Our voyage became tedious and uncertain, owing to the prevalence of dense fogs and the presence of numerous icebergs, besides many fragments of ice broken off these bergs while aground on the shoals. On Friday last, while passing Langley Island, our steamer grounded on a sandbar at low water, but after a few hours detention floated off at high tide. The voyage now progressed well, till Saturday evening, at eight o’clock, when the Pera, running at full speed, dashed headlong into an iceberg.
The impact was terrific. The steamer was actually cut in through the hull as far as the foremast. It filled with fearful rapidity and sank in less than five minutes. Barely sufficient time was given to cut away the boats and put them in the water. Three boats were lowered, with a very small quantity of water and provisions hastily put into each.
The longboat was in charge of Captain Christie and contained, beside him, the first officer and 13 of the crew. The second officer and 12 men were in the second boat, and myself and ten men were in the rescued third boat. Towards night the boats separated. All were pulling towards the direction of Cape Race.
When morning dawned and the Florella hove in sight, neither of the other two lifeboats was visible. It was however so densely foggy that they might have been within a few hundred fathoms of the schooner and remained unobserved. At the time of the terrible collision with the berg it was blowing a strong southerly breeze and there was a dangerous choppy sea on at the time.
The bosun and Florella’s captain thought that the chances of the two missing boats turning up safely were good, as they were in the track of the Gulf boats running east and west almost every day. The great danger to be feared was the prevailing fog and the large quantity of scattered ice in the neighbourhood of the disaster. The wind was favourable for the boats to reach the Cape Race shore, but unfortunately that shore would be a lee one and there would probably be a heavy sea heaving against the land.
The bosun later learned that a second boat made St. Pierre safely; however, the third boat with Pera’s captain and the other crew was not heard from. Later, a smashed lifeboat was found at Cripple Cove, near Cape Race.
In the second week of June, two ships – Olivette and the Allan liner Prussian – limped into port for repair. On June 11, the barquentine Olivette, owned in Charlottetown, arrived in Halifax. It was bound from Spain to Tignish, PEI, with salt.
Captain Davis reported that in thick fog and light winds, Olivette struck a berg about 80 feet high. The ship was barely creeping along at the time, but the impact, bow first, was enough to break off the jib-boom and the bowsprit at the knightheads (or bollards) near the bow. The planking near the bow was started, or jarred so that the ship began to take on water. Afterward, it was stuck in the ice off Canso for eight days and, finding it impossible to get through, bore away for Halifax.
While bound from Liverpool, Great Britain, to North America, the SS Prussian reported that in a thick fog on June 7, at latitude 45 North, longitude 47 West, it ran into a large iceberg and had its bowsprit and bow plates smashed. The ship’s great figurehead was carried away, but otherwise no serious damage. The shock was so great that all the passengers felt it and caused excitement throughout the liner. The officers had to explain the situation to allay the panic aboard ship.
Prussian arrived in St. John’s on June 8 and left the next morning. The captain wired back to St. John’s to report on ice conditions, saying that for the first 12 hours after sailing, his ship passed through “an immense number of icebergs, but no field ice.” There was considerable fog off southern Newfoundland, but no stormy weather.
In another week or so, as the silent killers drifted into the warmer Gulf waters and melted, the spring of the iceberg finally ended. Four large ships had gone down, several others were damaged, and one lifeboat with crew from the SS Pera was missing, presumed lost.
12
Herder, One of the
Largest Lost at the Cape
October 1882
The Hamburg-American 3,500-ton mail steamer Herder was built in 1874 and was originally owned by the Alder Deutsche Transatlantische Gesellschaft (DTG). A few years later, a second funnel was added and new engines installed.
On October 5, 1882, the SS Herder, bound from New York to Hamburg with mail, passengers, and general cargo, struck a rock off Long Beach while passing Cape Race. It went aground across a small cove near the eastern head of Long Beach, a community with only two occupied homes at that time. After they were transported to shore in the eight boats belonging to Herder, the 144 passengers were stranded. While awaiting transportation to St. John’s, temporary tents made of sail from the wrecked steamer were set up.
Salvage operations began immediately. All 76 bags of mails were brought ashore first, then the valuables, including silverware, plates, and three cases of coin from the ship.
By October 10, Herder was given over to legitimate salvors who were busy getting as much of the ship’s furniture and cargo – lard, cotton, and tinned meats – ashore as they could before the weather and seas turned nasty. To secure the ship and to deter looters, Judge Prowse had sent a squad of police from St. John’s. Before Herder broke to pieces, shipping authorities sent a final report on the wreck:
There are several holes in the bottom of the Herder and all compartments are full of water. Had the ship kept a little more than the length of itself from Mistaken Point, it would have gone clear of everything; while, on the other hand if it had been a little nearer land, it is questionable whether any of those on board would have been saved.
The stately and magnificent floating palace of yesterday is now only a mass of wreck and ruin today.
Despite the best intentions of the law and armed guards, Long Beach was overrun with men from villages from Renews to St. Shotts, looking for the bounty from the sea. They would take whatever could be lifted and stashed away, seemingly from under the very eyes of those paid to protect the wreck of the SS Herder. Four men with stolen goods had been apprehended.
A final anecdotal tale of the sea comes from the darker side of the salvage. Many bundles of whalebone were taken from Herder. It was brought to shore in small boats at great risk and in much confusion under the cover of night.
Once ashore, it looked worthless, and as it was a chilly evening, it was thrown on the fire kindled there on the beach to keep wrackers warm. It made a somewhat reluctant fire. However, the folk didn’t know till later that the fuel had robbed them of many dollars a pound, had it been sold in a legitimate market.
A Mystery of the Sea
Not all sea calamities near the cape were as easily identified or described as that of Herder. A case in point happened on the Sunday evening of June 11, 1882. That day, one of the young sons of a Cape Race lightkeeper wandered along the coastline trails east of the cape. He saw some object floating in the water at Cripple Cove, about a mile and a half from the cape. When the material drifted in, it turned out to be the side of a ship’s longboat.
The young man was joined by others who, after a further search of the shoreline, discovered more pieces, which they pulled ashore. The boat, when built, was evidently new and would have had a 25-foot keel. The gunnel and keel were made of hard wood, the sides planked with pine. It was painted white outside and drab brown on the inside. All the boat was located, except the stern, which may have had a name on it. Ominously, the longboat appeared to have been lashed to a ship’s deck.
The evening before, during a thick fog, three shrill blasts of a steamer’s whistle were heard in the vicinity of Shingle Head, near where the wreck of the boat was discovered. A search party scoured the coastline all day Monday and returned to Cape Race; they had discovered nothing further, except a ship’s bell and a walnut stepladder. Neither had a name nor identifying mark.
In an attempt to discover if a ship had been lost near Cape Race during that time, the telegraph operators at Cape Race sent the information to St. John’s with a request that it be forwarded on to other papers. In an attempt to solve the mystery, the New York Ti
mes of June 13, 1882, carried the tale with this headline:
13
Powell’s Head, Near Cape Race
October 1883
In the early 1880s, a shipwreck at Trepassey spurred concerned citizens to renew their argument for an adequate beacon light to be placed on Powell’s Point. The people of Trepassey claimed a lighthouse was sorely needed as a guide for vessels trying to enter the harbour. Trepassey, one of the first harbours of easy access to vessels rounding Cape Race, was ice-free and a relatively safe refuge. However, steamers and sailing ships were always in jeopardy without a light to guide them.
In a letter to the Evening Te legram in October 1883, concerned citizens outlined these points, saying that in the winter a large number of ships used Trepassey’s safe confines and that sea traffic had been increasing in volume for several years. The whistle buoy placed near the harbour, they said, was “a poor makeshift for a lighthouse” and did little to help vessels.
On October 30, 1883, a ship sailed for Powell’s Point with the intention of keeping west and entering Trepassey; however, in the darkness and storm it sailed east of the point, right into a small inlet called Sheep’s Cove. This cove is so named because years ago, sheep let out in the spring to pasture on the point would wander into the cove looking for new growth of kelp on the rocks.
The entrance by sea to Trepassey harbour is formed by Powell’s Point or Head and the western coastline of Cape Pine. The entrance is narrow, about three quarters of a mile in width. In the days when there was no lighthouse, finding the entrance in thick fog or a blizzard would be a well-nigh impossible task.
The ship that again raised the plea for a decent light on the head was the bark Jane Hunter, owned by Walter Grieve and Company of St. John’s. His ship cleared the Custom’s House in St. John’s on August 10 with the first cargo of new fish for Brazil. On the return voyage from Pernambuco, just as the long voyage ended and the shores of Newfoundland came in sight, Jane Hunter came to grief.
Aboard was one the most knowledgeable and experienced ship masters in his day – Captain Henry Bowden of St. John’s. For many years he commanded J. & W. Stewart’s brig Glaucus. With Bowden was Mate Moses Roberts, William Seymour, Angus McDonald, Angus Wallace, William Tobin, David Taylor, Angus Rowe, and Alexander Downey.
For six days in October, as they approached Newfoundland the captain could not take off his course by sextant. A storm shut out the sun by day and the stars at night; Bowden sailed by dead reckoning and didn’t realize he was so near land. Downey, on lookout duty, heard the captain comment that they were not less than 20 or 30 miles east of Cape Race.
The ship Jane Hunter was probably put on a northeast by east course to bring it into Trepassey. About 6: 00 p.m., Downey saw a light and called the captain. The crew, believing they were well out from land, figured it to be a steamer’s light. Bowden altered the course one point more easterly to east-northeast.
It was on this course and less than an hour later when Jane Hunter hit land. One of the sailors said after, “The light must have been the Cape Pine light, and we passed close to it in the pitch blackness of dense fog, rain in torrents, and a southeasterly gale.”
By the time the crew figured it was the Cape Pine light, they were on the inside of it, not outside, and running dead toward land at about seven or eight knots an hour. Alexander Downey recalled:
When the vessel struck it was with such violence that the bottom must have been torn out. All hands were on deck. We had suspected no danger and the crash was a shock of terror to all. The sea was heaving in huge waves and this instantly engulfed the wreck.
There was not a moment of time to get the ship’s boat to rights, even it that were possible in the inky blackness of the night and the overwhelming heave of the surge.
Downey jumped for his life. From his position on the bow, he thought he could see a faint sign of land. He was a good swimmer, but the rollers breaking on shore kept him underwater nearly all the time. “When I rose to the surface, ” he said, “I only had time to fill my lungs with air, and I was again swamped beneath the boiling breakers.”
Each time Downey came close to the shore, the rebound of an immense wave carried him off again. But he fought desperately for his life until he gained a footing on the bottom and staggered ashore, numb and exhausted. He saw none of his eight shipmates in the water while he was struggling to get ashore.
The distance between the spot where Downey leaped into the water and the shore was about 50 yards, but it took him a quarter of an hour before he made it across this short breach of mad ocean. He was safe on land, but the weather – wind, fog, rain – was terrible and decreased his odds of survival. Downey recalled:
I found shelter from the downpour of rain under some bushes while the stormy sea pounded on the beach. At last I heard a voice calling aloud through the darkness, “Is anyone saved?” and I answered back. This was Angus Rowe. He had been washed ashore a quarter of a mile from where I was.
The two survivors waited and searched on the shoreline for shipmates, but there was no one else. The storm clouds moved aside, and one by one the stars came out. By this dim light, Downey and Rowe could barely recognize, from the appearance of the land, that they were near a settlement. They followed a trail leading across a neck of land, about a quarter of a mile in width, which divides Trepassey harbour from Sheep’s Cove, and reached the first house nine o’clock in the morning.
Immediately, the two survivors were taken into Trepassey homes and cared for. A search party left to locate the wreck of Jane Hunter and to find any other survivors or bodies.
Within a day, four bodies from Jane Hunter were found; the next day, one more was located. Captain Bowden’s and the mate’s remains were coffined and transported to St. John’s. The final words of the tragedy that claimed seven lives come from the late Captain Bowden’s interment announcement:
On November 6, 1883, the remains of the late Captain Bowden, who was a long-standing member of the Masonic Order (St. John’s Lodge), of the ill-starred Jane Hunter were interred in the Church of England cemetery, St. John’s. The funeral procession left the Masonic Hall, British Square; it consisted of relatives, friends and the Masonic fraternity. At the cemetery the Reverend A. Heygate, senior curate of the Cathedral, conducted the burial service. The Brethren of the “Mystic Tie” returned to their lodge room. So mote it be.
And what of Trepassey’s plea for a lighthouse? Nineteen years later, in 1902, after a number of shipwrecks and various complaints from shipowners and area residents, the Newfoundland government installed a light at Powell’s Head. The wooden tower, replaced later by an iron structure, stood until 1960, when a modern facility housed both the light and a fog alarm.
F. H. Odiorne , The Icy Deep at Cape Race
A few months prior to the loss of Jane Hunter, another Newfoundland ship – F. H. Odiorne, a 264-ton brig owned by John Woods and Son of St. John’s – met its end at Cape Race. Ironically, this same ship rescued the crew of Pride of Chaleur, which struck an iceberg and sank off Cape Race on May 11, less than a year before. Now, in March 1883, Captain C. W. LeBuff was sailing from St. John’s for Barbados with a load of dry fish.
While approaching Cape Race on Monday evening, March 5, LeBuff and F. H. Odiorne ran into severe weather. By 8: 00 p.m., the vessel, now into slob ice and small ice pans, bucked a snow and sleet storm. The rafting ice off the cape forced the vessel slowly but steadily toward shore.
Between 4: 00 and 5: 00 a.m. Tuesday morning, as it was breaking daylight, the brig was about a quarter of a mile from Cape Race. Captain LeBuff, seeing the breakers and rafting ice beating on the rocks about a boat’s length away, decided to abandon ship. F. H. Odiorne’s crew put one of their boats over the side, but found it impossible to row and dragged the boat over slush and slob ice.
All reached the rocks except Mate John Walsh, who perished in the attempt to crawl over the slob ice. Walsh died a hero at Cape Race. He saw that F. H. Odiorne’s cook was struggling i
n the water and ice. Both Walsh and the cook held an oar to stay afloat, but Walsh passed it over to him. Shortly after, Walsh sank between pieces of ice in a trough of high seas, never to be seen again.
In time, the struggling survivors reached the rocks. LeBuff later said, “By means of ropes, we seven survivors were landed in a very exhausted condition. Two Swedish sailors were so far gone that for a long time they could not speak.”
The ropes thrown down over the cliff to help Odiorne’s survivors were from the lightkeepers, assistants, and other personnel at the Cape Race station. LeBuff named those as Mr. Halley, Cantwell, Simms, Larder, Myrick, and the latter’s three sons.
“But for daring efforts of those on that terrible night and morning, ” says LeBuff, “not one of us, perhaps, would have escaped. As it was, we were dragged out of the very jaws of death.” Although the captain had highest praise for the heroism of the brave people of Cape Race, he was critical of the lack of basic life-saving equipment, such as life jackets and ropes at the cape. He suggested the matter be brought to the attention of the appropriate authority in Newfoundland.
As LeBuff and crew journeyed northward toward St. John’s, they again encountered many random acts of kindness, pointing out in particular a Mr. McCarthy of Chance Cove and Mr. Lawlor of Broad Cove. The latter sent his horses with the crew to Ferryland. Martin Cashin of Cape Broyle cared for them all night and hired a horse to help them travel on to St. John’s.
14
Shingle Head, Cape Race
May 1885
On the evening of May 11, 1885, John Boyd, a merchant and shipowner in St. John’s, received a telegram from Cape Race. His ship was a wreck. It was the second worst message a shipowner would want to receive; only the news that lives had been lost on his ship would be more devastating. Boyd knew his ship, Lizzie, was en route to Newfoundland from Cadiz with a cargo of fishery salt and was about 40 days out to sea.
Cape Race Page 6
