Cape Breton Places & Foods

As we gather together, again around the Old Town Clock and gaze at the harbor, I am again thinking of the days of sail, of the days that the wharfs berthed those tall ships, that are, alas for the most pert no more.

Engines have taken the place of sails, wide flung to catch the breeze; steel plates have taken the place of Fundy spruce. Fortunately, the romance of sail remains and through these weekly meetings on the Old Citadel, all the glamour of a day that is gone forever can still be ours.

Some months ago, when it was my honor to have been serving with the Canadian Active Army I met an old friend, Bert Robinson, who was also serving and whose unit is now overseas somewhere in England. He had joined up in Winnipeg where he had been living for the last five or six years, and as he was the only Maritimer among the officers of his unit, we naturally got in a corner and talked about many things. My friend was formerly a newspaper man and had written many stories along the lines of those I tell you each week, and so today I’m going to tell you a yarn that he told me, and believe me it’s a corker! If you are superstitious you’ll be all ears-I think you’ll listen anyway.

A number of people wonder where I get my information every week-well the answer is from all sorts of places. From historical papers, from History books, from visiting many of the historic places in Nova Scotia., from talking with those who have made a study of things historical and by picking up information here, there, and everywhere and using my imagination and putting it broadcast story form, sometimes from direct information collected for me from which I make a story, sometimes people give me clues as to where to find a story, and sometimes from a friend like the story I will tell you today.

Anyone who makes even the most careless study of the days of windships cannot fail to be very much impressed by the superstitions that held sway both in the forecastle and in the after cabin. Some of these like the tale of the Flying Dutchman came down to modern days from the Middle Ages, but were so real to old shellbacks that there are still men alive who tell of seeing the Dutchman, ever beating south against a driving south-cast gale around the Horn, but never making any headway.

Too, it is a matter of record that many skippers refused to sail unless among the crew was numbered a Dane or a Finn, for these people were supposed to have supernatural power over the winds. Then, too, there was the kobold, a sprite that played the fiddle in the rigging of a ship that was doomed to e wrecked-and countless other superstitions. Old seamen will tell of haunted ships without number, and a whole library could be written on superstitions of the sea.

It is possible that many of these superstitions had some basis in actual occurrence, for wonderful things happen at sea just as they do on land. Today, I want to tell you of a very remarkable happening, a happening that is still without any satisfactory explanation. Some, after hearing this story, will dismiss it with a shrug of the shoulders and say,” Coincidence,” others will see it in the power of an arm far mightier than that of the fickle goddess of chance. But here is the story.

In 1872, the year that the Marquis of Dufferin became the Governor-General of Canada, there was a barque launched in Quebec. In honor of the new Governor-General’s consort, the barque was named the Countess of Dufferin. Like most wooden ships, her story is almost unknown until the very end of her life. The last voyage of the Countess of Dufferin began from Saint-John in December, 1891. Her captain was Captain Doble, and her cargo deal and lumber; the Countess of Dufferin carried a very heavy deck-load, as well as the cargo in her hold.

When she left Saint John, it was with a following south-west breeze that kicked up the white-caps and sped the barque on her way with every inch of canvas drawing. But as it is often the case, the fair weather did not last. The barometer began to fall rapidly, until the mercury touched only the twenty-eight inch mark. Every sign of a heavy blow hovered around the Countess of Dufferin, until on Christmas Day, 1891, the gale began.

It set in from the northward.

It set in from the northward, almost the worst possible direction, for the seas were running from the south, and a gale from the north sent tremendous cross-seas hurtling at the barque. Feeling none too safe with his heavy deck-load of deal, which could not but help make the vessel top heavy, Captain Doble took every precaution that he could. He reduced sail to the main top-sail, and, as a further precaution, he set that goose-winged.

First a heavy sea swept over the Countess from astern, and plunged into the forward cabin, completely ruining the supply of provisions that were kept there. Captain Doble ordered his men to get two barrels of apples which were in the stateroom, bring them on deck and make them fast. They got the apples, but before the barrels could be made fast a tremendous sea swept them overboard. That was the last of the Countess of Dufferin’s provisions.

The next discovery-even more ghastly than the discovery of the loss of food-was that salt water had gotten into the drinking water, and made it quite unfit for use. Comment on this is needless.

Then the barque began to behave so badly that the deck-load was jettisoned. Even this, however, did not make the decks safe for the men at the pumps. There was no danger of the barque sinking, for the cargo would keep her afloat. She would wallow, a water-logged hulk, through the sea, until her crew perished of starvation and thirst, or until they were washed overboard by the seas that swept over her every minute. And there was always the possibility of rescue-a hope that, no matter what the circumstances, never lefr the minds of the great seaman of the days of wooden ships.

Such was the condition of the Countess of Dufferin on the twenty-ninth day of December, 1891, I want you to remember that date-the twenty ninth day of December.

Now, while all this was taking place, the ship Arlington, under the command of Captain Samuel Bancroft Davis, of Yarmouth, was on her way from the old country to New York. What was a disastrous wind for the Countess of Dufferin was a fair wind for the Arlington, and she was in a fair way to set a record for crossing the Atlantic, when on the twenty-eighth day of December, one of those inexplicable events that happen once in a lifetime, occurred.

In the middle of the night, during the second mate’s watch, Captain Davis suddenly appeared on deck.”Luff!” he shouted. “Hail o’distress! Luff!”

The helmsman spun the wheel hard up, the Arlington’s head swung into the wind, and the second mate ran to Captain Davis’s side.

“Where’s the hail from, sir?” he asked.

“Didn’t you hear it?” demanded the captain, in astonishment.

“No’ sir,” replied the second mate, wonderingly.

“Lookout, ahoy!” he shouted. “Did you hear a hail of distress?”

“No sir,” came the lookout’s instant answer.

This was a puzzler for the captain. He questioned every man of the watch, but none of them had heard a hail of distress. He turned in perplexity to the second mate.

“I can’t understand this,” he said. “I was below, asleep, when I heard a hail of distress as plain as could as be. Why, they even gave their position=fifty two north, twenty one west.”

The second mate gasped
“That’s a day’s sail to the north of us, sir!” he exclaimed. “You must have been dreaming!”

But, dream or no dream, the hail was so vivid to Captain Davis that he ordered the Arlington’s course changed, then and there, to reach the spot of which he had heard in is dream. This took the Arlington two points off her course, far from the regular ship lanes, and, to speak plainly, some of the crew began to doubt the Captain’s sanity. There were many stories currant of skippers whose reason had fled them, and who had gravely endangered the safety of their ship and crew to satisfy insane whims. The Arlington’s crew feared that such a situation now faced them. No amount of persuasion however, would induce Captain Davis to change his mind, and he was not a man with whom one could argue; therefore, the Arlington sped northward, while the officers and crew watched their captain with anxious faces.

The course had been changed early in the morning on the twenty-eighth of December. All that day, the Arlington kept on hr way. The night passed, and the next day, without the least sign that Captain Davis had any ground whatever for his peculiar behavior. Then, on the night of the twenty ninth of December…the date I asked you to remember…as the Arlington neared the position given in the Captain’s dream, additional lookouts were posted, and, at midnight, Captain Davis himself came on deck and took watch.

Nervously, he paced the deck for more than an hour. There seemed to be nothing around them except windy darkness. The Arlington ploughed steadily plunged through the water.

Suddenly there came a sharp cry from one of the lookouts. “Something on the lee bow!” he shouted. “It’s got no lights-I can’t make it out!”

Instantly Captain Davis jumped into action. “Luff!” he shouted to the helmsman. Then, to the lookout. “Are we going to foul it?”

“No, sir!” cried the lookout. We’re clearing it… it’s going by on the lee quarter!”

Now, for all that he was thoroughly convinced that his errand was one of mercy, Captain Davis was very much angered at any craft that would sail on a night like that without any lights…or any other night, for that matter. A vessel without lights is a menace to navigation anywhere. Therefore, very wrathfully, Captain Davis seized his speaking trumpet and shouted as the Arlington went past the stranger.

“What ship is that?” he called angrily. “Why haven’t you your lights up?”

And through the darkness came the answer-

“Barque Countess of Dufferin-Saint John to Londonderry! We’re water-logged-haven’t anything to put lights up with. Please standby until morning and take us off!”

The astonishment on board the Arlington can better be imagined than described. Captain Davis however, was not one bit surprised. This was exactly what he expected. He sprang to the rail, and shouted in reply that the Arlington would standby until morning.

With daybreak, the task of transferring the Countess’s crew to the Arlington began. It was a difficult task, for the seas were still running high, and the gale had not abated. Two of the Arlington’s boats were smashed to splinters before a third one managed to reach the water intact, and to remain afloat. Here another Yarmouth name must be mentioned in our story-that of Hemmeon, the first mate of the Arlington. The task of rescue fell to him, and it is a credit to Yarmouth seamanship that the rescue was completed.

By early afternoon, the Arlington was again on her way to New York.

In concluding our tale, we should mention, that on the thirtieth day of December, the day of the rescue, the Arlington’s officers were able to take an observation and calculate her position. It was worked out as Latitude fifty-two degrees, thirty minutes north, Longitude twenty-one degrees, twenty minutes west…very close to the fifty-two north, twenty one west of Captain Davis’s dream.