A ship crashed off of Grand Manan in a storm, leaving its crew clinging to a small rock in the Bay of Fundy for 44 hours. They were rescued by a small fishing boat with the unlikely crew of a New Brunswick grandfather, father and son, who were recognized by the American President for their bravery.
The severe storm on October 16th 1900 lasted for the better part of two days, and heavily damaged Grand Manan Island’s infrastructure.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper published a dispatch from the island which recounted the situation: “the storm was felt in all its severity and the island presented a pitiable spectacle. Roads have been completely washed out, and bridges gullied out. Many have lost their sheds, slips and smoke houses have been practically destroyed.”
Out at sea an American ship named Velma, crewed by four men, was carrying a load of coal from Boston to Calais, Maine when the storm had hit.
“The storm came up almost without warning,” The Saint Croix Courier newspaper wrote of the ship’s plight. “Nearly every yard of canvas was taken in as soon as possible and everything made snug.”
Their desperate efforts were to no avail: “the crew found themselves unable to control the vessel and within half an hour she was dashed upon the ledge.”
That particular area, called Murr Ledge, was known to be dangerous, with jagged rocks lurking just below the surface. According to the newspaper “the wrecks of many vessels, large and small, lie near this treacherous bit of ledge.”
The Velma’s cook, John Carver, drowned as the schooner broke up around them. The three remaining crew managed to reach “a bit of ledge which stood a few feet above the water” named Cross Jack Ledge.
Two of the crew were injured; Captain Durham had broken a leg, and a sailor named Young dislocated his shoulder. Determined to give their cook a decent burial, they dragged Carver’s body with them to the rock.
The newspaper detailed their ordeal: “The bit of rock on which the ship-wrecked sailors found safety for a time began to disappear as the tide came in. When the sea was at its height the men were obliged to remain in standing position, with the waters reaching nearly to their hips.”
“They had no food, and the cold wind blowing against their wet garments chilled them through and through and the necessity of standing for several hours at high tide left little time for sleep. Besides all this the body of their downed shipmate had to be cared for, lest he be washed away
by the waves.”
After their rescue, one crew member sent an anonymous letter signed “Sailor” to the Calais Advertiser newspaper.
“It is almost miraculous that any of us lived to tell the tale,” The Sailor wrote. “The howling wind and snow, the crash and roar of the heavy breakers, combined with the pitchy darkness, would have been sufficient to appal the stoutest heart.”
He wrote that they “erected a flag-staff on which a large flag was shown and during the night a fire blazed on the rock ten feet above the water.”
The men had also fired several Coston Flares, an emergency flare gun which had revolutionized safety at sea after its 1859 invention by Martha Coston, despite her having no formal education whatsoever.
The rock they were stranded on was relatively close to two isolated lighthouses built by the New Brunswick government before Confederation, which then were run by the federal government.
Gannett Rock lighthouse and Machias Seal Island lighthouse were staffed by lighthousekeepers whose job it was to search for sailors lost at sea and rescue them, yet failed to notice them.
The Sailor squarely pinned some blame for not being rescued earlier on the lighthousekeepers, bitterly writing: “the keeper will probably receive through the newspapers his first intimation that there had been a wreck and loss of life at his door.”
Most of all, though, The Sailor blamed Canada’s federal government for their ordeal. He called for an inquest, writing: “had the Minister of Marine spent even three hours on the Cross-jack ledge, under the eyes of two of his employees, he would not hesitate to have the matter fully investigated.”
He wrote it felt like the government was saying “to the sailor who clings to the wreck or rock ‘hold on my good man hold on!’ You are right under the eyes of a number of my employees. One of them may wake up in a day or two. If he should, we will send a life-boat after you.”
Indeed, it would be a family of ordinary New Brunswickers who rescued the shipwrecked sailors.
Shortly before noon on the second day spent on the small rock, a fishing boat spotted a flare.
The men were from the small and now abandoned community of Three Islands, off the
Southeast coast of Grand Manan.
They were an implausible rescue crew; according to American news reports there was a 75 year age difference between the oldest and the youngest rescuer. Albert F. Cheney was a grandfather, and with him on their fishing boat was his son Lloyd and his grandson Arthur.
The Washington Evening News wrote that the three men: “proceeded at once to that place. The rescue of the wrecked men was accomplished in the heavy sea by the bold and skillful handling of their boat by the rescuing party.”
Although The Sailor had finished his letter by writing bitterly that “those who rescue and care for the living and the dead will receive neither recognition nor reward,” he was wrong.
The grateful American government brought the Cheney family to Washington DC to celebrate Christmas.
The day after Christmas a ceremony was held to honour them. President McKinley read aloud testimonials from other sailors the Cheney family had rescued in the past.
The American President then presented them with a gold watch and chain, a charm, and gold life saving medals.
The Washington Evening News wrote that the Cheneys “are as modest as they are brave and most reluctant to speak of their acts of heroism and humanity, which they regard simply as in the line of duty and not deserving of special mention.”
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