Castaways - Adrift and Abandoned E-Book

Graham Faiella

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Thrilling Tales of the Sea
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 336

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Seafaring before the twentieth century bristled with peril. The safe haven of your vessel might be destroyed by tempest or misadventure, your security scuttled. When you were cast away with only the resources of pluck, stamina, hope – and luck. Where you might end up on the expanse of endless sea facing the prospect of imminent dehydrated, starving death. Or on a safe but potentially forbidding – yet occasionally lush – outcrop of an isolated shore, amongst which perils abounded accounts of courage and companionship. These are narratives of castaways abandoned to fend for themselves, and the ordeals they endured and survived and in remembrance of the seafarers who did not.

Leseprobe

First published 2021

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Graham Faiella, 2021

The right of Graham Faiella to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9539 9

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

Front cover © Bridgeman Images

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Preface

1 Adrift

Loss of the Fleetwood, of Boston

The Dromahair – Dreadful Sufferings at Sea

Derelict Junk Isukin Maru – Seven Months Adrift

The Milton – A Terrible Tale of Sufferings at Sea

Adrift in an Open Boat ‘Off the Bermudas’

Brigantine Mary T. Kimball – Eleven Days on a Raft

The Psyché – Living in an Open Boat on Sharks’ Blood

The Wreck of the Amy Turner

2 Orphans of the Sea – Sole Survivors

The Lost Ship Margaret Tyson

The Wreck of the Schooner Leader 63

The Loss of the Jane Lowden 70

Terrible Sufferings of Ship-Wrecked Crews – The Margaret and the Zetus

The Shelchoff: Captain Saved after 109 Days on the Wreck, Passengers and Crew Starved

A Remarkable Escape – Without Food or Water Eighteen Days Adrift in a Water Tank

Tragedy and Heroism in the Irish Sea

3 Mid-Pacific Crusoes

The Seladon – Two Thousand Miles in an Open Boat, Ten Months on Sophia Island

The Garston – Adrift on the Ocean: The Sight of Land Saves Starving Men from Cannibalism

Midway Island – Castaways Murder Mystery: The General Siegel Story

The Wandering Minstrel Story

The Wreck of the Dunnottar Castle at Ocean Island

The Saga of the Saginaw at Ocean Island

Whaleships Gledstanes and Parker – Wrecked on Ocean Island

Kinkora Castaways at Clipperton Island

Alexander Oubis Castaways at Galapagos Islands

The Wild Wave’s Wandering Crusoes at the Pitcairn Islands

Pitcairn Pictorial

PREFACE

On 30 January 1886, Elizabeth (Betty) Mouat, ‘the daughter of a shoemaker in the village of Levenwick on the lower mainland of Shetland’, embarked on ‘a sailing packet of twenty-one tons and fifty feet overall length’, the Columbine, at Grutness, two miles from her home, to sail to the Shetland capital of Lerwick 24 miles away. In poor health after a stroke the year before, Betty was going to Lerwick for medical attention. The skipper of Columbine, James Jamieson, was a family friend. The mate was Jeremiah Smith. Oliver Smith was deckhand.

Stormy weather, with winds sometimes reaching hurricane force, had battered Shetland for the previous five days. And Columbine, with 60-year-old Betty Mouat huddled below deck in ill health, set off into the teeth of that wintry North Sea maelstrom. Within half an hour the skipper and mate had been knocked overboard. The mate managed to haul himself back on board. The skipper drowned. Both mate and deckhand launched Columbine’s 12ft boat to try to save skipper Jamieson, and, when they realised they couldn’t, to pull to shore about 2 miles away. Before the crew abandoned her, Columbine’s sails had been set. And so it was impossible for mate Smith and deckhand Smith to catch up with the vessel, to get back on board her, in that tumultuous sea. So Betty Mouat, alone, seasick, and with just a bottle of milk and a few biscuits she had brought with her, sailed on.

Abandoned. Adrift. Alone.

Against all odds, however, Betty survived: a week later Columbine grounded on the coast of Norway where she was rescued by locals, including ‘Messrs. Bully and Spindler, two English gentlemen’. Seas had remained rough throughout her castaway voyage and ‘often washed down the hatchway, keeping her drenched to the skin’. For the last four days she ‘was altogether without food’. And ‘every moment she expected the boat to go to the bottom’.

The Castaway Smack Columbine: Elizabeth Mouat Lashed to the Deck. (The Illustrated London News, 20 February 1886)

But Columbine, under double-reefed mainsail, with no one at her tiller except the hand of Fate, ‘drove along’. And so Betty Mouat survived. Indomitable. Tough. Lucky, perhaps. Battered, indeed, but alive to tell the tale of her ordeal. Many – if not probably most – castaways, adrift and abandoned to their fate by whatever assault upon their vessel, will perish into the silence of oblivion. But some do come back from the edge of the abyss. Some, like Betty Mouat, do survive.

These are some of the tales they have told about their salvation.

The Castaway.

The most powerful imagination could but faintly conceive the horror of the situation suggested by the engraving above. Alone at sea, upon a frail raft constructed in a few hurried and desperate moments from such materials as could be gathered hastily together before the doomed vessel sank forever out of sight, the shipwrecked sailor trusts himself to the mercy of the waves. Against the chances of rescue from his terrible situation are opposed so many fearful possibilities. The slight provision he has been able to make for his needs in the way of food and water is already spent; exposure to the burning heat of the sun by day and chilling mist at night must soon exhaust his strength; and at any moment a storm may arise and his raft be dashed in pieces by the waves.

The brave ship that left the harbor so short a time ago with colors flying, a fair wind swelling her canvas, her decks crowded with merry sailors and light-hearted passengers, and a thousand good wishes wafted in her wake, is lying now a shapeless wreck somewhere in the depths of the ocean. Of all the souls that trusted themselves upon the waters, fancying themselves secure within the protection of the good ship’s powerful frame, but one alone survives, and he is drifting upon the treacherous waves with only his faithful dog for a companion in his peril, and a few frail boards between him and death. How long he may have floated there, at the capricious mercy of wind and wave, we can not know. What horrible scenes he must have witnessed as friends and comrades were swallowed up by the waves! what shrieks of agony must have fallen upon his ear as one by one gave up the struggle with the remorseless waters!

Alone on a raft in mid-ocean! The shipwrecked mariner has raised a tattered signal of distress, but there seems to be no wind to spread its folds. He hears the fragile raft creak and groan as the swelling waves strain the slender ropes that bind it together. The fierce sun pours down its blinding heat by day, and scorches the eyes that strain themselves so eagerly toward the horizon, longing to catch sight of an approaching sail. When at last the long day wears to an end, and the burning rays that seem to pierce into his very frame are withdrawn, then a yet more terrible sense of despair settles down upon his soul. He is conscious of relief from the torturing power of the sun’s fierce heat, but as the evening shadows gather he knows that the thick blackness of the night will soon be around him, and all possibility of rescue will be removed until another day shall dawn.

How wearily the painful hours drag themselves along! The waves plash with a low monotonous regularity against the sides of the raft, and torture the overstrung nerves with their ceaseless reiterated murmur. They sound in his ears like faint spirit voices, and chill his soul with dread, as

‘They tell of death and danger nigh, / Of slumbering with the dead to-morrow / In the cold deep, / Where pleasure’s throb or tears of sorrow / No more can wake the heart or eye, / But all must sleep.’

Great indeed are the ‘perils of the deep,’ and great is the danger incurred by those who ‘go down into the sea in ships.’ Our sailors lead arduous lives, and are hourly surrounded by danger. Yet they cheerfully endure the hardship and privation and incur the fearful risks, and learn to love the treacherous element whereon they spend their lives. America is poorly represented on the ocean in comparison with some other nations, and yet it has been estimated that between four and five hundred American vessels are annually lost at sea, and that in a single month merchandise and valuables to the amount of a million and a half of dollars on an average are swallowed up by the ocean. In one year it was estimated that the number of casualties occurring to vessels off the coasts of the British Islands was between fourteen and fifteen hundred. Of these a large proportion were total losses.

Often some horrible calamity at sea shocks the community with its terrible destruction of human life, and yet only shipwrecks of a very appalling character force themselves upon our notice. The smaller vessels that go out to sea never to return are only noted by those few who suffer through their loss. But when the day comes that the sea ‘shall give up her dead,’ then we shall know how many human forms have been swallowed up by the great deep, and how many bright hopes have ended beneath the waves. (Harper’s Weekly, 30 January 1875)

1

ADRIFT

A ship at sea is a floating islet of security, tenuous though it might be. It has a structure of command: government. It has piloting and navigation rules and regulations to guide it safely to its destination: laws and governance. It has a crew of sailors and sometimes passengers: a population. It has food and water for its population: sustenance. Most important, it has the stability of its design and construction to keep it afloat: buoyancy and survival – security from the chaos of the sea.

When a ship is destroyed by perils of the sea, so, too, are those safeguards manufactured for the survival of its souls on board. Where before protected by the ship’s structure, human life, when cast adrift upon the sea, immediately hangs by a thread, if it survives at all. A small boatload of castaways adrift becomes a microcosm of the ship, but without any guarantee of deliverance to safety. Hope, resourcefulness, patience, luck, courage and stamina are the castaways’ closest companions, spectres of their redemption.

The sea is not their enemy; the sea is as indifferent to their resurrection as it is indiscriminate in their damnation. Those cast adrift upon it must make the best of what it offers: the hope of a ship to rescue them; the hope of rain for water and sea life for sustenance; the hope of conquering despair; the faint and constantly fading hope of staying alive – of salvation from the abyss just beyond the boat’s gunwales or the raft’s edge.

The freedom to hope is the lifebuoy of castaways, for whom the security of everything else that sustained them has been without mercy torn from them.

Loss of the Fleetwood, of Boston

On her voyage from Boston to the Polynesian Society Islands in 1859, the 663-ton Fleetwood was sunk by collision with an iceberg off Cape Horn on 4 May that year. Abandoning the sinking ship, the mate and four sailors took to one boat. Capt. Frank Dale, his wife (‘in a delicate situation’), their young child, and the rest of the crew totalling nineteen persons took to another. After five days adrift, the mate’s boatful of castaways were rescued by a British barque en route from Valparaiso, Chile, to Liverpool, and landed at Pernambuco (Recife), Brazil. The captain’s boat and occupants were never heard from again, presumed lost at sea.

Loss of Ship Fleetwood, of Boston – Rescue of the Mate and Four Seamen – Dreadful Sufferings from Exposure – The Captain, his Wife and Child, with Sixteen Sailors Missing

The schooner Kate Weston, Capt. Ellis, which arrived at this port yesterday from Pernambuco [Recife, Brazil], June 5, brought as passenger Mr. Babson, first officer of the ship Fleetwood of Boston, which he reports was lost off Cape Horn May 4, by coming in contact with an iceberg, causing the ship to sink in a short time, and obliging the officers and crew to escape in the boats.

Fleetwood’s Collision With Iceberg

The Fleetwood, Capt. Dale, sailed from Boston Feb. 9, with an assorted cargo for the Society Islands, having, among other things, twenty-five nests of boats, six in a nest. Nothing unusual happened until the ship arrived off Cape Horn, when in lat. 60° south, long. 71° west, while going twelve knots an hour, before a heavy northeast gale of wind, on the night of the 4th of May, the ship struck an iceberg which carried away her bowsprit, stove in her bows, starting [springing loose] all the wood ends forward, and leaving her in a sinking condition. The pumps were sounded, when she was found to be leaking very fast. The hatches were opened, and the cargo broken out forward and thrown overboard, with the hope of getting at the leak, as well as to lighten the vessel.

As it was found impossible to save the ship in this way, the captain ordered a portion of the crew to work at the pumps, while he with the rest cleared away the boats, and made preparations to leave the ship. The ship sank so fast there was little time for preparation, but Mr. Babson states that the boats were well supplied. He, Babson, launched his boat first but it had been partially stove, and only four of the crew, three men and a boy, whose names are not given, got into it with him. They then shoved off, at 3 o’clock in the morning, but remained in sight of the wreck.

Cape Horn,Patagonia and the Falkland Islands.

Taking to the Boats

At daylight he returned to the ship, and found everything swept from off deck, the houses [deckhouses] and bulwarks gone, and the sea breaking over her. Mr. Babson supposed that the captain took one or more of the surfboats, of which they had several for the Missionaries at the Islands, and that he escaped safely from the ship. The Captain had with him his wife, in a delicate situation, and one child, there being also sixteen of the crew, besides the four in the mate’s boat.

If they all took to one boat they would have been dangerously crowded, but divided into two boats he thinks they had a chance to survive and be picked up, or to reach the land. The weather, however, was very cold, a ‘regular Cape Horn gale was blowing,’ and a heavy sea running. The mate’s boat had a sail, and all the provisions they required, excepting there was but a limited supply of water.

On the second or third day they saw a ship, and made every possible effort to attract their attention, but she went past them without seeing the boat. The sufferings of the crew were very great from the cold, ice making continually, and their hands and feet badly frost-bitten.

Rescued

After being five days in this situation they were fallen in with (May 10) by the British bark ---, Captain Williams, from Valparaiso, bound to Liverpool, and taken on board. Their wants were humanely attended to by Captain Williams, clothes and medicine were provided, and everything done to make them comfortable. They arrived at Pernambuco on the 3d of June. The men were received into the Hospital. The boy had a portion of both feet amputated, and should he survive, would be crippled. The others were doing well.

Captain Dale told Mr. Babson he should endeavor to reach the Falkland Islands. From the fact that they were in the track of vessels, he expresses the opinion that they may have been rescued, like themselves, by a passing vessel. Mr. Babson hurried off to Boston by the Sound steamer, and did not furnish the names of the persons saved in his boat, nor the name of the bark which picked him up. The Fleetwood was 663 tons register, classed A-1, built at Portsmouth, N.H., 1852, and was owned in Boston by F. Dale and others. (The New York Times, 30 June 1859)

The Dromahair – Dreadful Sufferings at Sea

The North Atlantic in winter is every bit as tempestuous and unforgiving as the southern bleakness of icy seas off Cape Horn. In November 1858 the British barque Dromahair loaded a cargo of timber at Quebec. On 20 November she sailed for Greenock, on the Clyde, Scotland, under the command of Capt. John Hutchinson, with thirteen crew. A month out, on 18 December, stormy weather assailed the vessel, sweeping her decks and threatening her and her crew’s lives.

The men survived for a while on meagre rations of ship’s biscuit, salt pork and salt beef scavenged from the hold, and whatever rain they could catch for fresh water. Six men died, mostly going mad from the terrible conditions, before the ship Centurion, bound for New York from Glasgow, rescued the seven survivors of the Dromahair on 9 January 1859. The vessel’s mate, John Elliot, one of the survivors, recounted the Dromahair’s ordeal.

Dreadful Sufferings at Sea

The British bark Dromahair sailed from Quebec on the 20th of November, 1858, for Greenock, Scotland, loaded with lumber and manned by 13 persons, including the captain and mate. She carried no passengers. Her officers were: John Hutchinson, captain; John Elliott, first mate; and William Henderson, second mate. The following are the names of the rest of the crew:- Hector McNaughton, Hector Munroe, Dougald Campbell, James Henderson, Henry Frost, Samuel Cochran, George McIntosh, John Murray, James McGrail, and John McInnes. The bark was built in St. John’s, New Brunswick, and carried 350 tons.

Storm

On the 18th December the vessel was in about 50 degrees and 30 minutes north latitude, and 30 degrees west longitude. The captain ordered sail to be taken in and the deck cleared. At 3 o’clock the ship was hove to, but the winds ‘rushed roaring on’, tossing her like a feather on the foam. At 7 o’clock she shipped a sea, capsizing the long-boat and the life-boat, which was inside of it, forcing both from the lee-rail into the sea. The long-boat was stove to pieces, and had to be broken up still more to save the life-boat. The ship had already begun to make water, and all hands but three were put to the pumps.

Thus the night passed, occasional showers of hail being driven furiously down upon the bark. Between these showers the moon occasionally pierced the tissue of fleecy clouds, and tipped the crested foam of the raging billows with a wavy tremulous light.

About 5 o’clock on Sunday morning, the 19th of December, the little bark shipped another tremendous sea, which carried away the port bulwarks and stancheons, split the covering board [gunwale], carried away the cook house, tore the life-boat from the deck, where it had been lashed, carried away the companion [covering/hatch over the companionway] and the steerage [steering] wheel. Mr. George McIntosh, the pilot at the wheel [helmsman], was struck by the mountain billow. The little boat hanging at the starboard davits was also swept away, with a large portion of the standing and running rigging. Nearly all the sails were at this time blown from the yards.

At the time the wave struck all the men were at the pumps. They jumped for their lives, and when the water cleared off they found themselves jammed into corners about the deck. One man was high up in the rigging.

The waves swept as high as the maintop. The water ran into the cabin, stove the bulk-heads, and flowed into the bread-room, destroying nearly all the bread [hard-tack, ship’s biscuit] in it. They had one barrel of bread left after this calamity; it happened to be stowed away in a spare locker. The cabin stairs were carried away, and everything torn up that impeded the course of the maddened waves. Sea after sea swept over the labouring ship, the men seeking merely to cling to her, knowing that as she was loaded with lumber she could not go down. Whenever they could they worked at the pumps, trying to keep down the water as much as possible.

All day Sunday the storm continued but not quite so violently. At 8 o’clock Sunday night the pumps were utterly disabled by a sea. Then the storm began to moderate, but the water gained on us. At 1 o’clock on Monday morning there were 13 feet [of] water in the vessel. Seeing there was no hope but in the pump we commenced to repair it, and as the wind had somewhat abated, we got it to work, and the ship free from water by noon of Monday.

A Temporary Reprieve

We cleared away the wreck as [much as] possible, and tried to get some canvass on her to steady her. We made a tiller and got her to work pretty well; but at 8 o’clock on Monday night there arose a tremendous gale – a wind even more furious than we had heretofore had – dashing the sea over the ship fore and aft. The storm was so violent we could not remain at the pumps. The wind continued to blow all night fearfully. And at 6 o’clock on Tuesday morning the water was up over the cabin floor.

We were all obliged to save ourselves from being washed overboard, as the bulwarks had been torn away. But as sea after sea swept over us and filled the cabin, we were compelled to run from it and get into a small forecastle house on deck, built in with the rise of the keep, about three feet above the deck. When the Dromahair was used as a passenger ship this house was used as a second cabin.

When we were forced to leave the cabin we got 30lb. or 40lb. of bread, put it into a bag, and took it along with us to the little deck-house. We had no water, and no other food except some salt meat, which we got afterwards. The storm continued and we remained in the house a few days, then the bulkheads of it were knocked down and the water got free access to it, passing through it at every lurch of the vessel. The bark was now completely waterlogged, and would have sunk had she not been loaded with lumber.

The storm struck us on the 18th of December, and we remained in this condition till the 9th of January. On the 22nd or 23rd December a steamer passed within two or three miles of us, she was standing to the southward, appeared to be propelled by a screw; she could see us, but made no sign whatever to us.

Sustenance and Suffering

We lived on half a biscuit a day. A barrel of salt beef and a barrel of salt pork were under the hatches, and after the storm somewhat abated we could just get at them by watching our chances between the seas. This was all the food we had. We had no water except what we caught when it rained; there were several little showers, one almost every day; we could just get a mouthful of water, not enough at all to satisfy our burning thirst. We got it by putting our mouths to the mast and licking off the water as it trickled down them.

Our sufferings were most intense. The salt meat eaten raw created a fever and inflammation in the bowels, causing a burning thirst.

Derangement and Death

About the 25th December, one of the men, John McInnes, began to shew symptoms of insanity; he had drunk salt water, and its effects could be seen upon him. He died on the 31st of December, and was buried or thrown overboard on the 1st of January. Henry Frost had become deranged previous to the death of McInnes, and on the 2nd of January he jumped overboard, not knowing what he was doing; though in the sea he at first clung to the side of the ship; two men laid hold of his hands to haul him in, but he finally broke from them and was drowned.

On Tuesday, the 3rd of January, the boy James McGrail (aged about 17) was washed into the cabin and drowned there. The rest of us lived on as best we could; the biscuit gave out on the 3rd of January, and after that we had nothing to eat but raw salt meat. On Saturday, the 8th of January, John Murray and Samuel Cochran died, after having been crazy for some time. We buried them on Sunday morning, the 9th, just before being taken off the wreck.

To satisfy our thirst, we tore up the deck to get at a cask of fresh water which had been left there, but great was our disappointment when, after two days’ labour in getting to it, we found it with the bung out, and filled with salt water.

(1) Wreck of the Dromahair – Seeing the Steamer (2) Rescue of the Passengers by the Centurion. (Harper’s Weekly, 9 April 1859)

Salvation

We saw no vessel except the steamship before alluded to, and a craft of some kind that passed near us during a dark night – she could not see us, we only saw her lights – until Sunday, the 9th of January, about noon, the ship Centurion, Captain Caulkins, from Glasgow for New York, came alongside and picked us up. It was blowing hard, as it had been during all the time of our wreck, and a high sea was running. The mate of the Centurion, with a crew, came alongside in a boat, removed us into it, and carried us on board the ship. This was no easy task, as most of us were unable to stand, and had to be raised into the vessel, while a heavy sea was running.

Captain John Hutchinson, the narrator (mate, John Elliott), and Hector McNaughton were the only members of the crew who could stand when rescued by the Centurion. The other men saved were Wm. Henderson, Hector Monroe, Dougald Campbell, and James Henderson, making seven saved and six lost. Our wants were all supplied by the kind officers and crew of the Centurion. Everything that could be done for us was done. We lacked nothing the ship could afford. Our abiding gratitude is due to the captain of the Centurion.

On the 24th of February the Boston vessel Magellan, bound to Swansea, South Wales, passed us, and five of our crew having recovered their health during the 45 days they remained on board the Centurion were put on board of her. I and Hector McNaughton remained on board the Centurion, and arrived in New York with her on the 23rd instant. We have put ourselves under the charge of the British consul at this port. These two men appear in pretty good health, but their feet are still covered with sea sores. Mrs. Captain Caulkins fortunately accompanied her husband this voyage, and the rescued speak in terms of the highest praise of her gentle and unremitting exertions for their benefit. (Daily Southern Cross [Auckland, New Zealand], 5 July 1859)

Derelict Junk Isukin Maru – Seven Months Adrift

On 29 May 1878 a British barque, the Athelstone, was about 1,500 miles off the coast of California on her passage from Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, to San Francisco, when she descried in the distance an apparently derelict junk. The Athelstone’s chief officer was sent on board to investigate. There he found a most miserable clutch of four starving Japanese sailors at death’s door. The vessel was the Isukin Maru. She had been on a coasting voyage around the northernmost island of Japan, Hokkaido (‘Yesso’), when, in November 1877, she was first battered by storms that eventually blasted her two-thirds of the way across the North Pacific.

Of the ten crew, including her captain, and thirteen passengers, only three crew and a passenger were still alive when the Athelstone found her seven months after she left port. What Capt. Bayley of the Athelstone found when he boarded the junk was ‘too harrowing for description’.

A Tale of Horror from the Sea

The bark Athelstone, from Newcastle, N.S.W., reports that on May 29th, latitude 39° 49’ north, longitude 144° 2’ west, at 8:30 A.M., she sighted a derelict junk, and bore away for her. At 9:30 A.M., passed under her lee. Had every appearance of being abandoned, and a most offensive smell emanated from her. Sent the chief officer in a boat aboard of her, who found four Japanese on board, nearly dead, and also two dead ones. Took the living on board, and brought them to this port [San Francisco]. Was unable to ascertain the name of the vessel, or where she was from. But suffice it to say, they were in a most deplorable condition. We should have destroyed the junk, but a fresh breeze sprang up, and we were compelled to abandon her.

Through the courtesy of Mr. Nasse, Japanese interpreter, the following additional facts have been obtained:

The Voyage

The junk was named the Isukin Maru, and was of 235 tons burthen, and manned by a crew of nine seamen, in addition to Capt. Baba. She also had on board 13 passengers. She was a coaster, bound from Atzukishi [probably Atkesi, on north-east coast of Hokkaido] to Hokadata [southwest coast of Hokkaido], ports upon the island of Yesso, sometimes called Matsmai, one of the largest of the Japanese islands, and situated in latitude 41° 24’N., longitude 140° 9’E.

When about 500 miles from the first-named port, she was struck by a heavy gale on the morning of November 7th [1877], she having left port on the 25th of October. The gale, as is usual in those seas, continued for nearly three months, during which time it was very foggy and the hail storms were frequent. Three days after the gale began the mast went by the board, and three days afterward the upper deck was carried away and three of the crew washed overboard and drowned.

Although the cargo consisted of red herrings and seaweed, provisions were so scarce, that when rescued by Capt. Bayley of the Athelstone, only three days food remained. All on board were dead, save a passenger named Iti, and three of the crew – the cause of death being scurvy, exposure and starvation.

Captain Baba was the last victim; he died some ten days before the kindly rescue. When Captain Bayley boarded, the survivors were lifeless, and had to be carried on board his ship. There were then three feet of water in the hold. The details are too harrowing for description. (Daily Alta California [San Francisco], 9 June 1878)

The Milton – A Terrible Tale of Sufferings at Sea

Coal was one of the most dangerous cargoes carried by deep-sea sailing ships. Loaded loose, as it usually was, it could shift to one side or the other of a rolling ship’s hold, destabilising the vessel to such a degree that she might roll over on her beam ends – on her side – and even capsize before the sailors could restow the coal to an even level.

Even worse was when a coal cargo began spontaneously to combust, heat up and smoulder, and thereby cause fire to break out in the hold. The smouldering coal could be doused by sea water to try to put it out, or shovelled out and thrown overboard. In some cases, though, it might take hold and set the whole ship on fire. Wooden ships were particularly vulnerable. A ship on fire was usually a dead loss. The crew would abandon the vessel in boats and, as castaways, hope for the best.

The British ship Milton was past Cape Horn and well up into the Pacific on her voyage from Newcastle on the north-east coast of England to San Francisco, in the latter months of 1881, when her cargo of coal ignited, setting the vessel ablaze. The crew abandoned her in three boats. One of them included the captain, his wife (who was ‘close to confinement’) and two sons (‘Archie and Flack, aged 4 and 2 years respectively’). Privations and suffering – and death – beset the castaways for weeks before some, but not all of them were rescued.

A Terrible Tale of Sufferings at Sea

Once more a dreadful tale comes up from the sea. The story of privations and sufferings which followed the burning and abandonment of the British ship Milton is pitiful. But the account of the situation in the captain’s boat – forty-six days castaway – dead sailors – a dead child – a sick wife – and taken for pirates besides – caps the climax for ocean horrors.

Accounts of the loss of the Milton have appeared in the Alta, and last Thursday a telegram from Guaymas [on the north-west Pacific coast of Mexico] via Tucson announced the rescue of the pinnace with Captain McArthur, his wife, child, and three of the crew. The steamship Newbern, Captain Huntington, arrived last evening from Mexican ports and brought the captain and survivors that were in his boat. There is one boat-load, that in command of the first mate, still missing. The following graphic letter of McArthur tells the tale briefly and to the point:-

Capt. McArthur’s Narrative

The ship Milton, 1209 tons burden, with 1740 tons of coal, sailed from Newcastle, England, on the 9th of August [1881], with a crew of 20 and the captain’s wife and two children. She was 53 days from Shields [near Newcastle] to the Equator north. The ship was well ventilated, with windsails and hatches open during the warm weather. She showed no signs of the coal heating until the 22nd of December at 1.30 p.m., latitude 3 deg 45 min north, longitude 109 deg 30 min west, when the fire was discovered.

Fire

I at the time was confined to my bed with a violent attack of rheumatism. I immediately got up, and found the fire to be on the beam, forward of the mizzenmast, on the port side. I gave orders to the mate to send all men with shovels to go below and make room, for the purpose of leading the hose to the fire. After removing a sufficient amount of coal, water was immediately played upon the fire by the force pump and buckets up to twelve o’clock, midnight. At that time the men were forced to retire, as the gases and heat became so intense that they were unable to remain longer below. I then had holes cut through the cabin deck and continued to play water upon the fire up to 2.30 a.m.

Abandoned Ship

At 3 a.m. on December 23rd, we left the ship in three boats. All had my orders to lay off from the ship about one mile until daylight, the ship having her wheel hard down and the main yard aback. The wind at this time was about east, blowing a six knot breeze. At daylight I called the boats together, and fearing that I had not sufficient provisions in the boats, according to my orders, I ordered the mate to return to the ship and endeavour to procure more. He did so, but returned and reported that the heat and smoke were so intense that it was impossible for him to go below, where the provisions were stored. On taking an inventory of water and provisions, I made an equal division, provisioning and watering each one of the boats, so that with careful management it should have lasted each boat’s crew for forty days. No salt provisions were put into the boats; all were canned meats excepting one ham in each boat.

We laid by the ship all day and night of the 23rd of December. At that time all the spars and upper deck were burned away. On the morning of the 24th the ship was burned down nearly to the water’s edge. After giving each boat orders to make all snug, and to keep in company, we took our departure for the nearest land, Cape St. Lucas, Lower California, distant 1,280 miles, as the prevailing winds were favorable for us to bring that port.

Castaways in Three Boats

Left the ship in the following order:- Boat No. 1 (Captain’s boat) – Captain D.A. McArthur, wife and two children, aged 2 and 4 years; George Ettinger, able seaman; Tilly Anderson, able seaman; Peter Annesitt, able seaman; O.B. Orklund, able seaman; Ola Johansen, carpenter; James Trot (colored), steward. Boat No. 2 (First Mate’s boat) – Charles E. Carroll, in command; Fredk. Wills, able seaman; Johanna Benson, able seaman; Arthur Lewis, ordinary seaman; Macporrish, ordinary seaman; Angus Everetts, ordinary seaman; A.L. Anderson, cook. Boat No. 3 – Edward Antony, second mate, in command; Oley Oleson, able seaman; Eva. Angeline, able seaman; George Williams, able seaman; George Wadley, ordinary seaman; Mikel Wills, able seaman.

All the boats were in company during the day. There was a strong breeze and a rough sea. We lost sight of the mate’s boat during the night. On the morning of the 25th the wind and sea were going down. We now sighted the second mate’s boat and lowered my sail and waited two hours for him to come up. Nothing could be seen of the second boat in command of the first mate. Boat No. 3, in command of the second mate, kept in company with me until the 29th of December, when I lost sight of it. On the morning of the 30th I sighted it again about six miles to the leeward. I ran down to him and ordered him to keep his boat well up to the wind, as he was going too far to the leeward.

I kept in his company until the morning of the 3rd of January, when I concluded to make a change in the boats, having laid by forty-six hours waiting for the boats to come up, and thinking the mate’s boat might have passed me. I exchanged the following men:- I placed out of my boat, Jas. Trot, steward, and O.B. Orklund, able seaman, in the second mate’s boat, and taking the second mate, Edward Antony, into my boat. I placed the third boat in charge of Oley Oleson, an experienced seaman and navigator, and gave him orders to keep in company.

The following morning, the 4th, I laid by waiting for the boat to come up. Seeing nothing of him I made sail and resumed my voyage for land. The wind was north-east with a smooth sea. All went well in the boat. There was no suffering up to this time. I now found the provisions and water were becoming scarce, and from this day put all hands on short allowance.

Ship Sighted

On the morning of the 16th January, latitude 19 deg 58 min north, longitude 121 deg 55 min west, I sighted a ship distant about six miles, bearing north by the compass. The ship standing [i.e. heading] to the eastward, my boat standing to the north-west, I tacked to the eastward so as to intercept the ship. There was very little wind at the time, with a rough sea. The ship tried for stays, missed stays, wore round before the wind, and looked as though they had sighted me and were standing for me. I had my ensign up, Union down [i.e. signal of distress], and as I had no doubt at the time but that the ship had sighted me, and as my men were worn out, as they had been then for some time on short allowance, and thinking that we all would be certainly picked up, I got out my oars, and, to encourage the men, who had been complaining, I gave them the water to drink, leaving only one gallon in the boat.

A squall coming up at that moment, the ship wore round with her head to the north-west and quickly disappeared from sight. I feel certain that the master of the ship could not have seen us, otherwise he would have picked us up. From this day, the morning of the 16th of January, our great distress commenced. Worn out with fatigue, only one gallon of water left and a few provisions, my men lost heart and gave up.