Timothy J. McCarthy: Perished in Titanic disaster. By the spring of 1912, Timothy J. McCarthy of Nelson Street in Dorchester was no stranger to trans-Atlantic voyages. The 54-year-old father of five had already made 22 journeys as part of his job as a buyer of stationery for the Jordan Marsh Co.

At noon on Wed., April 10 – 100 years ago this week – McCarthy, traveling first class, was one of the 2,228 passengers on the maiden voyage of the luxurious (some called it “unsinkable”) liner the RMS Titanic as the ship’s captain eased his way out of the harbor at Southampton, England, and set course for New York City via Cherbourg, France, where he was to pick up additional passengers.

Four days later, at 20 minutes before midnight on the 14th, the ship struck an iceberg that badly damaged its starboard side. Three hours later, at 2:20 a.m. on the 15th, the Titanic was at the bottom of the North Atlantic. Timothy McCarthy was one of the 1,514 unfortunate souls who perished that night in the frigid waters off Newfoundland as rescue ships sped to the site.

One of those vessels, the Carpathia, reached survivors in lifeboats just after 4 a.m. as word of the disaster was filtering into newsrooms on both side of the Atlantic. It reached New York on Thursday evening the 18th, where hundreds of reporters and families were awaiting its arrival.

Timothy McCarthy’s body was recovered days later by one of three cable ships, the Mackay-Bennett, which had been sent from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to look for the bodies of victims. His remains were sent to Boston where a funeral Mass was said by Revs. Peter Ronan, who had officiated at Timothy’s marriage to his bride Mary in 1888, and John V. Cronan at St. Matthew’s Church on Stanton Street. Newspaper accounts relate that more than 800 employees of the Jordan Marsh Co. attended the funeral. McCarthy was laid to rest at Calvary Cemetery.

McCarthy was traveling with a fellow Jordan Marsh employee, Herbert H. Hilliard, 44, of Brighton, who also perished in the sinking, leaving behind a wife and young daughter. His remains were never found.