History | |
---|---|
- Canada | |
Name | PSS Royal Tar |
Owner | John Hammond, Daniel McLaughlin and Mackay Brothers & Co. |
Route | St. John, Eastport and Portland, Maine |
Builder | William and Isaac Olive, Carleton |
Cost | abt. $40,000 |
Laid down | Carleton (St. John, NB) |
Launched | November 1835 |
Fate | Burned and sank October 25, 1836 off Vinalhaven Island, Maine |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Coastal steamer |
Tons burthen | 400 |
Length | 160 ft (49 m) |
Beam | 24 ft (7.3 m) |
Sail plan | Schooner-rigged |
Speed | 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
Complement | 21 |
The Royal Tar fire was an 1836 ship fire in which the passenger steamship Royal Tar burned while transporting a circus with its animals.
Royal Tar was the first steamer on the route between St. John, Eastport and Portland, Maine. It was built at the shipyard of William and Isaac Olive, Carleton, and launched in November 1835.
On sailing from its berth at Peter's wharf, Eastport on October 21, the ship had a crew of 21 and 70 passengers, including a number of women and children. The passenger list was larger than usual as it had the members of a menagerie, Burgess and Dexter's Zoological Institute, [1] managed by a Mr. Fuller. The animals included an elephant, two camels, and a variety of captive beasts and birds. There was also a large waxwork exhibit and a huge show wagon called an omnibus, as well as wagons required for carrying the cages, with the horses needed to pull them. Two of the ship's four lifeboats were offloaded to make room for the animals.
There was heavy weather along the coast in the latter part of October 1836, and when Royal Tar left Eastport on the evening of October 21, the wind was blowing so hard from the westward that the steamer put into Little River (near Cutler) for safety. The gale continued for three days, but on the afternoon of October 24, another attempt was made to resume the voyage. Finding a heavy sea outside and the wind still from the westward, the steamer put into Machias Bay and again came to anchor, remaining until midnight when the wind shifted to the northwest and the voyage was again resumed.
At about 1:30 on the afternoon of October 25, the engineer reported that the water had been allowed to get too low in the boiler. On hearing this report, the captain ordered the engine stopped and the safety valve opened, the steamer being brought to anchor about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) from the Fox Islands, in Penobscot Bay. The fire in the furnace was extinguished, but in about a half hour the steamer was found to be on fire under the deck over the boiler, near the animal cages. An effort was made to extinguish the flames by means of a hose attached to the pump, but it proved fruitless. The fire spread rapidly and soon consumed the firefighting equipment.
The ship only had two lifeboats remaining. Captain Reed and two of the crew, lowered the small boat at the stern and got into it, in order to prepare rafts and save as many people as possible. Sixteen able-bodied men lowered the second and larger boat and rowed away, until they reached Isle au Haut.
The steamer endeavored to make for the nearest land. Captain Reed stood by with the boat, and as the terrified passengers began to jump overboard, was able to save several lives. Of the animals, only the two horses survived.
The fire was seen by the US revenue cutter Veto, which reached the scene half an hour later. The schooner's boats were small and of little use to the rescue. Captain Reed and his men, however, used their boat to rescue about 40 more persons.
Despite their efforts, 32 lives were lost. [2]
On November 12, a schooner arriving at Portland reported having passed the remains of a burned steamer near Cash's Ledge. A traveler's trunk, with about $90 in it was picked up at sea. This was the only trace of the ship recovered, although debris was later spotted.
Four men, nine women and ten children were lost. Several of the men became well known locally in the later years, including Andrew Garrison, Captain John Hammond, John Ansley, George Eaton, James H. Fowler, and W. H. Harrison. Stinson Patten, of Fredericton, and J. T. Sherwood, British consul at Portland, were also among the saved. The passengers continued on to Portland. [3]
The ship was uninsured and the total loss was estimated at about $100,000. The captain, with others of the crew, reached St. John on the following Saturday, where he learned that his son had died on the same day as the fire.
Captain Reed became harbormaster of St. John in 1841, and died in August 1860. For a number of years it was the custom of the St. John men who survived the disaster to take supper together on the anniversary of the fire.
The ship's safe, containing a large number of gold and silver coins, was forgotten during the rescue attempt. Subsequent efforts to find either the wreckage or the safe have proven fruitless. [4]
Casco Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Maine on the coast of Maine in the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's chart for Casco Bay marks the dividing line between the bay and the Gulf of Maine as running from Bald Head on Cape Small in Phippsburg west-southwest to Dyer Point in Cape Elizabeth. The city of Portland and the Port of Portland are on Casco Bay's western edge.
RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner, built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson as a successor of the 1911–1917 RMS Laconia. The new ship was launched on 9 April 1921, and made her maiden voyage on 25 May 1922 from Southampton to New York City. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was converted into an armed merchant cruiser, and later a troopship. She was sunk in the South Atlantic Ocean on 12 September 1942 by U-156. Some estimates of the death toll have suggested that over 1,658 people were killed when the Laconia sank. Hartenstein staged a rescue of the passengers and the crew of Laconia, which involved additional German U-boats and became known as the Laconia incident.
USS Kennebec was a Unadilla-class gunboat built for the U.S. Navy following the outbreak of the American Civil War. She was named for the Kennebec River.
"Women and children first", known to a lesser extent as the Birkenhead drill, is an unofficial code of conduct whereby the lives of women and children were to be saved first in a life-threatening situation, typically abandoning ship, when survival resources such as lifeboats were limited. However, it has no basis in maritime law.
HMS Boxer was a 12-gun Bold-class gun-brig built and launched in July 1812. The ship had a short service history with the British Royal Navy before the 16-gun USS Enterprise captured her near Portland, Maine, in September 1813. She then went on to have at least a decade-long commercial career.
The Battle of Gloucester was a skirmish fought early in the American Revolutionary War at Gloucester, Massachusetts on August 8 or 9, 1775. Royal Navy Captain John Linzee, commanding the sloop-of-war HMS Falcon, spotted two schooners that were returning from the West Indies. After capturing one schooner, Linzee chased the second one into Gloucester Harbor, where it was grounded. The townspeople called out their militia, captured British seamen sent to seize the grounded schooner, and recovered the captured ship as well.
The Advance was a composite schooner built in 1874 at Auckland, New Zealand, that was wrecked when she drifted onto rocks at Henrys Head, Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia, on 12 June 1902, whilst carrying ballast between Wollongong and Newcastle, New South Wales.
HMS Bream was a British Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1807. Bream operated primarily in North American waters and had an uneventful career until the War of 1812. She then captured two small American privateers and assisted in the recovery of a third, much larger one. She also captured a number of small prizes before she was sold or broken up in 1816.
SS Arctic, an American paddle steamer owned by the Collins Line, sank on September 27, 1854, 50 miles (80 km) off the coast of Newfoundland after a collision with SS Vesta, a much smaller French vessel. Passenger and crew lists indicate that there were probably more than 400 on board; of these, only 88 survived, most of whom were members of the crew. All the women and children on board perished, along with the family of the owner of the Collins Line.
SS G. P. Griffith was a passenger steamer that burned and sank on Lake Erie on 17 June 1850, resulting in the loss of between 241 and 289 lives. The destruction of the G. P. Griffith was the greatest loss of life on the Great Lakes up to that point, and remains the third-greatest today, after the Eastland in 1915 and the Lady Elgin in 1860.
Rifleman was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop launched in 1809 for the Royal Navy. She served in the North Sea, on the Halifax and Jamaica stations, and in the Mediterranean Sea. During her service she recaptured a Royal Navy vessel in Danish service, and two privateers. The Navy sold her in 1836 and she proceed to sail as a merchantman and whaler between 1837 and 1856.
Several vessels have been named Morning Star for the Morning Star:
Favorite or Favorita, was a 19th-century New York Sandy Hook pilot boat built in the early 1820s. She helped transport New York City maritime pilots between inbound or outbound ships coming into the New York Harbor. Favorite collided with a United States steamer and sank in 1865 near Barnegat Lighthouse.
SS Stephano was a passenger liner and sealing ship, owned by Bowring Brothers and operated in their Red Cross Line of Arctic steamships. Stephano is most notable for her role in the 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster, under the command of Captain Abram Kean. Stephano was the sister ship to the SS Florizel.
Daniel Webster was an American steamboat built in 1853 for passenger service on the coast of Maine. When new, she was the largest and fastest steamer in Maine coastal service, and widely considered to be the finest.
The Percy & Small Shipyard is a former shipyard and modern-day historic site located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine. In 1909, the shipyard launched Wyoming, the largest wooden sailing ship ever built.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)