The bait—well-salted herring, porgies or clams costing three and a half dollars a barrel—was tossed overboard to attract the mackerel. At least two barrels a day per boat were used during good fishing. The catch in those conditions, with a dozen men handlining, was from thirty to fifty barrels an hour. It was definitely a lucrative business and, unfortunately for them, hundreds of American schooners were in the vicinity that October when the storm hit. Seaworthy vessels attempted to help those less fortunate, but the ferocity of the storm hampered them.
NY Daily Times, October 13, 1851 reported that twelve persons had washed ashore [on PEI], including a man with a boy lashed to his back. In the article, surviving Captains of the schooners Florence of Gloucester, Oceana of Hingham, MA, Lake of Cohasset and Hannah Branch of Newburyport gave reports of the storm after arriving safely in Pictou, Nova Scotia. “A vessel grounded to the westward of Coveshead, and immediately after went to pieces. All onboard perished. Sixty barrels of flour and some dry goods floated ashore from the wreck.” “Two vessels were sunk near Stanhope – names unknown.” “Five … crew of the schooner Harriet, of Castine were saved – six crew lost.” “The schooner Franklin Dexter of Dennis, MA, lost her crew of ten men. Subsequently, five persons, perfectly naked were picked off her sides.” The Franklin Dexter was manned in part by four brothers, who included Captain James Wixon. The vessel hailed from Dennis, Massachusetts, but reports of the Wixons’ hometown conflict. In her memoir, Story Girl, famous Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maude Montgomery published her grandfather’s recollections of the gale in which he said the Wixons were from Portland, Maine. Many other reports say they were from Dennis, however this may be an assumption based on the vessel’s homeport. Upon learning of the death of his four sons, Captain Wixon, Sr. traveled to PEI to bring his sons bodies home to his wife for burial in the family graveyard. The Franklin Dexter had gone ashore off Rustico and, after much searching, three of his son’s bodies were exhumed from a cemetery near there and, along with a fourth crewmember, were loaded aboard the schooner Seth Hall heading for the States. Captain Wixon himself went home by steamship. The peace the Wixons hoped to find by burying their sons at home would elude them. In March of 1852, The Islander reported the fate of the schooner Seth Hall: Schr. Seth Hall, of Dennis, got ashore on Prince Edward Island in the gale of Oct. 3rd, was got off and laden with potatoes for Dennis via Provincetown. Sailed from the Island about Nov. 23 and left Canso Harbor 28th, since which nothing has been heard from her. …She was a good vessel of 85 tons, two years old, valued at $4500. She also had on board the bodies of three sons of Captain James Wixon; Captain James Wixon, Jr., aged 24, Nymphas, 22, and Joshua, 20, and that of Marcus Taylor, 15, part of the crew of the late schooner Franklin Dexter. The Wixons weren’t the only family who wanted their loved ones bodies returned home. The Islanders, sensitive to the grieving families, shared descriptions like the following published in the Royal Gazette: “Picked up at Dead Man’s Cove, Harding’s Capes, New London …by Mr. Hugh MacLeod, a body supposed to be of an American fisherman. The body was destitute of clothes, except for boots and socks. On the inside of the boots was marked 8-27. The socks was worsted, clouded, blue and white. … The only marks visible were a cross on the back of the left arm near the wrist, and on the inside thereof the letter T, and further towards the wrist… an anchor…. He appeared to be about 20 years of age, 5 feet 8 inches in height.” A coffin was made by Mr. MacLeod and a burial service was performed. A letter from James Goodwin of Eliot, Maine dated January 28, 1852, was published in the Royal Gazette, May 3rd, 1852 in which he lovingly responds to the former description of his son: “I had a son lost off your Island in the ill-fated gale of October 3d and 4th; he was on board the schooner Statesman, of Newburyport, which went to pieces... near Malpec Harbor. … You judged him to be about twenty years of age; my son’s age was about thirty, but had a young look…. My son’s name was Terrance F. Goodwin. The five foot eight was his height; and he had a cross…. With a star on his hand…” Not realizing that most of his son’s clothing was lost, Mr. Goodwin described the items and because they all were painstakingly homemade, included samples for comparison to the ones he assumed were found with the body. “He had an overcoat of blue; lining checked dark blue, long outside jacket cut sack fashion, with blue baize lining and large black horn buttons; three pairs of satinet trowsers or pantaloons; 2 pairs thin grayish black; the other pair lightish gray – a sample of both enclosed. A Rob Roy vest- sample enclosed…. Stockings, blue gray mixed; others blue clouded – yarn of both kinds enclosed.” The connection to the family was made by James Pidgeon, Esquire; the magistrate at New London, PEI. The survivors of this storm also merited attention, and a proclamation from the Governor of PEI instructed citizens to render all aid necessary to those starving and suffering from exposure. The hospitality was offered without need of official dictate. The Massachusetts Gloucester News reported on October 23, 1851, “We learn of our fisherman who have returned from the scene of the late disaster that the proclamation… was unnecessary; for they all speak in the warmest terms of gratitude for all the universal hospitality and kindness they and all the shipwrecked men received at the hands of these generous and humane Islanders. In the midst of the storm they were on the beach to render every aid in their power to save life. After it abated they cheerfully offered their services to assist in the preservation of property. They bore from the wrecks the bodies of those who had perished, at their own expense prepared them for the grave, and administered to them the last sad rites of humanity. Nor was this all; they opened their doors to those who had no shelter, fed and clothed the destitute…. The PE Island papers are requested to make known… the feelings of grateful remembrance in which the wrecked fishermen of Gloucester will always hold the generous hospitality extended to them in their misfortunes.” As in most disastrous times, people came together, and the Catholic Church at Tignish was full to the brim on Sunday following the storm. In his book The Catholic Church in Prince Edward Island from 1835-1891, Bishop Peter MacIntyre described the scene: The old church could not nearly accommodate the congregation of a normal Sunday, let alone such a crowd as appeared on the second Sunday of October, 1851, when Captain Gross, a survivor of the disastrous ‘Yankee Gale’ played the new organ for the first time… The talented Captain Gross of the Gloucester schooner Rival would join a member of his own crew, John Jay Watson for a musical journey homeward. The two men earned their way home playing concerts and celebrated with a final show at home in Gloucester. Even though he’d been at sea off and on since the age of eight, John Jay Watson’s brush with death in the Gale convinced him to follow his true love, music. He became known as The Fiddling Fisherman of Gloucester, Massachusetts. A book by Chester Brigham, (Whale’s Jaw Publishing of Gloucester) The Stream I Go A-Fishing In highlights Mr. Watson’s impressive career which included a solo violin performance at New York’s Steinway Hall in 1875, marking America’s upcoming Centennial celebration. The people of Prince Edward Island where the bodies of the three sailors were found over a hundred years after they were first buried, erected a proper grave marker for the men and a memorial at Christ Church, Kildare Cape which reads in part, “The Yankee Gale of October 3rd-5th, 1851 is regarded as one of the strongest and most destructive to hit Maritime Canada in the annals of recorded meteorological history… There were 400 Canadian and American schooners of 35 to 100 tons fishing mackerel in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence at the time of the gale. Hulls, wreckage and bodies could be seen all along the North Shore. … A total of 90 American schooners and 160 men were lost. Listed are some of those wrecked with all hands lost; Reward Castine, Maine, Fair Play Portland, Maine, Golden Gate Kennebunk, Maine, Statesman Newburyport, Mass., Flirt Gloucester, Mass., Telegraph Boston, Mass., Montana Hingham, Mass., Grafton Dennis, Mass. May they rest in peace. God bless the people who gave these fine seamen a last resting place on land.” Thanks to Prince Edward Island resident Capt. Dale Whittaker, my father, for his excellent research on the Gale and for passing along his love of the sea to me. Susan Whittaker can be reached at sdwbluehill@yahoo.com.
|
