Cape Race

by Robert C. Parsons

  One of the crew ran out on the jib-boom to drop off at the base of cliff, but the others begged him not to do it. Had he done so against the protestations of the others, he surely would have been washed off the rocks by the sea and drowned.

  We rowed along the shore to the eastward and found a landing place at Biscay Cove. The next day at four p.m. we rowed to Cape Race; in the meantime I sent a messenger to Trepassey to report to His Majesty’s Customs Officer, Mr. J. L. Murphy.

  At the cape, Helen Isabel’s crew were cared for by the lightkeeper, John Myrick. But the once fine ship was reduced to debris. None of the ship’s cargo was salvaged, as it was spoiled by salt water. According to Captain Lawrie, the usual way to bring a cargo of molasses was “with the bungs out of the casks.” The two sailors from the abandoned Gladiola were certainly jinxed; they were shipwrecked twice on the same voyage.

  Not 20 yards from Helen Isabel’s wreck, on the other side of the boulder, lay the hulk of Baine Johnston and Company’s barque Corisande, lost six years previously.

  28

  Loyalist Apples at the Cape

  September 1904

  Newfoundland and Labrador people often wonder, perhaps in jest, just how many rocks, crags, and islands in the province are called “Gull Island.” The same may be true to a lesser extent for the name “Seal Cove.” A check of the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador shows no less than seven communities that are or were once called Seal Cove. Seal Cove, Bonavista Bay, and Seal Cove, Trinity Bay, had their names changed long ago to Princeton and New Chelsea, respectively. Currently a town named Seal Cove exists in Fortune Bay, Conception Bay, and White Bay. Two – Seal Cove, Bonne Bay, and Seal Cove, St. Barbe – are today abandoned villages. Not mentioned in the Encyclopedia is the Seal Cove (often called Little Seal Cove to avoid confusion with other coves with a like name) near Cape Race.

  In 1904, a few fisher families lived in Seal Cove, located on that exposed shore at the southeastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula. At 3: 00 p.m. on September 29, the tug D. P. Ingraham pulled into the tiny exposed cove to take on board 30 shipwrecked mariners from the SS Loyalist.

  The steamer Loyalist left Halifax on Saturday, September 24, 1904, with a full cargo, consisting of 22,000 barrels of apples, 500 casks of tanning extract from Saint John, New Brunswick, and 1,000 cases of PEI lobsters. It was fine on Sunday and Monday. At noon on Tuesday, Captain Phillips and the first mate obtained a noonday observation, determining Loyalist’s exact position.

  Phillips charted a course that would take him ten miles south of Cape Race. The captain knew of the powerful tides along the coast, and this course would allow for the tide. According to the chart, 54 miles’ steam eastward would bring the steamer well south of Cape Race.

  On the fateful day, 46 miles were run off, although during the latter part of the voyage, Loyalist steamed through dense fog, requiring Phillips to take soundings of the bottom to verify his position. Strange, he said to his mate, the soundings showed 19 fathoms on one side and 29 on the other.

  “There seems to be a steep bottom here. Get another lead and we’ll try again, ” said Phillips. Meanwhile, he had the ship’s speed reduced.

  While the mate was gone to get this, the watch called out, “Ice ahead!” Ice in September? It was not ice, but the white wash of surf at Cape Race. Rocks and cliffs loomed up in front of Loyalist.

  “Hard aport, ” Phillips rang down to the engine room. Such a strain was put on the steering mechanism, it went out of order. “Full astern!” But the message hardly reached the engine room when Loyalist plunged among the rocks, striking about the fore chains and tearing out the bottom.

  It was four-thirty on Tuesday evening. Phillips figured the steamer had run 46 miles since the observation at noon. The treacherous tides had swept the vessel into Cape Race and upon the rocks with eight miles of its course not yet run in order to sight land.

  Phillips and crew left Loyalist as soon as possible, for it was sinking fast. When the fog cleared a short while later, they went back to get the lay of the land. Loyalist had hit a bold headland a short distance west of Seal Cove. There was nothing left to do but declare the steamer a total loss, to wire St. John’s for assistance, and to wait for a tug.

  When D. P. Ingraham left the scene on September 29, all the lobsters had been salvaged and 700 barrels of apples. Numbers 2, 3, and 4 holds, the stoke room, the engine room, and all the after part of the ship were filled with water. Only six inches of water was found in the fore hold, making it possible to get all the cargo from this compartment.

  That evening, two tugs, a lighter, and several small craft were at the scene, but the wreck commissioner and Lloyd’s Insurance agent had taken charge of the wreck. As long as the seas around Seal Cove, Cape Race, remained calm and the weather civil, much cargo would be taken away. If sea conditions changed and became rough, the hull was not expected to last two hours.

  Captain Phillips and his crew arrived in St. John’s at 3: 00 a.m. On Monday, October 3, they joined the SS Damura for England. As for the erstwhile Loyalist, it soon sank beneath the waters of Seal Cove, near Cape Race.

  An Ocean Graveyard

  One of the most controversial and damning pieces of media reports on the many and various ocean calamities surrounding Cape Race appeared about this time, as shown in the newspaper article on page 155. In late February 1904, the Liverpool Weekly Post, published in England, briefly reviewed the shipping scene of the cape, without actually saying what vessels and what specific numbers of lives were lost on them. In summary, the Weekly Post stated:

  - 3,000 ships are reported every year by Cape Race signalmen;

  - many more pass in the night, in the fog or out of telescope range which are unreported;

  - In the last 40 years [1864 to 1904] 94 complete wrecks happened at Cape Race;

  - In those wrecks, 2,000 lives have been lost; - £9,000,000 lost in hulls and cargos

  According to the reasoning of the Weekly Post, fogs and currents brought about the loss of most ships and, with them, lives. While the causes of disaster are acceptable, the numbers of lives and ships lost seem to be exaggerated.

  For the “quoted” 2,000 drowned or perished at the Cape, the numbers will include: 1863 (41 years prior) Anglo Saxon, 237 lives lost; 1877 George Washington, 31; 1877 George Cromwell, 24 (actually wrecked closer to Cape St. Mary’s); 1873 Jane Hunter, 7; 1892 Maggie Foote, 5; 1897 the SS Florence, 5. Even if the total includes the City of Boston (see Chapter 20), which disappeared somewhere between North America and Europe – and possibly off Cape Race – with 177 persons aboard, the number of deaths totals a little over 500.

  Thus, unless there were many, many smaller ships wrecked there and on which the numbers of mariners may be more obscure or unreported, the commentary in the Liverpool Weekly Post has to be an exaggeration. As well, it is difficult to document its total of 94 ships reported as wrecked at the Cape. If those more obscure ships, perhaps of Newfoundland origin, and perhaps those that disappeared many miles offshore from Cape Race were counted, the total cannot reach nearly 100 vessels wrecked at Cape Race in a 40-year span. To this day it is not clear where the Liverpool Weekly Post obtained the numbers and statistics.

  A little over two years later, another fine ship left its bones at Cape Race. The SS Cyril was a British cargo steamer of 2,294 tons built in 1888 by T. Turnbull & Son, England, for the Turnbull Brothers, England. On July 31, 1906, it ran aground and was wrecked in Trepassey Bay while on a voyage from Saint John, New Brunswick, to Swansea with a cargo of lumber, over a million board feet in square blocks or deals.

  At first there seemed to be no noteworthy news of Cyril; all crew reached land without incident, and the tug SS Amphitrite brought 70,000 deals to St. John’s. The weather was exceptionally good – water smooth with no wind. However, by August 6, wreck commissioners in Trepassey, who knew legal and proper salvage was progressing well in daylight, were mystified. They said, “Western schooners and boats are making a harvest on
coal and deals from the wreck during night time.”

  Because of danger of Cyril slipping off its perch and sinking into deeper water, no official or guard could remain on the wreck during the night. The derelict was being gutted illegally after dark; the question posed by Inspector White in St. John’s was, “By whom?”

  He left that port for Trepassey on the morning of August 6 on the SS Neptune. His efforts to stop looting were futile; in time the empty hulk became another statistic of Cape Race.

  29

  The Drook, Scene of Disaster

  January 1908

  Portugal Cove South, about ten kilometres east of Trepassey on the Southern Avalon Peninsula, was once regarded as a superior fishing berth, despite the exposure in that area to gales and proximity to dangerous shoals. In 1921, Portugal Cove South had 161 inhabitants with a few families of Perry and St. Croix living in a nearby settlement called Drook, often referred to as “The Drook.” One or two families occupied (Little) Seal Cove. It was on this rugged shoreline, with seas roiled by a wild storm, an American ship was stranded – the crew was saved by the hardy fishermen along the coast.

  The SS To lsby, bound from Galveston, Texas, to France with a load of cotton, was caught in a mid-January snowstorm of 1908 off the coast of Newfoundland. At 12: 30 p.m. on January 13, snow was so thick it was impossible to see the length of the ship ahead. Captain Payne heard the fog whistle on Powell’s Head, off Trepassey harbour, and, not knowing anything about any whistle nearby other than that on Cape Race, thought he was a safe distance off Cape Race.

  Without warning, To lsby struck head-on the jagged ledges off Freshwater Point near Little Seal Cove, caught on the rocks for a minute, and swung around broadside to the surf that was running at a tremendous rate.

  The 25 crew, who for the most part were from the southern United States, were trapped. When To lsby’s officers got a glimpse of land through the thick snow that was falling, they saw a nearly vertical cliff looming about 500 feet above them. At first there was hope of staying aboard the doomed ship, but soon, as the weather deteriorated, it began to break up in the pounding surf.

  Captain Payne ordered all hands to look out for themselves and to save their own lives if possible. To lsby’s boats were lowered, but as fast they were put out, each was swamped or was broken up on the side of the ship.

  One lifeboat containing five men eventually made it out to sea. The remaining crew made several attempts to reach the narrow cobblestone beach at the foot of the cliff in another small boat, carrying a line from the steamer with them. The small craft hit a rock and swamped, but the men swam and tumbled through the surf to reach the beach safely.

  Using the lifeline, the marooned crew made the shore without loss of life. In January temperatures with a snowstorm swirling around them, 20 of the SS To lsby’s men, wet and cold, huddled on the rocks on a narrow beach with the tide rising. Meanwhile, five men in the boat that put to sea came back to To lsby at 4: 00 p.m. and climbed aboard, but decided not to stay long, as their steamer was fast going to pieces.

  It was no easy task getting back aboard the lifeboat, as heavy seas threw it against the side of the ship several times. However, within a few minutes, they joined the rest of the crew on the beach.

  All 25 were in more danger. Cold spray dashed against them every few seconds as the tide rose higher, and they realized all would be drowned if they stayed on a narrow beach throughout the coming night.

  The bosun, a Swede named Alexander Windberg, volunteered to climb the cliff with the aid of a marlin spike, a pointed tool of iron or wood used to splice ship’s rope or cable. Within an hour, he had succeeded; three others followed him, but by this time the tide had risen so that the others could not get to the place where the climbers had begun their ascent.

  The remaining 21 crew spent the night of January 13-14 in abject weariness and hopelessness. Although they built a fire from driftwood and wreckage, the sea and wind put it out. High tide and breakers forced the men back to the extreme end of the cove. Snow fell steadily all night. Occasionally, rocks tumbled from the cliff, and the stranded men didn’t know at what minute one would hit them.

  In this predicament the shipwrecked crew stayed until 11: 00 a.m. on January 14, when salvation came unexpectedly. The fishermen of Seal Cove and The Drook, small communities near Portugal Cove South, saw the bedraggled group of men in the cove and took immediate steps to save them.

  In the meantime, the four men who had scaled the cliff returned. They had wandered on the shore all night seeking human habitation but found none, except an empty shack, where they stayed until daylight.

  When the men of The Drook realized the seriousness of the situation, they obtained a rope. Joseph Perry volunteered to have it tied around his waist. He descended the cliff to the beach, tied the rope around the men one by one, and they were pulled up by the fishermen of The Drook. To lsby’s crew was taken to nearby homes, where they were fed and sheltered.

  St. John’s harbour tug D. P. Ingraham, Captain L. Young, arrived in St. John’s at 1: 00 p.m. on January 18 with the shipwrecked American seamen aboard.

  F. H. Osborne, chief engineer of To lsby, who with his captain and several other officers stayed in the Crosbie Hotel, told his version of Joe Perry’s feat this way:

  Finally, when we were beginning to feel uncomfortable, a fisherman was seen coming down the cliff with a line made fast around his body. The fishermen on the cliff belonging to Seal Cove were lowering him down. As he descended we noticed him every now and then clearing away large portions of the rocks and other stuff from the cliff to make for us a passageway up the cliff as feasible as possible . . .

  The fisherman was Joseph Perry and I might say that he is worth a medal for his bravery. He worked to get us safely landed as I never witnessed a man working before. When we were all landed the inhabitants came and took us to their homes and made us as comfortable as possible.

  The coat that I have on my back was given to me by a fisherman. I saved nothing except my watch and chain. I would like to thank these fine men who were the means under Providence in saving our lives. Too much praise cannot be given to them.

  A day or so after Tolsby began to break up, bales of cotton drifted into the cove of The Drook. As recorded by Harper’s Monthly Magazine, men plunged into the surf with lines about their waists and clung to the bales. Those ashore dragged in both men and bales. Within hours, someone found out the cotton was worth good money to them if salvaged.

  Subsequently, when the ship broke up, they were lowered over the cliff and proceeded with a more perilous operation. They were so eager to be about this business that sometimes six or seven were going hand over hand down the rope to attach bales on or near the wreck.

  It was a rich harvest, although reaped in the face of great danger. It is said that when the marine surveyor left the coast, he had distributed $28,000 in salvage monies. Naturally, from that point on the harvesters of the sea hoped for another wreck like To lsby, such that this old saying developed: “While there is fog, there is hope.”

  30

  The Cape’s Connection

  with a Wedding

  Summer 1908

  “The Little Church Around the Corner” is a familiar landmark in New York City. It’s an Episcopal Church, located on East 29th Street. Over the years since it was founded in 1848, the neat and quaint church has been the chosen site for many weddings. Perhaps none was more unusual than that which saw a couple united in marriage in the church on February 11, 1910.

  The bride and groom were Captain Alfred W. Howard and his wife, the former Emma A. Deakin of Saint John, New Brunswick. The marriage was the happy ending of a romance that began in the icy waters off Newfoundland in 1908.

  At that time, Howard was mate on a British barque that sighted the wreck of a New Brunswick lumber-laden schooner off Cape Race. The unidentified schooner, leaking and wallowing, was a floating derelict, unsinkable, at least for many days, because of its buoyant cargo. But seas swe
pt the decks, exposing all to hypothermia and possibly death.

  To keep from being washed overboard, the survivors of the schooner had lashed themselves to spars and parts of the railings of the vessel. When the British barque pulled up alongside, it could be seen that all aboard were in bad condition. Mate Howard and two or three others of the barque put off a small boat, went over to the derelict, and prepared to rescue the crew.

  To their surprise, one of those lashed to a spar was a young woman. She, like the rest of the crew, was exhausted, having gone days without proper nourishment or enough rest. The girl was Miss Emma Deakin. She and her rescuer soon learned they both belonged to Saint John, New Brunswick.

  Whenever it was possible thereafter, Howard visited his hometown and especially called on Miss Deakin. Soon a courtship developed, and in that regard Howard sailed smooth and sunny waters. He was 30; Emma was 23.

  In February 1910, Alfred Howard, who had risen in the ranks to captain by then, met Miss Deakin and her sister in Boston. The three came to New York to The Little Church Around the Corner, where they were married. Wilbur E. Dow was best man.

  The Barque Lavinia

  After sailing northward for several days in February 1909, Lavinia left the Gulf Stream and proceeded for eight days along Newfoundland’s south coast. Captain Wilson and his crew were bound for St. John’s in ballast after landing fish at Pernambuco. His 251-ton vessel, under charter by Baine Johnston and Company, had been built in Glasgow in 1869.