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.

As we sit and watch the shipping, I am easily persuaded to talk of the sea and on this occasion I am going to ask you to bring to mind one of the greatest riddles of the sea which concerns a Nova Scotian-built ship. Now all you seafaring men sit up and take notice, perhaps you have the answer to this mystery of the sea.

Just a week ago, our British United Press ticker carried a news item telling us that a yacht with sails set, was picked up at sea with nobody aboard, and that the authorities were endeavoring to locate her home port and owner. In this day of strange happenings at sea during war time, this item did not cause much of a stir. There was a point in the news item which interested me more than anything else, and that was the fact, that the yacht was picked up at a point at sea within twelve miles to the spot, where the famous Nova Scotian vessel, the Mary Celeste, was picked up about seventy years ago, with no living soul aboard, and to this day no definite and satisfactory explanation has been given out.

When-if ever-will someone come forward with an explanation of that mysterious episode of the sea, the finding of the Mary Celeste? By this is meant, a real explanation- one that will satisfy even those ancient mariners who listen to a tale of the sea, shake their heads gravely, and say “Couldn’t ha’ happened.” The one who explains this mystery satisfactory must tell why there was but one boat missing from the docks of the Nova Scotia brigantine; why, in apparently excellent weather, the captain and crew of the vessel deserted her; why one hatch cover, overturned was found lying on her decks; why there was no traces of a struggle other than spatters of blood here and there over her decks; why the hip’s log was left in the captain’s quarters, and all the other papers and instruments were taken; why nothing ahs ever been heard from the eleven souls who were on board, all of whom, including the captain’s wife, and little girl, must have perished.

There have been many attempts at explaining all this; but none seems to be satisfactory. Briefly, the known history of the Mary Celeste is as follows: She was built at Spencer’s Island, N.S., in the Dewis shipyards, about 1865. Launched under the name Amazon she made a few profitable voyages for her Bluenose owners, and then she went ashore on the rocky coast of Cape Breton, and pounded her bottom out. She was sold to J.J. Winchester & Co., of New York, was repaired, and she went to sea again under the name Mary [not Marie as it is often given] Celeste.

For one voyage, she loaded oil and spirits for the Mediterranean at an East River [New York] pier and set sail. From that day until she was sighted by the British brig Dei Gratia, her story is wrapped in mysterious silence. The Dei Gratia sighted her a few miles off the Azores group. The Mary Celeste was stated to have all sail set, was yawning frightfully, and was falling off continually in the light breeze that was blowing. Mystified by her behavior, the Dei Gratia sent a boat across to the Mary Celeste, and discovered abandoned, in the state mentioned beforehand. Everything otherwise was in perfect order, even some sewing and a small bottle of oil rested upon the sewing machine in the captain’s wife’s cabin.

There, sketchily told, is the greatest mystery that the sea has ever known, those who wish to explain the matter usually base their explanations upon the fact that the cargo carried by the Mary Celeste was highly inflammable.

For example, Frederick William Wallace, the dean of Bluenose sea-story writers, offers the following. On her way across the Atlantic, the Mary Celeste fell in with a ship carrying powder or some equally dangerous cargo. She was on fire, and while the menace of the flames was not immediate, it was enough to make Captain Braggs of the Mary Celeste, stand be the crippled ship. During the night, the wind fell, and a stray current bore the burning ship rapidly down upon the Mary Celeste. Terrified, the crew of the latter vessel crowded into a boat, and put away from the danger. At the entreaties of those on the burning ship they put back to try to take them in their boat, with the result that the boat capsized, and the crews of both were drowned. A breeze carried the Mary Celeste away from the burning ship, and saved her, to be discovered by Dei Gratia.

Mr. Wallace admits that this is not the best possible explanation. The open hatch is not disposed of; neither are the blood stains or the hacked bows taken into account. Farther than that, this presupposes that another vessel disappeared at about the time of the finding of the Mary Celeste. There is no record of such a vessel.

Another explanation, from the United States of America, is along somewhat the same lines. The Mary Celeste, it says, ran into very warm weather, and the captain and mate became fearful lest the cargo of whale oil ignite spontaneously. To cool off the hold, they opened one of the hatches. Their action as apparently too late; a huge fountain of burning gas spewed forth from the hold, and terrified, they took to a boat and rowed away a few miles and watched for another and fatal explosion. But that explosion did not come. A breeze came up, and carried away the brigantine, out of their sight, and so they perished in the boat. The blood stains are explained by saying that the cook, who was cutting some meat at the time of the explosion, became exited and cut himself; blood from his wound, as he ran excitedly about, spattered over the decks.

But this theory, plausible as it is, neglects the hacked bows, and leaves unexplained a very important matter.. The hatch-cover was overturned; no deep-water sailor would remove a hatch-cover, and lay it down upside down. It is just not done.

Arthur Conan Doyle, who was intrigued by the tale, wrote a story intended to explain the mystery. Unfortunately, all that the great creator of Sherlock Holmes explained was the hacked bows. These he explained to perfection by saying that a diving platform had been built there, and had been carried away in a squall. The rest of his story is so at variance with the known facts that it is almost completely forgotten.

All these explanations were given on the assumption that the facts concerning the ship were as follows:

The Mary Celeste overtaken and when boarded, sound from truck to keel, all shipshape and undamaged, and under full spread of canvas; her galley fire still warm, and food upon the stove; wash hung to dry in the fo’castle, with the crews money, pipes, and razors laying about; spread on the cabin table a half eaten meal, including a dish of porridge, a boiled egg slicked open at one end, three cups of lukewarm tea; besides these an uncorked bottle of cough medicine. A watch ticks hanging from a nail over the captain’s berth.. On the desk in the mate’s cabin is a piece of paper, on the paper an unfinished sum. The cash box has not been touched; the cargo appears to be in good order; the pumps are dry. There is no lack of food or drinking water-no sign of fire, or panic, or disorder. Yet, every soul that was aboard was vanished into the unknown without a trace.

Just lately another account of this great mystery ship has been written by George S. Bryan of Philadelphia, who claims that all former accepted accounts were all wrong. Mr. Bryan states that the Mary Celeste was not overtaken, she was met; she was not under the spread of canvas, she was under a lower topsail and two jibs with upper topsail and foresail blown away and the rest of her sails furled; her galley fire was out, all cooking utensils were washed and hanging in their places, and there was no sign of food being prepared; there was no wash hanging in the forecastle; there was no food of any kind on the kitchen [cabin] table., and no bottle of cough mixture; there was no watch ticking anywhere, there was no unfinished sum on a piece of paper; there was no cashbox aboard the vessel; the pumps were not dry, for the Mary Celeste had three and a half feet of water in the hold. All this the author brings out clearly in his text, without a shadow of misunderstanding.

This latest expert feels like the case itself was strange and mysterious, indeed; yet it must have had a simple explanation. The Mary Celeste was met by another vessel off the Azores in 1872 sailing free under shortened canvas as described; there was no one on board, there were no signs of violence, there was every indication that she had been abandoned in haste, the ship’s papers and chronometer were missing. Captain Briggs had his wife and baby along-there were ten people in the ship’s company-no word of them has ever come to light.

The cargo, consisting of alcohol in barrels, appeared to be in perfect condition. The fore and lazaret hatches were open the water in the vessel evidently had come from the seas shipped while she was sailing abandoned, and this was further proved by the fact that the binnacle had been knocked over and the compass smashed by a boarding sea.

The other vessel, the British brig Dei Gratia, put her mate and a couple of seamen aboard the Mary Celeste; they pumped her out, after which she did not leak to any extent, and sailed her into Gibraltar. There Admiralty proceedings were held, testimony was taken, surveys were made, salvage was awarded and the Mary Celeste finally went on under another crew to complete her voyage to Genoa. Thereafter she sailed under the American flag for eleven years, at last was wrecked off Port au Prince in Haiti, in an insurance scandal that ran through the Boston courts.

As for a final explanation of the Mary Celeste mystery this latest account favours the idea that the cargo of alcohol leaked and developed gases in the hold; that the fore hatch possible blew off with the sound of an explosion frightening the ship’s company; that they took to the boat, the wind being light or calm, and they hung astern at the end of a long rope and that a sudden squall parted the rope and the ship sailed away. The latest account also brings out the fact that Captain Morehouse, master on the Dei Gratia who was a friend of Captain Briggs, by the way, had a similar theory and claims that all seafaring men naturally hold to simple and rational explanation.

Old seamen about Nova Scotia, in discussing the Mary Celeste mystery, seem to be of the opinion that there was somebody alive on the vessel when the boarding crew from the Dei Gratia arrived. Indeed, this was the opinion of the British Admiralty Court, for an exhausted inquiry based upon this supposition was made by that body. Nothing came of the inquiry however, and the matter was allowed to drop.

But even today, when you mention the Mary Celeste to one of the old Bluenose skippers, he will shake his head and say, “Ah that mate from the Dei Gratia could have told a lot more than he did.” And , ask as you will, that is all they will say. Perhaps this latest author has the right answer and all previous accounts were twisted. You can take your choice, and so there my friends there you have the story of the Mary Celeste with the different explanations given. I suppose someone else will write a story about this mystery some day and so it will go on and on. As far as we are concerned we must leave it to others to settle.