Captains Another Shade of Grey
The steamer Capulet struck the rocks at St. Shotts Gull Island, near Mariner’s Cove, never to be refloated. Upon hearing the news, shipping agencies were quick to lament the increasing number of shipwrecks at or near St. Shotts, saying:
The currents in the vicinity of Cape St. Mary’s being strong and irregular, the skill of many a master has failed him at this point. Captain Eales [of the Capulet] has grown grey in the service. He was considered a first-rate man and has commanded the Capulet since she was built in 1884.
In other words, the cause of the disaster was not so much Captain Eales’s error but the inset of tides near St. Shotts. Hinting that Eales had gone grey in his aging years, the article also implied he had always worried about getting past the black rocks of an ocean terror.
Certain sections of coastline on the southern Avalon Peninsula have been given the dubious distinction of “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” Part of the Gulf Steam passes off Newfoundland’s southeast Avalon, colliding with a branch of the Arctic Current off Cape Race. Fog is often the offspring of the clash of two opposing thermal flows. But another child of the two are sub-currents, or inset tides, as they were called locally.
One circles in near Mistaken Point, Cape Race, another at St. Shotts, and farther westward, St. Mary’s Bay, including Peter’s River and area. Yet another, less powerful but still deadly, circles in near the tip of the Burin Peninsula, especially near St. Lawrence (as presented in a subsequent tale).
Many of these areas could be called “ship graveyards,” an epithet shared with many a stretch of coast in the Canadian Maritimes. Ship officers gave the insets and coastline a wide berth. Local mariners recalled one of the earliest reported wrecks of that treacherous coast.
The brig Nancy of South Shields, sailing from Quebec, carried a load of lumber but became a victim of St. Shotts on October 29, 1846. During a strong gale of southeast wind it hit ledges near Mariner’s Cove.
One crewman and a boy drowned in the attempt to reach shore. Captain Wallis and the remainder of the crew reached Trepassey and came on to St. John’s by a local schooner. Another crewman was so severely injured he had to be confined to a St. John’s hospital.
Some Major St. Shotts Wrecks
With Casualties*
HMS Harpooner 1816
HMS Drake 1822
Nancy 1846
Henry M. Martin 1900
Heilgoland 1900
Florence 1911
Anton Van Driel 1919
Coral Spray 1937
*At least forty more were wrecked with no loss of life.
Now, fifty years later, with scores of wrecks between these years, one of Bowring’s steamers became a casualty of St. Shotts. Since the 1800s, Bowring’s in Newfoundland had become a major factor in shipping and mercantile-marine business. In 1884, Bowring Brothers, under the management of Charles R. Bowring, formed the Canada and Newfoundland Steamship Line.
One of the early vessels for this venture was the SS Capulet. Her name, like several others that plied Newfoundland waters, had been taken from characters in Shakespeare’s plays: Miranda, Portia, Prospero, Florizel, Stephano, and Ariel.
Built in 1884 in England, the 2,274-ton Capulet was 300 feet long and had 251 horsepower. It was classed A1 at Lloyds Insurance, accommodating several salon-class passengers and having space for 800 tons of cargo. On the evening of June 22, 1896, the Capulet was en route from Halifax to St. John’s when, in dense fog, it piled into the dreaded granite Eales was trying to avoid.
Immediately, local people went into action: those in authority and paid positions; those common fishermen and boat owners interested in bit of salvage, legal or otherwise. The first telegram, coming from Constable Sullivan at St. Mary’s, was received by Bowring’s and J. & W. Pitts, agents for the Canadian and Newfoundland Steamship Line:
Capulet on the rocks at St. Shotts, Gull Island. Everybody landed here. Will go to ship today with men to save property. Eight bags of mail saved.
Eight bags of mail were saved out of fifty-three, and no one was killed or drowned in the accident. The second message, equally terse, came to Inspector General John R. McCowen of the Newfoundland Constabulary in St. John’s:
SS Capulet for St. John’s total wreck at Mariner’s Cove. Passengers and crew saved. Leaving for scene of the wreck.
Once news of the wreck circulated around St. John’s, friends and relatives of people known to be on board the Capulet flocked to the offices of Bowring’s and J. & W. (James and William) Pitts. No extra details were known, only that all persons aboard were safe.
The SS Grand Lake was commissioned to steam to St. Mary’s to take the passengers to Placentia. There they would connect with the train to St. John’s.
On the evening of June 23, Reverend Vincent Reardon of St. Mary’s sent information saying that all passengers, including seventeen women, were safely housed and taken care of. Dr. William Hogan, the local magistrate, wired St. John’s to say four of the Capulet’s crew had been injured on board the wrecked steamer. They were preparing flares when the box exploded.
Bowring’s wired Magistrate Hogan, asking to have a ship’s officer respond. From Officer Jamison they received:
Ship lying on Flat Rock, about one mile east of Gull Island Point. After hold full of water. Captain proceeded this morning to wreck site. Ashore at 2:00 p.m., June 22.
As the Capulet steamed along the south coast, it had proceeded cautiously. There was no time to reverse engines after the lookout shouted “Rocks ahead!” The ship struck with a loud crash. Captain Eales maintained order with all aboard and had the lifeboats put over immediately, with ladies and children lowered first, followed by the male passengers and crew.
After an experience in rough inshore waters, they made land after an hour’s row somewhere near St. Mary’s. The Capulet’s cargo, consisting of 5,000 cases of lobsters, a portion of lumber deals, and a few other sundry items, all destined for Liverpool, England, drifted out of the broken wreck.
By June 25, only thirty feet of the Capulet’s bow was above water. The rest was totally submerged. By then P. Henley and Mr. Witland had gone to the wreck site on behalf of the Newfoundland Customs Department. Thomas Kennedy also arrived at the scene to secure the interests of ship agents J. & W. Pitts.
The forty-six male passengers and seventeen women lost all their luggage but “escaped the wreck in a most miraculous manner.” In addition, “Hundreds of local men sailed and pulled around the wreck,” stated the Harbour Grace Standard of June 26, “picking up what little might float towards them. The bay was full of deals [large square blocks of timber] floating hither and thither.”
One of the first schooners to see the abandoned wreck of the Capulet in the evening of July 22 was the River Queen, with Captain Tuck from Indian Harbour, Merasheen Island. It was sailing to St. John’s with 100 quintals of fish but stopped to salvage 666 cases of lobster, some lumber deals and plank, a hen coop, and two bucket stand covers.
Tuck figured it came from the wrecked Capulet. However, he declared all this with customs, fearing accusations of illegally taking cargo.
About a month after the wreck, editors of a local paper said of “The Dreaded St. Shotts”:
The recent loss of the Capulet emphasizes afresh the urgent need for the erection of fog-signals and alarms . . . a good fog alarm on Cape Pine would . . . serve to warn mariners off what has long proved itself to be a very perilous location surrounded by unseen dangers—treacherous currents, fogs, etc.