Built in 1871 at Montague, Prince Edward Island, the 149-ton brigantine was 99 feet long and 24 feet wide. Captain William Roud was in command. The Cape Race wire read:
The brigantine Lizzie is a total wreck at Shingle Head. Crew saved and at Trepassey. Will leave for St. John’s as soon as possible having secured a passage with Richard Quilty. They lost everything.
On the morning of May 11, Captain Roud knew he neared the Newfoundland coast and was feeling his way along in the dense fog. Lizzie struck the rocks at Shingle Head, two miles east of Cape Race. On the topography map of the cape, the land near Shingle Head is described as “precipitous cliff, conspicuous.”
Grounded against a rocky cliff, Lizzie was soon reduced to debris along the narrow cobblestone shore. The only thing saved was some of its rigging. The captain and crew, once they saw there was no way to save the brigantine, left in Lizzie’s small boat, rowing to Trepassey.
The lighthouse people at Cape Race were mystified over two unusual circumstances: Why had Captain Roud not heard the whistle, which at that time was making an awful (loud) noise? The weather was moderate and the sound of the whistle should have been clear.
Secondly, why had Roud and his crew chosen to row to Trepassey to report his trouble? Trepassey was 18 miles from Shingle Head and Cove; the Cape Race mariners’ and light station was only two miles away. Lizzie’s crew could and should have reported to authorities at Cape Race.
Nevertheless, the answers were not forthcoming; on the other hand, Lizzie’s registry closes in 1885 under the “Reason for Closure” as “Lost at Sea.” Cape Race had claimed another victim.
In May of the same summer, one other major shipping calamity occurred near Cape Race. The German steamer Grasbrook, under the command of Captain Schwaner, went ashore at Seal Cove. Bound from Antwerp for Montreal and laden with glass, iron, and spirits, Grasbrook struck on a Sunday afternoon, June 21, 1885, in dense fog. Captain Schwaner and his crew reached shore without incident, but the vessel and its cargo were a total loss.
McClure’s Magazine, June 1903, in an article titled “An Ocean Graveyard, ” gave a brief commentary on the demise of Grasbrook, saying that salvors along the Cape Race shore are often reckless and unthinking. When they gather in hundreds to take what they can, every man pre-empts what he can. In the rush, there is much destroyed. “When the Grasbrook went ashore . . . every man on the shore provided himself with a German concertina, of which instruments of torture she had a large consignment, and to secure them packages of much more costly freight were thrown overboard.”
15
Alexander Graham Bell
September 1885
The great steamer Hanoverian left Halifax for Liverpool via St. John’s on the last day of August 1885. By the time it reached the south coast of Newfoundland, the fine weather had changed to dense fog. Steaming slowly along, the great steamer, carrying 230 passengers, around 60 crew, and a cargo of grain and meat, was under the command of Captain Thompson.
Hanoverian carried several notable passengers, including the family of Hibbert Binney, the Lord Bishop of Nova Scotia; Captain Fane, commander in the English navy; and famed inventor and educator Alexander Graham Bell (who was 38 at the time), his wife, two children, his father, and the family maid. Bell’s father, Alexander Melville Bell, knew St. John’s, as he had resided there until 1842 and was employed by T. McMurdo and Company.
Hanoverian reached Cape Mutton, on the north side of Portugal Cove. Thompson mistook the land for Cape Ballard, a point farther east. Other accounts say the captain and officers of Hanoverian mistook the Cape Pine light for that of Cape Race. Thompson tried to turn his ship around, but it grounded on Catherine’s Point, with the bottom ripped out for nearly the entire length of the ship. In addition, a very strong tide had been setting into Trepassey Bay during that week in August – the strongest in years, the fishermen claimed.
In fact, the captain had confused the landmarks. To make matters worse, Hanoverian passed two local boats just off the land fishing in relatively shoal water and, since it was within hailing distance, the officers could have asked about the depth of water, where the land lay, or just exactly where the ship was. According to one of the passengers:
The fishermen on one of the boats called to those on the deck of the steamer and tried to warn them of danger, but Captain Thompson thought he knew too much and was too clever to be under obligation in any way to a few poor Newfoundland “toilers of the sea.” Had he listened to a few friendly voices, he might have saved a splendid vessel worth some £95,000 sterling and all its valuable cargo.
The captain ordered the engines reversed when he saw the land and then called, “Full speed astern!” But it was too late. Hanoverian struck and held fast about 400 yards from shore. It was about ten o’clock, September 2. Through the fog, which by now was “burning off” or lifting, the little homes of Portugal Cove – those on The Point – could be seen.
When it was seen it was impossible to back the ship off, the engineers were instructed to “go ahead” and force Hanoverian as far aground as possible. This was done to prevent the vessel from sliding out into deep water and going down before the passengers could be landed.
Portugal Cove (with “South” often added to avoid confusion with a town in Conception Bay) is a viable community today with a population of two or three hundred. Its name probably comes from the Portuguese fishing station established there in the 16th century, when the area was first fished by Basque, English, French, and Portuguese migratory fishermen.
The excellent drying beaches for salt cod attracted permanent English settlers, said to be the Harterys, in the late 1700s. Other families moved in, including the Molloys from Trepassey and the O’Learys from Renews. Portugal Cove was recorded in the first census in 1836 with a population (including nearby Biscay Bay) of 28. By 1845 there were 24 people at Portugal Cove South alone. Shortly thereafter the Coombs, Power and Ward families settled there.
By 1885, the year of the wreck of Hanoverian, there were a little over 104 residents, bearing the family names that still formed the nucleus of the community 100 years later. About 20 people (four or five homes) resided at The Point, which may be Catherine’s Point or Portugal Point referred to in the tale of the wreck of Hanoverian. The community, which saw scores of shipwrecks over the years, grew again when people moved there from Long Beach, particularly the Perrys and St. Croixs from The Drook.
When the people of Portugal Cove saw Hanoverian’s boats going over the side, they lit fires to warm the crew and passengers. They knew they could not accommodate the nearly 300 passengers in the few houses and stores.
Meanwhile, aboard the beached steamer, things were not going well. Orders were given to lower the boats, but not promptly obeyed by Hanoverian’s sailors. When some of the passengers began to panic and mill around in confusion, Professor Alexander Graham Bell appealed for calm.
According to the statements of several passengers, eight Blue Jackets (sailors of the British navy), who were en route to England from Canada, helped women passengers over the side of the steamer and into the lifeboats. Many of the women had to be lowered by ropes into the waiting boats. As well, the Blue Jackets landed much of the ship’s mail, luggage, provisions, and bedding.
While this was happening, five passengers bound for Newfoundland engaged a Mr. Molloy of Portugal Cove to take them to land in his cod trap skiff. Molloy offered to take off other passengers, but Captain Thompson raged against this. He fumed that they would use the Hanoverian lifeboats to get to shore. Of course, many passengers had to remain in Portugal Cove for a few days; many walked to Trepassey, seven or eight miles away. Children were conveyed by horse and cart.
It was at this time when the Ryan and Pardy fishermen with their crews came out from Portugal Cove. They offered their assistance, which the captain declined and referred to them as “savages.” In essence these were law-abiding, honest, and hard-working fishermen described by passengers as planter fishermen, i.e. they
owned their own boats and employed crews and had a well-established premises with farms and gardens in Portugal Cove South.
During the debarkation, a heavy swell continued to heave into the exposed cove. The vessel rolled to a dangerous degree, and for a time it was feared the ship’s spars would fall down on the passengers. There seemed to be a feeling, a rumour, the crew was intoxicated or insubordinate at the time of leaving the ship. This was later refuted by passengers; although some sailors did drink rather too freely, they continued to bring provisions ashore. Around 5: 00 p.m., when all people were off the stranded Hanoverian, there was some thievery carried out.
One steerage passenger, a woman of Jewish descent, complained to authorities her truck had been broken open and its contents stolen. Head Constable Sullivan, the nearest law officer in the area, came from Trepassey and examined the trunk. He found it to be half full of grain and said it had been opened aboard Hanoverian and not on shore by the good people of Portugal Cove.
By September 4, two steamers, Hercules and Te nedos, had arrived at Trepassey. The latter, under the command of Captain Drummond, carried the passengers, mail, and most luggage to St. John’s – the passengers stayed in the Atlantic Hotel.
As for the partly submerged Hanoverian, it was declared a total wreck; most cargo was taken out by Mr. Condon and his staff of divers. The ship’s agent, Mr. Ambrose Shea (who had been a Newfoundland MHA and was later appointed as governor of the Bahama Islands), figured much of the valuable cargo, canned meats, tobacco, and pork would be recovered if the wind held at southwest. Shea spoke highly of the conduct of the fishermen of Portugal Cove, Trepassey, and the neighbourhood.
In 1996, Lillian Toward wrote a long and informative biography of Alexander Graham Bell’s wife, Mabel. Mabel Bell’s impression of the shipping accident near Cape Race and the walk to Trepassey reveals:
. . . When Hanoverian . . . ran aground, the passengers were rescued and brought to Portugal Cove. The sullen natives were not overjoyed by their arrival. Few carts were available, so most passengers walked eight miles to the next community [Trepassey] and crowded into a small hotel for the night. (Mabel Bell: Alexander’s Silent Partner, 1996, Lillian Toward)
16
The Cape Claims the
Newfoundland Schooner Bessie
March 1887
Responsibility for the Cape Race lighthouse and other key Newfoundland stations passed from the British (Imperial) to the Canadian government on July 1, 1886. The next year, several changes came to the light. The staff, consisting of a keeper and four assistants, would be reduced (in accordance with the proposed arrangements) to a lightkeeper. He would be given a salary of $1,000 a year. From that salary he would employ two assistants at his own expense. Patrick Myrick, the engineer of the steam-driven foghorn, became the keeper, but would have to combine both duties as keeper and engineer.
Formerly the light was maintained by a tax on shipping, but these taxes were abolished by the government. The Imperial authorities, because of the transfer of management of the light, after paying all expenses up to the transfer, had passed over to federal control the sum of over £20,000. This was the balance remaining from the handsome revenue derived from those taxes in the past. With the change came another technological advancement: petroleum would replace seal oil as fuel.
Despite the improvements and changes, the fogs, rocks, and tides of Cape Race remained as they had for ages past. These hazards respected no ships, regardless of size, country of origin, cargo, destination, or classification. Classy passenger liners, tramp steamers, freighters, foreign traders and fishermen, and immigrant ships all fell prey to the enemy lying in wait at the cape.
And what of the relatively obscure Newfoundland fishermen and their little schooners bringing fish to mainland ports and returning with much-needed supplies for the smaller outports? They too fell to adversities faced at Calamity Coast. The schooner Bessie, in command of Captain Power, was owned by the Honourable Moses Monroe, a merchant of St. John’s. The 99-ton schooner was built in 1877 in Little Bras d’Or, Nova Scotia. It was 87 feet long, 23 feet wide, with a depth of nine foot. In early March 1887, it had been to Boston for spring merchandise.
In the heavy weather encountered off southern Newfoundland, Power had put into Burin, where Bessie waited nine days for more civil winds. On Monday, March 28, it left Burin, but only reached as far east as Cape Race. Power found he could not get through a string of ice stretching for miles off the cape.
Bessie then bore away for Trepassey, where it became jammed in the ice pack in Trepassey Reach. Helpless in the drift ice, the winds and ice wheeled the schooner around Powell’s Head and between the Sinking Rocks and Drift Cove.
Captain Power and crew were forced to heave to with two anchors down, as there was a heavy sea on. On the evening of March 29, a strong gale came on from the southwest, accompanied by torrents of rain. Winds roiled up the sea even more.
Power and his crew were up all night and on deck in the terrible weather in their attempt to keep Bessie off the rocks. On Wednesday morning, the schooner tried to get out of Drift Cove, but was thrown high and dry on one of the Sinking Rocks. The same seas lifted the vessel off again; however, the damage had been done. Several large holes had been punched in its bottom.
Seeing no chance to save the vessel or the cargo, Power handed Bessie over to the wreck commissioner for him to do the best for all concerned. As it was such a great risk to life to transport the cargo – mostly barrels of flour – to shore, the best deal the wreck commissioner could offer was to have the flour landed “on the halves.” Half the value would go back to the owners, and half for the salvors. Six hundred and fifty barrels and some general cargo, more or less damaged, reached shore.
At first there was a problem with prices. To have the cargo first landed, then carried from Drift Cove to Trepassey, would entail expense. Possible monies in return for the goods would only pay costs. When last seen on March 30, the waterlogged hull of Bessie was drifting toward Cape Mutton, near Trepassey. The back cove of Trepassey and the harbour was filled with ice.
By Saturday the St. John’s harbour tug Hercules had taken 160 barrels from the wreck. The underwriter’s portion of the salvaged cargo was sold at good prices. M. Tobin and M. Condon bought Bessie’s dories, oars, sails, lines, and ropes; the damaged flour fetched three dollars a barrel.
Leaving the ice-damaged hull to the tides and winds beating in from Powell’s Head to Mistaken Point, Hercules left for St. John’s, taking in tow the brigantine Seretha. No doubt the latter had also been trapped in Cape Race ice.
17
Heroism at the Cape
September 1887
On the evening of August 31, the schooner Maglona, under Captain Richards, left Little Placentia. There was a light air of wind from the westward, and the trip to Bay Bulls to finish loading fish for the market began under pleasant conditions. So began a letter dated September 29, 1887, to shipping authorities in St. John’s from Marmaduke Clow (or Clowe, as it is spelled today in Newfoundland), the supercargo, i.e. in charge of receiving and handling the ship’s goods on Maglona. But Clow was not writing to describe a pleasant voyage, but rather to question why two men from Trepassey area had not been given public recognition for gallant acts beyond the call of duty. According to Clow, they had shown heroism and disregard for personal safety to ensure others lived.
Maglona was sailing off Cape Race by noon on September 2; weather had deteriorated considerably, and the ship made slow headway. The wind had veered southerly, and dense fog had set in. Clow figured the crew had calculated they were 15 miles off Cape Race. At 2: 00 p.m., he was walking the deck when he heard the mate, who was at the helm, cry out, “Breakers ahead!” Clow writes:
I looked up and saw breakers on our port bow and beam. The helm was immediately put down, but the ship mis-stayed, falling off broadside to the breakers and about two ships’ lengths from the rocks. There was no room to wear to sea as the sea was running very high against
an upright cliff.
The crew lowered the mainsail and the ship’s head turned toward a deep gulch in the cliff. Once in the entrance Maglona struck heavily and the rudder was knocked away. The gulch was about 200 feet high on one side and 300 on the other.
The sea forced the ship into the gulch, causing it to strike heavily as it went and we expected every moment to see the masts fall. We got the boat out for the purpose of trying to land on an island of rock which formed the gulch.
Captain Richards jumped in the boat for the purpose of securing it to the vessel’s side until we could all get down. Just as he got in, a heavy breaking sea came and took it from the tackles and swept the boat into the gulch.
The Captain was thrown out on to a sunken rock; it being low tide at the time, where he held on until rescued and hauled up the cliff with a rope.
At this point in his narrative, Clow first mentions the two principal rescuers – Thomas Neill of Long Beach and John Kennedy of Trepassey. But, for the moment, only the captain was relatively safe on a small kelp-strewn rock. There were several others, including Clow, still on Maglona, and he describes what happened next:
By this time the vessel had worked still further into the gulch. As sea broke into the gulch, Maglona’s starboard quarter used to heave near the island rock. The only chance to save our lives was to jump, if we could, into the cliff when the ship rolled that way, an almost helpless chance.
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