Shipwrecks of Newfoundland and Labrador

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SS Belgravia - Lost on May 22, 1996 was a transatlantic liner that served in the 1880s and early 1890s. She was wrecked at Mispeck Point, New Brunswick.

History
SS Belgravia was an ocean liner of the Anchor Line, built in Glasgow Scotland by D. & W. Henderson Ltd. and launched in December 1881. After fitting out, her maiden voyage from Glasgow to New York followed in March 1882.[5] The vessel had a single funnel and was steam propelled by a single screw with auxiliary sails which were still common in the 1880s. Belgravia was primarily designed for the immigrant trade and had a capacity of around 1,600 passengers mostly in steerage.

Her career ended in 1896 when she ran aground on May 22 shortly after departing from Saint John, New Brunswick in heavy fog. Despite the efforts of several tugs the ship could not be moved from Saints Rest Beach, and was subsequently declared a total loss. Happily there was no loss of life. Her captain, William Laird, accepted responsibility for the accident and had his master's certificate suspended for three months.[6]

WILLIAM - March 1919 - February 1850’s. In the fifties the brig William, Capt. Eagan, on a passage from Poole to Trinity became a total wreck near Torbay. The disaster occurred at 9 o’clock in the night in the month of February. Capt. Eagan went on deck and said to the mate William White, “it is very thick weather, Billy, and my reckoning will be run down in ten minutes and I am going to heave to for the night.” White looked out under the mainsail, saw land, and cried out “Hard down, land O!” and scarcely had he spoken when the man on lookout forward cried, “land.” The vessel not having sufficient head-way, and the sea rough, mis-stayed and went on the rocks. Capt. Eagan turned to White and said “Billy, if any man can reach the shore you are the man.” White jumped in the water with a line, and failed twice, but on the third attempt he reached the rock with the line in his mouth. He made the line fast on shore and all the crew, with the exception of William Wiltshire escaped. They did not know where they were, and walked a considerable distance until they found a resident’s house in Torbay. Their clothes were frozen and some of them were terribly frost bitten. They were well treated by the hospitable people of Torbay. Capt. Eagan lived for many years afterwards and brought in many loads of seals. There was a mural tablet erected to Wiltshire in the old St. Paul’s Church at Trinity, and is probably still to be seen in the Mortuary Chapel. http://www.newfoundlandshipwrecks.com/Miscellaneous/Other Vessels.htm. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/society/st-pauls-anglican-church.php

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St. Paul's Anglican Church, Trinity, NL About the St. Paul's Anglican Church, a Registered Heritage Structure located in Trinity and built in the eighteenth century.

SS Empire Energy was a cargo steamship. She was built in Germany in 1923 as Grete for small German tramp shipping company. In 1934 the Italian shipping magnate Achille Lauro bought her and renamed her Gabbiano.

When Italy entered the Second World War in 1940, Gabbiano was in a British port, so the Royal Navy seized her. The UK Ministry of Shipping renamed her Empire Energy, and appointed a British tramp company to manage her. In 1941 she was wrecked on the coast of Newfoundland. Her wreck remains on the shore at Cape Norman to this day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Empire_Energy #:~:text=On%205%20November%2C%20Empire%20Energy,%C2%B007%E2%80%B221.15%E2%80%B3W

AENEAS sank- 23 October 2024 was a wooden sailing ship named after the Trojan hero of the Iliad.

She was owned by the British government and used to transport troops to garrisons across the British Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. On 23 October 1805 Aeneas was wrecked on the coast of Newfoundland with terrible loss of life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas_(troopship)

It was 75 years ago — in April 1948 — the freight-carrying vessel Administratrix was cut down off Cape Race, costing five Grand Bank seamen their lives.

I was only nine years old at the time, but I can vividly remember my father coming home with the sad news. Like so many times before — and too many times after — the sea had once again taken its deadly toll on our community.

Two of the seven-man crew of the Administratrix were saved. In 1967 I interviewed George Barnes, one of the survivors.

The 120-ton vessel — low in the water and built for speed — was at one time used for rum-running. It left St. John's on a Thursday morning, April 29, loaded on deck and below with gasoline and oil in 45-gallon drums, bound for her home port of Grand Bank. Shortly after leaving she encountered heavy fog.

Around 6 p.m. the ship was steaming along when the men on watch heard a whistle. They weren't sure if it was the foghorn on Cape Race or a boat.

A black and white photo of an older man in a plaid shirt.
George Barnes was a mate on the Administratrix. (Allan Stoodley)
Mate George Barnes described in detail what happened next.

"Out of the thick fog, less than 100 yards away, loomed the large, 7,500-ton Norwegian steamer Lovdal.… She was coming right at us at a speed of nine knots. We couldn't avoid her — she smashed right into our little freighter and knifed right through the engine room."

The Administratrix was cut in half.

"I was at the wheel, with the skipper, captain Forsey, standing beside me. Seaman Robert Lee was also in the wheelhouse. The front section of our boat tipped up and slowly sank, and the stern section did likewise," said Barnes.

"Within three minutes from the time of impact I was in the water. It was freezing and fuel oil caked my face and got into my eyes. I didn't know how to swim a stroke, but I guess the air in my oilskins kept me afloat until I saw a section of the pilot-house floating towards me. I grabbed it and hung on."

Oil barrels were colliding all around them, said Barnes.

"I think the captain must have been knocked unconscious shortly after he went overboard. I heard the cook, Charlie Fizzard, calling out to me, calling my name, but because of the thick fog I couldn't see him," he said.

"After about half an hour hanging onto the wreckage of the pilothouse, a lifeboat from the Norwegian steamer picked me up. We then found and picked up the cook. The search continued for some hours but there was no sign of the other five members of our crew, including the captain."

An old black and white photo of two men in dark clothes.
This photo of Charles Fizzard, left, and George Barnes — the two survivors of the Administratrix tragedy — was published in a St. John's newspaper in April 1948. (Submitted by Allan Stoodley)
As soon as the Lovdal's captain realized they had collided with a small ship, he stopped his boat and ordered lifeboats lowered, manned by volunteers from the ship. The search for the missing men was a hazardous task, with the boats tossed about amid pitching oil barrels in heavy seas.

The two survivors said they were treated the very best by the crew of the Lovdal, "given dry clothing and hot drinks and made comfortable in every possible way" George Barnes told a local newspaper.

The men who were lost included captain Chesley Forsey, chief engineer George Sam Welsh, second engineer Archibald Rose and sailors Harvey Keating and Robert Lee.

The two survivors, who suffered only minor injuries, were the cook, Charles Fizzard, and the first mate, George Barnes.

All members of the crew were married, and some of them left large families. The tragedy, like many before and after, cast a gloom over our town. Flags flew at half-mast in Grand Bank that Saturday, as the entire community shared the sorrow and grief.

According to a document I have in my possession, a claim was made against the Lovdal, and each family of the deceased men received between $8,000 and $10,000. It appears that at least one of the families received such compensation, but I was unable to verify with the descendants of other who lost their lives that was the case.

It is believed that the 45-year-old chief engineer, George Sam Welsh, was killed when the large Norwegian freighter knifed through the engine room. He was the father of nine children, six of them still living at home.

A black and white picture of people laying fish out on a beach to dry.
Women spread salt-fish to dry on the beach in Grand Bank. Many Grand Bank women were employed 'working on the beach' during the salt-fish era. Widows would wear black. (Welsh family/Submitted by Allan Stoodley)
His wife, Mary, and the children were awarded about $8,000 with each child receiving $15 per month until the age of 16. The following year — 1949, when Newfoundland joined Canada — each child also received the federal family allowance. In the words of son Edwin, "While this was helpful, with Dad's income gone Mom had no choice but to continue working on the beach with the other women and she was also employed in later years cleaning the Federal Building."

One of the youngest children, William — Bill — told me that when his mother would come home after working on the beach all day, she would be so tired that to help her go to sleep, she would "visualize walking up every street, counting all the widows in Grand Bank." The town's history has documented that up to 300 seamen were lost sailing out of that port during the banking schooner and trawler eras.

An older daughter, Selena — working in St. John's at the time and getting married in the Wesley United Church — was the last of the family to talk to their dad before his vessel left for Grand Bank. She went down on the wharf to tell her dad about her upcoming wedding.

Doreen Williams, daughter and only child of seaman Harvey Keating, was only five years old when her dad was lost. As far as she knows, she told me, her mother didn't receive any compensation, maybe because her mother was working teaching school, even though the most pay her mother ever received teaching was $102 monthly.

The Keatings, like most of the other families, first heard about the tragedy on the radio.

"I heard the announcer say something about 'two boats had bumped together,'" she said. "Shortly after we looked out the window and saw [Salvation Army clergyman] Maj. Rideout coming — when my mom saw him she knew the news was very grim. For many years, into my teens, I kept looking for my dad, hoping that someday he'd come back and we would be together again."

A model of a black, red and white fishing vessel sits on a table.
This model of the ill-fated Administratrix was built by Leonard Matthews, brother-in-law of second engineer Archibald Rose, who was lost on the vessel in April 1948. (Allan Stoodley)
Second engineer Arch Rose was mourned by his wife, Harriet, and a two-year-old son, Wilson, both now deceased. Another document I have, dated April 7, 1949, was sent to Harriet Rose by the law firm of Mercer and Mifflin — given to me by James Welsh, son of Harriet and her second husband, Jabez Welsh — states, "Received from court in accordance with agreement between owners, widows and guardian = $444.74 less professional service fees re: conferences, advising, drafting agreement and obtaining payment = $66.60, leaving a balance to the widow of $378.14."

According to James Welsh this is the only thing he is aware of regarding compensation to his mother.

Welsh told me his mom also worked on the beach for awhile and saved enough money to buy herself her first pair of eyeglasses but the most memories of his mom working was of her taking in sewing and knitting for other people.

"The sewing machine in the kitchen would be humming continuously," he said.

SS Abyssinia
Sank by fire on December 18, 1891. SS Abyssinia was a British mail liner built in 1870, and originally operated by the Cunard Line on the Liverpool–New York route. She later served the Guion Line on the same route and the Canadian Pacific Line in the Pacific. In December 1891, Abyssinia was destroyed mid-Atlantic without loss of life by a fire that started in her cargo of cotton, highlighting the danger in carrying both cotton and passengers on the same ship.[2]

Isabel - sank on 22 February 1881. On the night of Tuesday 22 February 1881, a fierce gale blew the brigantine Isabel off course as she neared her destination. She had been bound from Maceo, Brazil, in ballast, for St John's in Newfoundland.

Instead of continuing up the eastern coast of the island, the little vessel was blown westwards and up into St Mary's Bay, and after battling against winds, and ice, and in the blackest of nights, was dashed against the rocks at Gull Island Point near Peter's River.

A Long Silence
A week went by before the story of the shipwreck began to hit the press. Meanwhile debris began to get washed ashore in the cove at Gull Island Point. First came the figurehead, and several water buckets, evidence of the desperate fight against rising water. Then some of the crew's clothing, and then a flag bearing the name "Isabel".

Details of the findings differ in different sources, but here is how Lloyd's List told the story several weeks later:

" ... during the snowstorm of Feb. 22 [the vessel] ran ashore high and dry among jagged reefs. The wreck and debris of the vessel are washed up into the ravines and crevices of the cliffs. On the 23rd a boat's crew went off from shore on a shooting expedition, and found in the cove on Gull Island some buckets floating in the surf with the name "Isabel" painted on the side. The figurehead of the vessel, representing a female, was afterwards found; a bag of flags, representing the International Code of Signals, with the house-flag and burgee of the lost vessel, was also found ... The boats of the vessel were shattered into splinters, and the whole hull was reduced to a mass of battered timbers, planks and spars ..." [Lloyd's List 18 March 1881 Col23]
The brigantine's owners, Job Brothers of St John's Newfoundland, were informed on Saturday 26 February that the vessel was lost with all hands, and on Tuesday 1 March, a full week after that fateful storm in which the whole crew lost their lives, the story started being reported in newspapers around the English-speaking world, with as many details of the the crew, the Isabel and the voyage as could be found.

Which at first wasn't an awful lot of detail.

"News was received by telegram on Saturday evening last of the loss on the 23rd February, at Gull Island Cove, St Mary's Bay, of the brigantine Isabel, Capt Quick, belonging to Messrs Job Brothers and Co, with loss of Captain and all the Crew, consisting of eight hands. The Captain and crew were all Englishmen, with one exception, a Newfoundlander." [There were actually two Newfoundlanders - MM]
[Newfoundlander 1 March 1881]
" ... She left Maceio, Brazil, on the 15th January, and was out 38 days. It appears that in the gale of Tuesday night the ill-fated vessel ran on the rocks near Gull Island, St Mary's Bay and immediately went to pieces ... " [Morning Chronicle 1 March 1881]
On 3rd March the Morning Chronicle reported "A letter from St Mary's Bay gives us no further information in the matter of the loss of the brigantine Isabel ... Constable Collins visited the place shortly after the catastrophe but our correspondent regrets to say 'found no trace of the crew or their bodies.' He found however, some clothes which were very much the worse for the usage they had received, and which gave no indication of whom they belonged to."

Those left at home
But Job Bros was getting trouble from another quarter at the same time.

Back in Teignmouth, in Devon, England, the captain's family read the news first in the local press. There was even a mention in the Times Newspaper of London :

"A cablegram from St John's reports that the Isabel, from Pernambuco for St John's, is supposed to have been lost at Cape St Mary's."
That was on 1 March. The family was incensed that the story could be reported in the papers before any attempt was made to notify the next of kin.

2nd March 1881 is the date written at the top of a letter to Captain Quick's wife Julia from Job Bros' Liverpool office. It is not known if then is when it was written, or when it arrived. It says :

"Madame,
It was with deep sorrow we were obliged to convey to you 2 days ago thro' Maj Glynn [your intimation?] of "Isabel" loss with all hands on the Newfld Coast. LetterWe have no particulars except what we hear by cable as follows. "Isabel with all hands total loss Peter's River Tuesday". During the time your late husband has been with us he has given us entire satisfaction, and we heartily sympathize with yourself and other members of his family in your bereavement.
Remaining, Madam
Yours truly
Job Brothers
PS Since writing above your note of y.day has come in and we are grieved to hear that the first intimation of Isabel's loss reached you thro' the newspaper. Our friend Maj. Glynn thro' whom we engaged your husband undertook thro' mutual friends to break the news to you or we should have written you at once ourselves. JB"
Nor is it known who the unfortunate Major Glynn was.

After Thomas Stamp's trip to St Mary's with the grim news of the finding of the first body, there was another little flurry of press interest.

Nurnberg - sank on March 2, 1875. There was much excitement in the town of St. Mary’s, St. Mary’s Bay on March 2, 1875, excitement that would by the end of the month turn into grieving.

The excitement was stirred by the sighting of a vessel 2 ½ miles from the shore of St. Mary’s, the vessel was stuck in the ice. The men of St. Mary’s looked on this as an opportunity to salvage the vessel. A party of thirty four men and one young boy, 14 year old John Grace was quickly gathered and they started out on the ice too the brig, spending the day on board.

Toward evening they started back to St. Mary’s, but had not proceeded far when they realized the terrible fact that the ice had parted between them and the shore, and the opening was increasing every moment.

The men would be marooned on a pan of ice for the best part of the month, many died, and some would be rescued from the pan of ice by a the schooner Georg S. Fogg on route to Bermuda. The survivors were later transferred to a larger passing steamship, the Nurnberg, on route to Baltimore, Maryland.

It was on arrival in Baltimore that a reporter with the Baltimore Sun learned off the plight of the men from St. Mary’s and interviewed the men writing this story.

Andrew Mooney of St. Mary’s interview with the Baltimore Sun

Andrew Mooney a man of thirty six years, with an intelligent and honest countenance, who is among those of the Nuremberg said yesterday (March 28, 1875) that all were neighbors to each other, and nearly all were born in St. Mary’s. He and a number of others have large families, which they supported by fishing in the summer.

Mooney told the Baltimore Sun that when they saw that the ice had parted they realized they were in trouble.

The Baltimore Sun reported:

Consternation seized upon them as they hastened forward, and each threw away his heavy outer clothing as he ran, to be encumbered as little as possible. When the brink of the ice was reached the space of water between them and the shore was half a mile wide, the ice haven broken one mile from the land, and the immense field upon which they stood floating steadily further out to sea.

It was now quite dark, the party was exhausted and half-clad and they prepared for the terrible cold which soon set in. At first it rained until they were all wet to the skin. The rain then turned to sleet and snow, the wind veered to the northward, and the cold became intense, the fierce blast of the wind cutting them to the bone.

Then began the effort for life, the men stamping their feet, running madly about, and the more sturdy encouraging the weak and faltering. The cold still increased, as Mooney says, it had reached a degree of intensity not equaled before in that latitude this winter.

“When morning dawned several corpses were counted …”

At midnight the cold and exhaustion began to tell upon the doomed ones in the little party. First one and then another of them would lie down saying he could not go any further. The others would pick them up and try to keep them on their feet but after reeling for a short distance like drunken men they would fall senseless upon the ice and die without a struggle. Those able to keep their feet had enough to keep themselves from falling into fatal lethargy and with sad hearts each victim was left to his fate. Father or son or brother saw each other fall and were powerless to help. When morning dawned several corpses were counted at intervals along the ice and of the remainder none could tell who was to be the next victim.

On that terrible night, March 2, the boy and other delicate ones were placed in the middle of the throng as they stood or moved about and thus secured some shelter.

A field of ice twenty feet square floated near the brink of the ice in the open water, upon which nine of them got, hoping that it would float toward the shore ice and they could thus save themselves. When it had floated three hundred yards from the ice, upon which their comrades stood it grounded, and the unfortunates remained upon it for three days and nights, during which time six of them died, the other three being picked up by the schooner Georg S. Fogg on the 6th March.

When it is remembered that seven died on that first night, it is wonderful that three of the nine on the small icefield escaped alive, they having endured hunger as well as the cold. All the food they had in all that time was a small white fish which was frozen in the ice. This they divided between them.

The eighteen men remaining after the nine floated off the small ice field made their way back to the abandoned brig, which was tightly jammed in the ice, and was carried with it. All expected to die in her and some of them had lost their senses before reaching her the second time. There were no stores on the brig and they subsisted on molasses a few oranges and edible scraps that could be found.

“… a schooner was seen four miles away…”

At length, one evening at sunset, a schooner was seen four miles away, which had been caught in the same field that imprisoned the brig. That night the half famished men held a council and determined to reach the schooner next day or die in the effort. Next morning at daylight they embarked in the brig’s small boat, which could scarcely hold them all, and after struggling through the ice nearly all day reached the schooner George S. Fogg and were saved. There they met the three survivors of their nine comrades who left them nearly two weeks before, the three singularly enough, having been saved by the same vessel that had rescued the other eighteen.

Captain Spence gave them plenty of food, and if the prayers of these grateful, honest, poor Irish fishermen can avail to make his future life prosperous, he will never want on this earth’s stores.

The twenty one fishermen and crew of seven over crowded the little schooner, but the Captain had food enough for all, and all the discomfort that they experienced was from their circumscribed quarters. Some of the more robust of the party perished, and some of the more frail escaped, among them the boy James Grace.

The survivors were later transferred to a larger passing steamship, the Nurnberg, on route to Baltimore, Maryland.

To a question as to how the news would be received in St. Mary’s, Mooney replied, as he brushed a tear away, there is now mourning in every household, for they do not know that any of us are saved. He said that he had six children, and that some of those who had died have families equally as large.

Names of those from St. Mary’s who perished:

The names of the men who perished on the ice were: John Poole (this should read POWER) , Michael Poole (this should read POWER), James Vale, Michael Waile (this should read Vale) , Thomas Boone, Patrick Dobbin, Gregory Rouser, (this should read Rousell) John Rouser (this should read Rousell) and Patrick Waile (this should read Vale) . Michael and Patrick Waile (this should read Vale) were father and son Gregory and John Rouser (this should read Rousell) were father and son.

The unmarried men were Joseph Grace, Patrick Leatham, Michael Barre (this should read Barry) , and William Boone.

Names of those from St. Mary’s brought to Baltimore:

Andrew Mooney and Thomas Mooney, brothers; William Ruben; Patrick and William Tobin, brothers; John Fuer (this should read Furey), James Grace (aged 14) whose brother Joseph Grace perished, James Peddle, Thomas Barre (this should read Barry) , perished, and Benjamin Sancrow (this should read St. Croix).

The ten Newfoundlanders were taken in charge by the British Consul on (March 29,1875) and were sent home in the Caspian, which travelled between to Halifax and Baltimore.

Recommended Archival Collection: The Rooms Provincial Archives: GN 20/1 March 29, 1875, Baltimore Sun: Thrilling Story of the Sea. Adventure of thirty four men.

SS Florizel 24 February 1918, a passenger liner, was the flagship of the Bowring Brothers' Red Cross Line of steamships and one of the first ships in the world specifically designed to navigate icy waters. During her last voyage, from St. John's to Halifax and on to New York City, she sank after striking a reef at Horn Head Point, near Cappahayden, Newfoundland, with the loss of 94 including Betty Munn, a three-year-old girl, in whose memory a statue of Peter Pan was erected at Bowring Park in St. John's.

If anyone has any infomation about war veterans such as picture, documents etc. Please message me. Especially if you think they are buried with no headstone. I am on the board of directors with the Last Post Fund and are trying to make sure our veterans are honored for their service

The following is a coloorization of THE MARY ship that sank on March 10, 1933. WW1 veteran Albert Power from Branch was lost on the ship. The Mary left New Bedford on February 27, 1933, and was reported 25 miles east of Georges Bank on March 10. She was never seen again. Despite a Coast Guard search that continued for almost a month, neither wreckage nor the crew of eight was found.