Cape Race Read online

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Parsons, Robert Charles, 1944-

  Cape Race: stories from the coast that sank the Titanic / Robert C.

  Parsons.

  Includes index.

  ISBN 978-1-926881-06-5

  eISBN 978-1-926881-07-2

  1. Shipwrecks--Newfoundland and Labrador--History. 2. Cape Race

  (N. L.)--History. I. Title.

  FC2170. S5P36232011 971.8 C2011-901844-6

  © 2011 by Robert C. Parsons

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

  Cover Design: Adam Freake

  Interior Layout: Albert Taylor

  FLANKER PRESS LTD.

  PO BOX 2522, STATION C

  ST. JOHN’S, NL

  CANADA

  TELEPHONE: (709) 739-4477 FAx: (709) 739-4420 TOLL-FREE: 1-866-739-4420

  www.falnkerpress.com

  Contents

  Cover

  Half-title

  Title

  Copyright

  Contents

  Cape Race, Calamity Coast

  Introduction and Author’s Notes “Shut Up! I’m Working Cape Race.”

  1 - Death and Disaster at the Cape August 1840

  2 - City of Philadelphia Lost Near Cape Race September 1854

  3 - Collision off Cape Race September 1854

  4 - Christmas Near the Cape December 1856

  5 - Cape Race and the “Superior Ship” Argo June 1859

  6 - The Barque Pioneer Intercepted by Cape Race Press Boat July 1862

  7 - The Greatest Loss of Life at the Cape April 1863

  8 - A Week’s Worth of Disasters August 1869

  9 - Double Tragedy at Cape Race – Cape St. Mary’s January 1877

  10 - An Extraordinary Escape at Cape Race September 1877

  11 - Ice Giants off the Cape May–June 1882

  12 - Herder, One of the Largest Lost at the Cape October 1882

  13 - Powell’s Head, Near Cape Race October 1883

  14 - Shingle Head, Cape Race May 1885

  15 - Alexander Graham Bell September 1885

  16 - The Cape Claims the Newfoundland Schooner Bessie March 1887

  17 - Heroism at the Cape September 1887

  18 - The Coffin Ship September 1888

  19 - Prudence at Broad Cove Beach January 1892

  20 - Capsized off Cape Race August 1892

  21 - Barratry, Salvage Deals, and Sounding Leads September 1893

  22 - Collision in the Great Steamer Track: Florence and the SS Scandinavian December 1897

  23 - Bernicia: Surrounded by Hundreds of Boats May 1898

  24 - Getting the Bad News from Cape Ballard to Cape Race October 1899

  25 - The Summer of Thick Fog June, July and August 1901

  26 - Nothing Saved from Titania, Except Shirts and Drawers November 1901

  27 - Helen Isabel, A Wreck at Biscay Cove May 1904

  28 - Loyalist Apples at the Cape September 1904

  29 - The Drook, Scene of Disaster January 1908

  30 - The Cape’s Connection with a Wedding Summer 1908

  31 - With the Help of God and a Few Good Wrecks September 1909

  32 - Titanic: “Shut up! I’m Working Cape Race” April 1912

  33 - Wreck of the Ore Carrier Glace Bay May 1913

  34 - A View of Bob’s Cove, Cape Race July 1917

  35 - East of the Light: The SS Florizel February 1918

  36 - Death on the Mast September 1922

  37 - Drift Ice off Cape Race April 1923

  38 - Wreck of President Coaker February 1924

  39 - Winnie and Vivian, Lost at Cape Race Spring 1925

  40 - Shipwrecked in the Movies. Shipwrecked at Cripple Cove. June 1927

  41 - The Elimination of Wrecks? 75th Anniversary of “Via Cape Race”

  42 - Beatrice Vivian: Encounter with an Ocean Liner June 1936

  43 - The Crew Walked Ashore to The Drook March 1937

  44 - Unusual Rescue off Cape Race June 1941

  45 - The Beer Wreck April 1948

  46 - Administratrix: Cut Down off Cape Race April 1948

  47 - On the Cliffs of Cappahayden July 1954

  48 - Off Cape Race, Jennie Barno Disappears August 1950

  Epilogue Cape Race: Up Close and Personal August 2010

  INDEX OF SHIPS

  Back Cover

  Cape Race,

  Calamity Coast

  People on Canada’s east coast, the maritime regions, have experienced the temperament of the North Atlantic Ocean: beautiful, moody, mysterious, violent, destructive, peaceful, bountiful. It would seem that the sea is vindictive: apt to give, then to snatch back, as if exacting a price for its bounty. The cold Atlantic has a capacity, with its tremendous force and power, to take human life seemingly at will; however, almost contradictorily it can spare a life and allow miraculous escapes.

  From an early date in the timeline of Atlantic navigation, the area around Cape Race, the southeastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula, was recognized as being treacherous for navigation. The coastline – one of many with the dubious name of “Graveyard of the Atlantic” – stretches for the purpose of this overview from Clam Cove on the east, westward to Cape Freels.

  Shipowners, navigators, captains, and sailors knew the area was often covered in thick fogs (averaging about 160-170 days a year). The seas around it were, and to some extent still are, frequented by icebergs. The land and seascapes around Cape Race are rugged, rife with offshore rocks and reefs. The London Illustrated News agrees, saying:

  Cliffs rise precipitately out of the water, cracked and split asunder in many places by some great convulsion of nature. A huge black rock lifts its head up out of the deep water immediately in front of Cape Race. The eternal wash of the Atlantic has worn deep hollows, and in some cases masses of rock stand out isolated from the great granite wall that breaks the ever-restless ocean that thunders against it.

  The tides sweeping around the corner are irregular, but often with an inset landward; that is, tending to pull ships toward the rocky coast as opposed to seaward. The navigators in the age of exploration were generally pleased in their selection of names for various headlands. But, by a unique use of language, often the true meanings of early names are confusing. The original name of Cape “Race” is “Raso, ” a Portuguese word meaning “flat.” It gives no indication of danger or the lack of it.

  By the late 19th century, as the newspaper Evening Mercury (September 21, 1888) points out, Cape Race:

  With its large block of buildings stands out clearly defined against the summer sky. Cape Race is, as its original name explained, a striking promontory, a bold headland, both a welcome and a warning to the mariner.

  If one reads on in the same venerable newspaper, it can be seen a week later, in the September 29, 1888, edition, this brief piece:

  Cape Race

  Wind E. S. E., light, hazy, heavy sea; barquentine “Minnie” went west at 11 a.m.

  Trepassey

  The hull of the brig “Anastatia” was sold yesterday for 60 cents; her sails and running gear, yards, spars, etc. are to be sold this evening at three o’clock . . .

  The barquentine Minnie, as observed from the Cape Race lighthouse, had made it past the dangers. Brig Anastatia had run afoul of the rocks of Cape Race, was totally wrecked, and its hull and
gear were sold at an auction. Despite the “large block of buildings” – the lighthouse, keeper’s dwelling, and outbuildings – the rugged coastline and tides claimed Anastatia as another victim. Fortunately there was no loss of life.

  Despite all hazards, for 450 years Cape Race remained a fundamental and desired landmark in transatlantic shipping. It is located near the “Great Circle, ” the route taken by sailing ships and steamers going to or from Europe to North America.

  However, it was not until 1856 that the first lighthouse was built at Cape Race. Commissioned and constructed by England’s Imperial Government, it began its distinction of a welcoming landfall and as a portent of danger. Still, up to 1863, for seven years it was just a “lighthouse” – no foghorn or whistle.

  It was a case of “lead, kindly light”; no alarm or warning sound (save that of the raging surf) of any kind existed at Cape Race. A foghorn had been proposed by the United States, which had lost several large liners in the treacherous area, but the proposition was ridiculed as a “Yankee suggestion.”

  For a lengthy time in communication history, the cape was a focal point and link for mail and telegraph between the two continents.

  According to the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, it was at Cape Race, in 1858, that the Associated Press of New York, after the failure of the first transatlantic cable, stationed a news boat to meet the liners coming from England and to retrieve news copy dropped overboard in a canister.

  The lighthouse was connected to the telegraph network and by this means news reached the mainland two or three days ahead of the ships. The practice of dropping news canisters may have contributed to the 1863 wreck of the Anglo Saxon, in which 237 people lost their lives. That ship may have kept too close to the land, with terrible results. When the first transatlantic cable was landed in Newfoundland at Heart’s Content in 1866, it eliminated the need for the ship canister drop-off.

  Yet, the Anglo Saxon disaster again demonstrated the need for a foghorn. Although the light was converted from fixed to revolving three years after the accident, it was several years before the needed steam whistle was installed.

  In 1901 the fog alarm itself was inadvertently the cause of another wreck when the steamer Assyrian mistook it for the whistle of another vessel and ran aground. In 1907 the original whistle was replaced by an air-operated double diaphone alarm, and in 1963 a diesel-powered foghorn was installed.

  Although Cape Race had a telegraph system for many years, in 1904 it became the site of a wireless station run by the Marconi Company. With a range of 300-400 miles, wireless could communicate with passing ships off shore using Morse code. As such it received and relayed many distress signals from ships in trouble on the Atlantic Ocean.

  The best known were those sent by the Titanic in 1912, the burning Volturno in 1913, and the Newfoundland ship Florizel, 1918. And these were three among many. The news of the sinking Titanic, considered by many authorities to be unsinkable, was at first viewed by some newspapers, like the New York Times, to be a hoax.

  However, through efforts of the Cape Race Station, among others, rescue efforts were organized. Messages from there polarized the SS Carpathia to find and pick up survivors.

  Up to 1863 there were few, probably no permanent settlements along the shore to Cappahayden, about 19 miles northward. Cape Race was linked to Cappahayden by a footpath. From there a carriage path wound its way to Renews and then St. John’s. Indeed, one tale in this collection decries the fact that “there is still no road to Cape Race.”

  Not only did lightkeepers – mainly the Myrick family from 1874 to the mid-twentieth century – save lives, but, as illustrated by several tales of ship losses, residents of Cape Race and other nearby settlements would risk their own lives to save those who had become shipwrecked. Sometimes the rescued were barely alive; other times residents retrieved bodies.

  As well, there lived along Calamity Coast a brand of people commonly called wreckers, or, as the local dialect said, “wrackers.” While the wrackers did all possible to save a life or to retrieve a body, they would risk life and limb trying to salvage or take, legally or otherwise, items large and small from stranded ships.

  Wrackers were considered thieves, pirates, and robbers by shipowners and captains of unfortunate vessels. This was basically an unfair accusation, as often the ship and cargo were “lost”; that is, the captain and sailors had no way of retrieving or saving any of it. Often these local wrackers were accused or slandered without being given a chance to defend their actions or to present contrary evidence in a court of law.

  By the mid-twentieth century, with improved communications and navigational instruments and with a reduction of the number of ships passing Cape Race, wrecks, disasters, and calamities were greatly reduced. In the late 1970s Cape Race was designated a National Historic Site, and the interpretation centre with its replica wireless station, has been operational since 2001, the year of Newfoundland and Labrador’s anniversary celebration of Marconi’s first wireless message.

  It is in the above milieu – early disasters before a light, loss of ships and lives prior to a fog alarm, stories that decry the lack of a road to the cape, encounters with icebergs, the dangers of fog and tide, distress messages to the coast, the ship wrackers, the accounts of people who rescued and nurtured shipwreck survivors, the great transatlantic liners, the small obscure fishing craft, the vessels that went down just off the coast, those on the rocks near the cape – that Cape Race: Stories from the Coast that Sank the Titanic presents 48 scenes from one of the most prominent corners of North America.

  Introduction and Author’s Notes

  “Shut Up! I’m Working Cape Race.”

  Since the phenomenon of the 1997 hit movie Titanic more people than ever, at least in the western hemisphere, have been captivated with Titanic trivia and still thirst, seemingly at an ever-increasing rate, for facts about the great ship operated by the renowned White Star Line.

  Newfoundland has its small claim to Titanic fame. Cape Race received messages from the liner as celebrities aboard the ship clambered to be the first to send word to the United States via Newfoundland. When Cyril Evans, the wireless operator on the liner Californian, tried to warn Titanic of the icefield, Titanic’s operator, John George “Jack” Phillips, gave his much-quoted reply, “Shut up! Shut up! I’m busy. I’m working Cape Race.” Signals from Californian, because of its proximity to Titanic, were loud and clear, enough so Phillips asked Evans to stop.

  On the night of April 14-15, 1912, the British liner, commanded by Captain Edward Smith, sank after striking an iceberg approximately 500 kilometres (300 miles) southeast of Newfoundland. The disaster, which occurred on the ship’s maiden voyage, claimed the lives of more than 1,500 of the 2,200 people aboard. In spring and early summer, icebergs of the size and type that sank the great liner can often be seen near Newfoundland’s coasts.

  By 1912, the Marconi wireless was in use on ships, and Titanic sent out distress signals (which were received by Cape Race). Californian was equipped to receive the signal and was close enough that night to speed to the rescue, but it had only one wireless – or radio – operator. He, after receiving a brush-off from Phillips, had gone to his cabin to sleep. There was no one on duty in Californian’s radio room when Titanic’s distress signal came in – a person has to sleep sometime.

  Because of the drama of the sinking, the number of lives lost, and the social position of many of the dead, the disaster revolutionized the rules governing sea travel. After 1912, all passenger ships were required to carry lifeboats with enough seats for everyone on board, lifeboat drills were to take place on every passage, and wireless receivers/senders were required to operate 24 hours a day. These were some of the regulations put into place very quickly.

  In addition, in 1914 an International Ice Patrol was established and has been maintained ever since, to keep watch over the ice giants of the deep and especially so near the great drilling stations (like Newfoundland’s Hiber
nia and White Rose) of the northwestern Atlantic.

  Yet those reading this collection ought not to be disappointed to find the story of Titanic is brief and limited to its interaction with Cape Race. Scores of entire books have been written of the great 1912 sea tragedy off Cape Race. My research pales in comparison with lifetimes devoted to the uncovering of facts devoted to Titanic (and subsequently Cape Race). Anything said in this collection would be redundant. Likewise, other writers have told the tale of the wreck of the SS Florizel (in fact an entire book, A Winter’s Tale by Cassie Brown, is of that steamer’s loss). Others have also covered adequately the great “epidemic” of wrecks that piled up at or near Cape Race in the summer of 1901. Cape Race: Stories from the Coast that Sank the Titanic features one or two ships of that episode.

  Many areas of the North American coastline from Cape Hatteras to the northern reaches of Newfoundland have been given the dubious honour of being named “a most dangerous coast” for ships because of the large number of ship losses throughout the centuries. Leading the way would be Sable Island, the Cape Cod promontory and Cape Race – located about 147 kilometres from St. John’s.

  In the 1870s, Newfoundland’s Lighthouse Director Robert Oake said of the catastrophes near Cape Race that the most destruction of ship and human life from shipwrecks occurred from “. . . Chance Cove to the east part of Trepassey Bay, a distance of 16 miles . . .” Cape Race is nearly the centre of Oake’s geographical landmarks. Likewise, his limits are similar to the area chosen as a focus for this volume of tales.

  Certainly Cape Race and vicinity deserves the terms treacherous, dangerous, a “graveyard, ” and other equally disreputable names. Official accounts, folklore, and sailors’ stories continuously refer to strong currents, tides, fog, remoteness, and the rugged landscape in the Cape Race neighbourhood that have lured many a good ship to their doom.