in Boston Tuesday morning.

Capt. Jackson arrived at his home in Edgartown on Tuesday evening and was warmly greeted by all.

Another Edgartown schooner, the Eliza A. Benner, Capt. Horace O. Hillman, narrowly escaped a like fate with the other vessels of the fleet, as it is reported she left the fishing grounds only an hour or two before the submarine made her appearance. The Benner took into Boston a catch of 61 swordfish.