AN OCEAN GRAVEYARD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 5, 3 February 1909, Page 26

AN OCEAN GRAVEYARD.

STORIES OF WRECKS AND RESCUES OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND COAST.

By

P. T. McGRATH.

Illustrated by M. J. Burns.

THE most important headland in the world is Cape Race, the southeastern extremity of Newfoundland. It has also a most unenviable notoriety. Its importance it owes to its geographical situation; its ill repute arises from its long and dreadful catalogue of shipwrecks. In these days of fast lines and shipping trusts, one hears much of Cape Race and its bearing upon the problems of trans-At-lantic navigation. Until five years ago even the New York liners passed it elose by. but the risks of colliding with icebergs, ramming derelicts, cutting down

fishing vessels, or driving on the coast itself, were so great that the present arbitrary routes for these ocean expresses were adopted. But all other classes of deep sea shipping make it their objective, and for many a craft it is the last resting place. The shortest route between any port in North America and any in Northern Europe lies right past this promontory. It is thrust out into the ocean across the steamer track, east or west bound; it ensnares them if they err ever so slightly in navigation. Some three thousand ships arc reported every year by the signalman

at the Cape. Iwsides those which pass after night, in the fog, or beyond telescope range. Some of the most terrible tragedies in marine annals have occurred on this rugged, dangerous foreshore. An official chart shows the disasters there during the past forty years. Together with some not inscribed thereon, they represent a total of ninety four complete wrecks of ocean-going vessels —steamers and sailers —involving a loss of about two thousand lives anad £6,000.000 in hulls ami cargoes. Ships which stranded and afterwards escaped arenot included. Last year alone eight steam and two sailing vessels came to grief there, thirty-five persons perished, and a property loss of £450,000 was involved. All sorts of vessels meet a common grave about ( ape Race. One day a Montreal liner beaches herself, another sees a New’ Yorker freighter go to pieces, a Galveston cotton boat is the third victim and a Philadelphia oil-tanker the fourth. Today the crew may all escape, to-morrow all may perish.

These disasters are due to two causes — fogs and currents. Every shipmaster nowadays is expected by his owners to make quick passages. A quick passage means smaller expenses, and CAPTAINS WHO ARE SLOW SOON FIND THEMSELVES SUPPLANTED. Therefore all skippers take the shortest route, and risk the danger of collision or stranding. The great-circle track, the shortest and most practical, almost grazes Cape Race. The whole region is commonly fog-veiled with the dense blinding mist created by the commingling of the warm Gulf Stream and the frigid Arctic current on the . Grand Banks. The meeting of those contending ocean rivers, moreover, makes a swirl that disturbs the surrounding sea, forming a north running current which sweeps towards Cape Race. It splits on the headland, and one branch rims up the east coast towards St. John’s, the other pouring into St. Mary’s Bay. These currents are variable and uncharted. They change their force and direction with every wind that blows, and the ablest local navigators, who know their vagaries best, dread them the most. It is the unfamiliar shipmaster, who set’s no cause for caution, that finds himself hurried to destruction as if drawn by a

lod< done. The west-bound ship comes under the influence of the eastern current several hours before making the (ape, and her head is steadily deflected from the right course, until, if care is not exercised, she is speeding for the rocks. If fog prevails she often meets an untimely end on the ••front*' of Cape Race. The east-bound ship is caught by the current which sweeps into St. Mary’s Bay, and under like conditions is hurried to her doom on the ••back” of the headland. Of course all of these disasters occur during foggy weather. When this leaden pall of vapor overspreads the ocean the shipmaster must either slow down and thereby lose much time or he must drive his ship along at her best speed, and trust to his lookouts to give him warning of danger. But these are a poor dependence, and usually the first knowledge those on board have of their peril is when the ship takes the ground and dashes herself on the jagged rocks, whilse she is supposed to have a clear oiling. The danger zone is comprehend-

ed within a radius of thirty miles. Here every reef is marked by the remnant of some stately ship. Not a crevice but has seen some battered fabric lodge there. EVERY FOOT OF THE BOTTOM IS FLOORED WITH SUNDERED HULLS, and littered with the rallle from many a wreck. The strand is strewn with flotsam, rent and riven by rock and wave. The little coves are burial places of many victims of these melancholy happenings, tin* unmarked graves mutely telling of the long series of tragedies. Not a fisherman within this area but has some tale of wreck and rescue to relate, and not a home in the little hamlets but is enriched with the spoils gleaned from the ill-starred craft that stray there. However, to the one ship that is lost in these waters hundreds pass in safety; mainly through the unconscious instrumentality of the fisher boats which ply their calling a few miles off the shore, with their horns going if Ft turns foggy, and their riding lamph waking a fringe of lights around the whole peninsula after nightfall. Often the first evidence the mariner hat' of the proximity of the coast is the sight of these skill’s, and then he alters his helm and lays a now

course. Only when a storm rages, an I the heavy seas compel the boats to liartour, is there no such warning for the stranger, and then it is that ships hurry headlong to their doom. Olive hl 1899 three west hound freighters piled themselves up on the shore north of the Ca|M», all within two miles and during twentyfour hours. “You're welcome, oir,” exclaimed an old fisherman to the captain of one of these ships as he rushed dowin the beach to meet the castaways who wen* making their way to shore in the life-boats. “You’re welcome. We’ve been up these three nights waiting for you.” This naive confession illustrates a curious phase of fisher life on our seaboard. The coast folk are “wreckers” as well as fishermen—not wreckers in the criminal sense, but expert workmen in stripping and unloading the hulls that are tossed up against the frowning cliffs. Every fisherman can turn his hand to this labour, which frequently pays better than his regular vocation; ami salvage schooners find permanent employment there with divers and hoists, recovering from the oozy depths the treasures of the submarine curiosity shop. These fisher folk, knowing the likelihood of ships running ashore under certain conditions, and being unable to prevent the mishaps remain on the watch for such occurrences that they may be able, first, to rescue the human beings on board, and, then, to salvage the bulls and cargoes.

THE NEWFOUNDLANDER OF THE SOUTHERN SHORE COUNTS OX "A FEW WRECKS” EVERY YEAR TO HELI’HIM MAINTAIN HIS FAMILY. “How will your people get along this winter ? ” asked the late Mgr. Power, Roman Catholic Bisho r of John’s, of the Rev. Father HenneL.-.rv, the priest at Trepassey, near Cape Race, who was dining with him. “ Very well, my lord,” replied the padre. “ with the help of God ami a few wrecks.” This same “wrecker” however, stands ready to risk his own life on every occasion that such a catastrophe occurs, to help in saving those on board. 1 ime and again these brave fellows have battled with the tempest in their stout boats, or lowered themselves down the face of th. 1 steep cliffs to pluck from the very jaws of death the perishing wretches vainly struggling in the surf below. They are a remarkable people, these lisle r folk, of exclusively Irish descent, and possessing all the daring of the race from which they have sprung. They think no personal risk too great if there is a life to save or a corpse to be recovered for Christian burial, 'and they are prodigal in their hospitality and care for the unfortunates whom grievous mischance leaves destitute at' their doors. Many of them possess the Royal Hu mane Society's medals, and nearly all have life-saving feats to their credit. One man holds HIE RECORD OF HAVING PRE PARED FOR BURIAL 229 BODIES OF SIIIPWREt KED DEAD in every stage of dismemberment and decomposition, and that without ever re

reiving a dollar from governments or ship owners in recognition of these gmysoine services, extending over nearly a lifetime. Certainly no person who knows the record of this race of men. and has seen this stern, forbidding coast line, with its sheer upstanding el ill’s towering hundreds <>t feet high, and extending unbroken for nines, unscalable by man or animal, and with a roaring welter of waves beating ceaselessly against their basalt base, will grudge the islanders the salvage they pluck from the {insatiable maw of the hungry sea. There is this to be said for them also, that a ship rarely lasts more than a day or two on this rock ribbed shore, ami if the coast folk do not secure her cargo it will be engulfed in the ocean ami benefit nobody. An instance of this occurred only recently. The Elder-Dempster steamship “ Assyrian.” with a full general cargo for Montreal, beached herself just below the Cape lighthouse in a midnight fog. She was resting easily, and lay there for a week. The owners refused to start the cargo, thinking she could be got off again. But one afternoon a gale arose, swinging her round, and “broke her back.’’ She parted amidships, and next morning was a total loss with her whole freight, both being valued at 200,000 dols. Nor was that all, for as she was torn apart slip forced on the rocks a wrecking tug that was working at her. and the latter was also severely damaged.

Sometimes a ship strikes the bl nil* sea face of rocks, rebounds from the impact, and vanishes in deep water as swiftly as a plummet finds the bottom. Only a few pieces of deck gear will rise to a Hord a clue to the catastrophe. At other times

a ship may have no cargo. Four years ago a Bergen bark, bound up the St. Lawrence in ballast to load lumber, drifted, on the rocks in Trepassey Bay. The crew abandoned her. and the coast folk were soon aboard. Their sentiments were thus voiced by a leader when he reached shore again : “1 DON’T KNOW WHAT THE A LAIIGHTY CAN BE THINKING ABOI T AT ALL THIS YEAR. First he sends us a bad fishery, and now He sends along a d Norwegian full of rocks.” On the other hand a wreck is sometimes a bonanza. The “ Scottish King” was plumped over a reef near Seal Cove in 1898 in a furious gale, scarring her bottom as she did so, but striking another ledge in shoaler water which upbore her. Here she re maim*d for seventeen months, when she was refloated, brought to St. John’s, {locked, and made as good as new. But in the early hours following upon her

stranding it looked as if she would collapse, and it was a hurry job to salvage her cargo (apollinaris champagne). This was varied and valuable, and included 2,000 cases of champagne. There was also a large consignment of apollinaris water. The coast folk rushed the unloading, and when they learned of the champagne, intense was their eagerness to sample for the First time this renowned leverage. They ransacked the hold for it until they came upon the appollinaris, which they mistook for the grape juice, and qa tiffed in goblet fills until nature rebelled at the deception. Their contemptuous criticisms of the supposed champagne as a beverage were comical in the extreme, and when they found the genuine artich at last they had been so sickened by their previous experiment that they preferred to ••swop” quart bottles of it for flasks of whisky with-the crew of the wrecking tugs from St. John's.

Another time, west of the Cape, the French barque Aqnibaine, laden with choice liquors for St. Pierre-Miquelon, bowled herself on a reef. The crew hurriedly left her, thankful to have saved their skins, and volubly notified the coast folk to "take, take, take.” This they proceeded to do with alacrity, and they were soon working the two hatches with windlasses and pulleys, systematically "breaking out” every tier of cargo. It was a remote quarter, and two days elapsed before the authorities were notified, and a third before a revenue cutter could reach there. Prior to this, several nomadic fishing schooners, learning of the wreck, visited the scene, to find the settlers gaily dressed in French fisher garb, bright jerseys, woollen waist-sashes, and flat saucer hats, some of the property secured from the barque. The visitors were treated to champagne out of tin pannikins, and bought choice cognae for fifteen cents a bottle. The cargo included bales of merchandise, dry goods, tobacco, liquors, and fishery requisites for the French colony, and the little settlement was reaping a harvest. Of course when the cruiser arrived they were, compelled to give up fifty per cent of the total to the owners, but. naturally, there was much that could not be accounted for, and that- the sea was credited' with having swallowed up. which found a much more convenient hidingspaice than the bottom of the ocean.

Among the most terrible catastrophes on this coast was the wreck of the British transport, Harpooner, on November 10, 1816, by which 306 human beings perished. She was bound from Quebec to England, with soldiers and their families, the total personnel being 380. A|fter several days of fog and storm, she struck on a reef near Cape Pine, just before midnight. An awful scene ensued, and as the panic-stricken wretches rushed from their beds and made for the deck, ill-clad as they were, their onset completed the horrors that darkness bred. Men cast off the boats and tried to launch them, only to be swept overboard by the waves or swallowed with the boats when they struck the water. Her pounding on the rocks "jumped” the masts out of her, and as they went they carried many to their long account. Others were drowned or crushed below decks, amd more killed against the bulwarks. After a night of agony the day came, “foggy and dour.” A rodney hung astern, and the mate and four men put off in her to seek aid. As they rowed towards land their boat was stove against a mass of rock, aftd they barely escaped death. Gaming an insecure foothold, they climbed up the islet, but could afford mo help to those On the ship. However, the master, who had a Newfoundland dog aboard, threw ■it into the sea with a rope around its middle, and the sagacious brute swam to the rock after an exhausting struggle. By means of this line a heavier one was drawn to the rock and fastened there, and the transfer of those on the ship was begun. But about midday, when some 30 had got safely across, the rope parted from chafing against the sharp boulders, and the miserable beings still on the wreck were left without hope of succour. Some jumped overboard and tried to swim ashore, others lashed themselves to planks, others built rafts; but scarcely any escaped, most of them being flung against the cliffs and killed. During the

evening the hull went to pieces, carrying with it the last of the doomed company. The survivors on the rocks were exposed there another night, being rescued next morning by some fishermen. Wonderful to relate, a soldier’s wife gave birth to a child on the roeks, and both successfully emerged from the dreadful ordeal. The bodies of the victims which were washed ashore were decently buried, but the ">Harpooner” Cemetery is pointed out to this day. ANOTHER APPALLING TRAGEDY was the loss of the steamer Anglo-Saxon on April 27, 1863, at Chance Cove, when the sea took toll of 317 persons of the 444 aboard. In those days there was no Atlantic Cable, but the telegraph lines extended from the American continent to Cape Race. That headland was a recognised stopping place for the fist ocean liners plying between Liverpool and New York, which hove up there to exchange with a news boat maintained at the station the latest news of the two hemispheres. West-bound steamers threw over sealed packages with the Press dispatches from Europe, which were wired from the Cape to New York a week before the ships arrived. East-goiny steamers picked up similar packages with American news for Europe a, week later than When they sailed. The Civil war was them raging, and there was keen rivalry among the liners to. make, fast runs and deliver the dispatches earliest, and it was while steaming through the fog at full speed that the Anglo-Saxon impaled herself on the rocks. She ran straight into a gulch cleft in the hills as by a giant’s blow, and the furious waves soon beat her into splinters, and tore her ill-fated passengers limb from limb. The world has no more gallant record than that of the rescue of her few survivors. The coast folk gathered from the near-by hamlets when her distress signals proclaimed her danger. A. rampart cliff, a sheer 500 ft above the sea-level, defied all hope of assistance by ordinary means. The men had to bring spars and rope from their boats, improvise derricks, and lower one another down into the boiling surf, where the rescuer, as a body floated by. dead or alive, clutched it in his arms, and was hoisted up again with Tils clammy burden. When the ship's prow was wedged in the rocks it remained above water, and a score or two of wretches contrived to lash themselves there. But the rescuers could not reach them, nor they the rescuers, and the castaways had to jump overboard and take their chances of being saved as the. waves swept them to and fro. For two days and nights the firsher folk continued their humane endeavours, until all hope of there being another living body about the wreck was futile. The women and children cared for the. survivors, and the men, when the storm abated, recovered as many other bodies as they could, and buried them all in a plot on the hill-top Three years ago the United States Government arranged for the renovating of the burial place, the earth having been washed aw.av by the rains, and some of the bones of the dead becoming exposed again. Tt w in the heiidif of a fierce snowstorm on January 20, 7867, that THE STEAMER GEDRITE WASHINGTON. FROM NEW YORK. WAS LOST WITH ALT. HANDS—-forty-seven souls, of whom 14 were passengers. She struclc on Mistaken Point, a headland five miles from Cape Race, and. as the name indicates,

frequently mistaken for ft. Amid the howling gale and driving suow, which lashed the waves into fury, escape was impossible. Indeed, the disaster was not suspected for several hours. When tin* settlers gathered at the scene the hull could just lie discerned against the base of the cliffs hundreds of feet lielow. Nothing could be done; the scene was one to daunt the stoutest heart, and the least experienced among the watchers realised that all on board her must long ago have perished. But the trend of currents there sweeps all the wreckage into a cove called Long Beach, the one break in the barrier cliffs; so the coast folk determined to recover the bodies as they were washed in. Accordingly they established themselves on the hills above the cove, and when morning dawned thiy had contrivances rigged by which they lowered one another down into the landwash, and secured the reminder of the unfortunate victims before the sea had wrecked its full fury on them. In this ease, it will lie noted, there was no possibility of a life being saved, and yet the daring fellows, with a splendid nnnelfisliness, risked their lives to regain inanimate bodies in the teeth of a January blizzard, so that the poor victims of the wrath of the sea should not he deprived of a cerement of sail-cloth and a covering of clay. THE MOST PATHETIC AND MOVING DISASTER OF ALL was the loss of the oil-tank steadier Helgoland, near St. Shotts, on January 10, 1900. She was bound from Philadelphia to Hamburg, petroleum laden, was caught in a. midwinter snowstorm, and struck Gull Rock. This is a needle of granite 450 feet, high, separated from the mainland by a chasm 50 yards wide, in which the sea runs like a mill-race. The Helgoland's cargo must have taken fire when she struck, for a column of flame against the midnight sky apprised the residents of Peter's River, fifteen miles away, of the disaster. This was the nearest settlement, and, although it. was midwinter and there was no road, they started for the scene. toiling through the snow with their life-lines and gear on their backs. It was daylight when they leached there, and a melancholy spectacle awaited them. The ship was grounded on a reef beyond Gull Boek, pounding to pieces. Her hull was almost wholly submerged, the lire had burnt out, and the petroleum was overspreading the face of the ocean for miles. Everything spoke of death and desolation. But lashed in the topmast rigging were three seamen, the only survivors. When they descried the coast folk they made mute appeals for help, but none could be given. The whole coast for miles is a. fortalice of rock: no settlers live there, no boats were available. Even if there were, none could live in such a sea. No man could go down the cliffs, because ho would be dashed against them by the waves and beaten to a jelly. No east away dared swim to the base for the same reason. The chasm prevented access to Gull Rock, and the onlookers were forced to watch fellow-creatures perish, being unable to aid them. One of th? men on the mast cut himself loose, plunged into the sea, and swam towards the shore. But he could find no hold, and the under tow caught him; he was tossed high by the swirl, and the next minute his death cry horrified the watchers as he was thing against the rocks. Two hours later a second survivor, lashed in the mizzen, was east into the seething cauldron of surf with that spar, and met a sailor's

end. Finally, the last of the trio, a greybeard, whose bald head was quite visible, seeing the wreck going to pieces beneath him. loosed his lashings, bit oil' a quid from a plug of tobacco in his hip pocket, and manfully plunged into the waves, trying to reach the cliff, down which .the watchers had thrown a rope. But the Traves were too powerful, and though, he Sliade three attempts he could not reach it. Giving up the strv-ggle’then, he swam back and regained his lonely eerie, whence, like the gallant Viking he was, he waved a last farewell to the spectators of this pitful tragedy, lashed himself up again, and waited for death to come. Nor was it long delayed. The season was midwinter, the temperature arctic, the man chilled from long exposure and subsequent immersion. Soon the frost, struck to his heart, his head fell forward, his body collapsed, and all knew his soul had taken Hight. 'ldle strangest fact about this ship was that for a whole week it was impossible to identify her- As she lay her name on the bow was not visible, h<r stern was under water, her funnel gave no clue, her wreckage could not be got at. Furious gales and mighty seas raged; no tugs could approach her nor divers descend; the woo.lon deck-gear was tossed in the surf and reduced to splinters against the cliff. The [bodies Of the thirty-five men who crewed her were similarly treated. Eventually at Cape Fine, ten miles away, the light-keeper picked up the broken name board of a life-boat, with the word “ H elogo land ” on it, and the clue to the mystery was found at last.