The French ship Chameau or Le Chameau (Camel) was a wooden sailing ship of the French Navy, built in 1717.[1][2] She was used to transport passengers and supplies to New France (in present day Canada), making several trips. Nearing the end of her last voyage, a storm blew her onto some rocks on August 27, 1725. She sank, with the loss of all aboard; estimates range as high as 316 dead. In 1965, Alex Storm and his associates located the wreckage near Chameau Rock, and recovered a treasure of gold and silver pieces.
Chameau was built in Rochefort, France, in 1717, the brainchild of young naval architect Blaise Ollivier.[1][3] After visiting English and Dutch shipyards, he envisioned a fast, yet well-armed naval transport called a flute.[3] The Chameau had a "keel of 135 feet (41m), a width of 31 feet (9.4m), and a draft of 15 feet (4.6m)",[3] and displaced 540,[4] 600[1][2] or 650 tons.[3] It was armed with "twenty 12-pounder cannons along the lower gun deck and two more in the stern. Twenty-two 6-pounders mounted on the upper deck completed a complement of 44 cannons."[3]
From 1719 to 1725, she carried cargo, passengers, and funds from France to the French colony in North America and returned with passengers and cargo such as wood, wood tar, and beaver pelts.[3] Between 1720 and 1724, she was "commanded successively by de Voutron, de Lamirande, de Beauharnois and Meschi".[5]
Chameau set out from La Rochelle on her final voyage in July 1725, under the command of Jean de Saint James.[3] Aboard was a large quantity of gold, silver and copper coins; and dignitaries de Chazel, the new Intendant;[4] and de Louvigny, the Governor-Elect of Trois-Rivières.[6] Several miles east of her destination of Louisbourg,[7] the ship was swept onto the rocks by a storm on August 27, 1725. Chameau sank, and all aboard perished; the reported number of dead ranges from 216[1] to "over 300"[7] to 316.[2][3][8]
An unsuccessful attempt to salvage the cargo was made the following year.[9]
Discovery and legal disputes
In September 1965, Alex Storm, Dave MacEachern, and Harvey Macleod found the missing hull from the wreck of Chameau. This was where the treasure was located. Alex Storm brought up gold and silver coins. According to May 14, 1726, letter from the Minister of Marine, the funds lost amounted to "83,308 livres 11 sols 1 denier, including 27,258 livres 8 sols 9 deniers expended for clothing the troops at Quebec."[10] By Storm's calculations, he "had made a nearly complete recovery of the funds shipped on the Chameau in 1725".[11]
On April 7, 1966, an action was commenced in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court for an accounting among partners who had executed a partnership agreement with Alex Storm in 1961 for the expressed purpose of recovering the treasure. The agreement allowed for Storm to receive 20%. The problem was that this partnership failed to discover the treasure. Storm repeatedly tried to get the group together, but they continuously failed to show up for the search. As years passed by, he grew tired of waiting and decided to continue the search with new partners, but did not properly end the earlier partnership through proper legal channels. Storm formed a new partnership with two new members, who were successful in finding the treasure. The legal matter proceeded through the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal and finally the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada, in handing down its decision, found the lower courts had been in error in several regards in arriving at their decisions and concluded Storm "was in clear breach of the Partnership Act and the partnership agreement". The Supreme Court of Canada was not in position to fix completely the errors made in the lower courts, however, and Storm received a majority of the treasure.[12]
In December 1971, most of the coins and artifacts were auctioned off.[11] Some of the artifacts are displayed in the Louisbourg Maritime Museum.[13] An exhibit about Chameau is featured in the "Shipwreck Treasures of Nova Scotia" gallery at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which includes coins, navigational instruments, foodware and a rare bronze swivel cannon from the wreck.[14]
↑ (4-11 September 1725). Boston, September 11 (news items), The New-England Courant ("We hear from Canso, that a French Man of War, bound from France to Cape Breton, was lately cast away upon an Island called Scattare, about 5 or 6 Leagues East of the Cape, and 500 Persons drowned")
Cape Breton Island is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada.
Nova Scotia is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
The Fortress of Louisbourg is a tourist attraction as a National Historic Site and the location of a one-quarter partial reconstruction of an 18th-century French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Its two sieges, especially that of 1758, were turning points in the Anglo-French struggle for what today is Canada.
Louisbourg is an unincorporated community and former town in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia.
The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is a maritime museum located in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Port Hawkesbury is a municipality in southern Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. While within the historical county of Inverness, it is not part of the Municipality of Inverness County.
Events from the year 1725 in Canada.
Cape Breton Regional Municipality is the Canadian province of Nova Scotia's second largest municipality and the economic heart of Cape Breton Island. As of 2021 the municipality has a population of 93,694. The municipality was created in 1995 through the amalgamation of eight municipalities located in Cape Breton County.
St. Peter's is a small incorporated village located on Cape Breton Island in Richmond County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Cape Sable Island, locally referred to as Cape Island, is a small Canadian island at the southernmost point of the Nova Scotia peninsula. It is sometimes confused with Sable Island. Historically, the Argyle, Nova Scotia region was known as Cape Sable and encompassed a much larger area than simply the island it does today. It extended from Cape Negro through Chebogue.
Auguste was a full-rigged sailing ship that sank at Aspy Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1761 while carrying exiles from the fall of New France. Auguste was a former French privateer ship which had been captured by the British and converted to a merchant ship. In September 1761, she was hired by the British government to transport French exiles and prisoners of war from Montreal to France. For the voyage, she was under the command of Joseph Knowles, an English sea captain. The ship was unarmed and carried 121 passengers and crew. Almost immediately upon clearing the mouth of the St. Lawrence on October 28, she encountered a week of contrary winds followed by a nor'west gale and heavy seas which badly damaged the ship. Leaking heavily with an exhausted crew and damaged rigging, the captain sought a sheltered harbour in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. However Knowles was unable to find a safe refuge as Auguste carried only charts of the French coast. The ship struck land on the northeastern side of Cape Breton Island near an inlet known as Aspy Bay. Only seven of the 121 made it to shore alive. These included the captain, the merchant Luc de la Corne, two soldiers, two servants, and one discharged soldier.
Nova Scotia is a province located in Eastern Canada fronting the Atlantic Ocean. One of the Maritime Provinces, Nova Scotia's geography is complex, despite its relatively small size in comparison to other Canadian provinces.
Port Morien is a small fishing community of 700 people in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the southeastern Cape Breton Island near the rural community Donkin, and six miles from the town of Glace Bay.
This is a bibliography of major works on Nova Scotia.
Baleine is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality on Cape Breton Island. The community is perhaps best known as the landing site for pilot Beryl Markham's record flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Scatarie Island is an island in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located off the coast of Baleine, Cape Breton Island.
Fort Ste. Anne is a former French military fort located at present-day Englishtown, Nova Scotia, on the Island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Andrew John Bayly Johnston is a Canadian historian, novelist and museum writer. He is the author of six novels of historical fiction as well as sixteen books on the History of Atlantic Canada. Johnston is originally from Truro, Nova Scotia and currently lives in Halifax.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Nova Scotia:
Marie Marguerite Rose (1717–1757) was a Guinea-born Canadian slave. In 2008, Rose was made a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada.
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