View Document - A Living Archives

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By Adele TownsKend
A crew of workmen pose for the camera aboard the Turret Bell during one of the
salvage attempts.
Prelude: The Ugly Duckling
A
s ships go, the Turret Bell was an
ugly duckling. Her unattractiveness did not lay so much in her dimensions (2211 gross tons, with a length of
237 feet, and a beam of 40 feet), as in
her appearance. She was, in fact, a
freak of naval architecture, something
called a whaleback steamer.
The whaleback design had evolved
on the Great Lakes in the 1890s. As the
English marine magazine, Shipping
Wonders of the World observes, the
whaleback "was an extremely ugly
ship, and looked as if she really were a
whale as she lifted her almost cylindrical hull, with its blunt snout bow, out of
the water. It was claimed that this hull
would save forty per cent in fuel costs
and sixty per cent in fuel, but at sea it
was a failure and was scarcely more
successful on the Great Lakes." The
Turret Bell had shared in that failure.
Launched from Newcastle-on-Tyne in
1894, she had been relegated by 1906 to
coastal trading.
Ironically, the Turret Bell's design,
so disappointing to her builders, would
save the lives of her captain, his wife,
and twenty seamen. The vessel would
endure a disastrous November gale
and three winters of pounding seas on
the north shore of Prince Edward
Island. The Turret Bell may have been
an ugly ship, but she was a survivor.
She would sail again.
Hard Aground
The Turret Bell's ordeal began quietly
in the late autumn of 1906. As her mas-
ter, Captain Murcassen, directed her
out of the port of Montreal and down
the St. Lawrence out into the Gulf, he
was expecting just another routine
voyage, possibly his last of the season
before the River froze over. His ship
was en route to Port Hastings, Cape
Breton, for a load of coal. The weather
was good, the barometer steady. There
was nothing to indicate trouble ahead,
but trouble there was.
As she entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Turret Bell sailed straight
into one of the worst storms in Island
history. The high winds and strong
current carried her far off her course,
landing her bow foremost on a rocky
ledge about 150 yards offshore at Cable
Head, near St. Peter's. Fortunately, her
whaleback hull kept her upright in
the shallow water, despite the heavy
seas. It was early Friday morning,
November 2,1906.
The Turret Bell was not alone in her
plight. The Island newspapers of
November 1906 carried serial accounts
of the disasters at sea, beginning with
the wreck of the Turret Bell, followed
by the wrecks of the Orpheus on Saturday, November 3, the Olga on Monday,
and the Sovinto, with the loss of ten
seamen, on Tuesday, November 6.*
In hindsight, there is something
ominous about this storm that wrecked
four ships on a 20-mile stretch of coastline from Cable Head to Priest Pond
along the Island's North Shore. Both
Captain Murcassen of the Turret Bell
and Captain Wiglund of the Sovinto
would testify at the inquiries into the
wreck of their ships that the barometer
gave no indication of a coming storm.
The Guardian of November 5, states:
"Even weather vanes were deceived.
The barometer gave no warning; the
weather possibilities conveyed no hint
of more storms nor was the later outbreak preceded by the usual intimation
sent here by the Weather Bureau in
advance of every storm." Those who
subscribed to the Daily Examiner must
have been surprised as well. The weather report in the issue of the same date
reads: "Fresh northwesterly winds, fair
and cooler." In spite of weather reports,
the storm lasted over two weeks, with
high winds and a heavy rainfall of
eight inches reported.
*For more on this tragedy, see Mrs. Townshend's
"The Wreck of the Sovinto" in Issue 4 (SpringSummer, 1978).
A modern topographical map of Cable Head, where the Turret Bell came ashore.
The Turret Bell Road (circled area) has been altered somewhat to accommodate
modern cottage construction, but it still exists.
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On the Rocks
On that shipwreck morning of November 2, Earl MacEwen and his grandfather were pulling turnips on their
farm in Greenwich, when they heard
the repeated call of a ship's siren. Like
their neighbours, they went to investigate. What they saw was described in
that day's Daily Examiner, which ran
this dramatic headline: "ASHORE AT
CABLE HEAD. BIG LINER TURRET
BELL ON ROCKS. DOUBTFUL IF
SHE WILL BE ABLE TO GET OFF."
The account continued:
As a result of last night's storm,
the large ocean steamship, Turret
Bell of the Turret line ... is hard
ashore off Cable Head. The steamer is firmly wedged upon a bottom of rock and is resting on an
even keel.
She is lying about 150 yards out
from the shore and does not appear to be pounding. A very heavy
sea is still running and, although
there seems to be no danger of the
steamer breaking up, yet the distance to which she has been driven
in to the shore makes it look
doubtful if she can be floated
again.
Owing to the heavy sea on, no
communication has yet been made
with the steamer from the shore
and it has been impossible to
launch a boat....
A large number of men went
from Souris to Cable Head this
morning but were unable to render
assistance owing to the severity
of the weather....
The next issue of the Daily Examiner
carried the news that Hyndman and
Company had asked the powerful tug,
Douglas H. Thomas of Halifax to go to
the assistance of the disabled ship. It
added: "But there is little hope that the
tug can get within a quarter of a mile of
the Turret Bell, [as she is] lying well
within the sandbar." The stricken vessel appeared to be doomed.
On Saturday, November 3, Fred W.
Hyndman of Hyndman and Company,
underwriters for Lloyd's of London,
made the trip to St. Peters and out to
Cable Head. He found that Captain
Murcassen of the steamer had established communications with those on
shore by sending dispatches in a bottle.
Murcassen requested assistance at once
and asked that the owners of the ship,
railway moguls MacKenzie and Mann
of Montreal, and the charter company,
the Inverness Railway and Coal Company of Port Hastings, Cape Breton, be
notified. He advised that the crew were
dry and comfortable, and that they had
sufficient provisions on board.
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For a brief time that Saturday, it
appeared the storm had blown itself
out, but as evening came, the wind
began increasing in fury once again.
The storm that interfered with communications between ship and shore
also disrupted communications across
the Island. When telephone lines went
down on Wednesday, A. E. (Sandy)
Clark, the PEIR station agent at Souris,
relayed messages to and from the disaster areas. There was need. On Sunday night, the wind shifted to the north
and the storm grew even wilder. An
exceptionally high tide caught the
Turret Bell up, turned her broadside,
and drove her in 20 yards from the
shore. There she lay, within a stone's
throw of the bank, with the waves
washing over her. Deep water, and
safety, was farther away than ever.
Monday morning it was possible to
bridge the 20 yards with a cable, and
Captain Murcassen came ashore in a
boatswain's chair. In a telephone interview later that day, he told the Charlottetown Patriot that he did not know
why he was so far off course. He reported
that the steamer was leaking but he did
not know the extent of the damage.
"She is lying on rock bottom," he said,
"and will likely sustain further damage if [the] weather continues stormy....
She is lying so close to shore her bow is
dry when the undertow leaves her."
That evening, the Captain's wife (a
sister of Charlottetow n engineer
H. F. Lawrence) also came ashore, but
the crew remained on board until after
the survey of the wreck, which took
place on Tuesday.
The examination was conducted for
Lloyd's by Pope Walsh, assisted by
Captain Brown of the steam ferry
Stanley and Captain Taylor of the
Gulnare. The next day, November 7,
the Charlottetown Herald summarized
the results: "They condemned the
steamer which will be abandoned by
the owners to the underwriters who
will pay the insurance ($75,000) and
dispose of the vessel as they see fit."
With the storm well past, a supplement
to the Patriot supplied further particulars on November 29:
The "Turret Bell" was condemned
. . . as a total wreck although, as
will be seen in the picture, she
was standing upright; but after
she had stranded, there was 5 feet
of water in the hold. As she was
carried so far in, all hope of floating her has been
abandoned,
especially for this season.
A man has been placed in
charge and will remain until the
underwriters have decided how
they will dispose of the steamer.
Many observers may have felt the
Patriot's story marked the end of the
Turret Bell. In fact, her story was just
beginning.
Salvage-tion
For three years, the Turret Bell was one
of the greatest tourist attractions in
Eastern Kings County. Anyone over
the age of 85 in present-day St. Peters
can recall being taken to see the big
ship on the rocks. People came on foot
and on horseback, by horse and carriage, and (a very few) by car. At first,
they travelled north on the Greenwich
Road to the dune area on the Gulf side
of the St. Peters peninsula. Later, when
efforts to re-float the ship got underway, a new road was cut through the
woods on the Sutherland farm, at right
angles to the Greenwich Road, to provide a more direct route to the site of the
wreck. Besides conveying the curious,
it was used to haul supplies and heavy
equipment for the salvage effort. This
clay road, which is still in use today, is
known as the Turret Bell Road or,
sometimes, the Haul Road.
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The Turret Bell became such a landmark that this photograph of salvers at work
on the stranded steamer was turned into a postcard.
Contemporary newspapers, which
had reported the story of the Turret
Bell's grounding, also chronicled the
efforts to salvage her. During the
summer of 1907, S. M. Brookfield of
Halifax contracted to re-float the vessel.
On July 19, the Charlottetown Watchman gave this account of the attempt:
An effort is being made to float
the Turret Bell. A gang of men
started a few days ago to blast
a channel 300 yards long, wide
enough to let the steamer through
and eight and a half feet deep.
They having to dig through first
two feet of rock, then one and a
half feet of brick clay and rock
again [sic].
It is also proposed to dig a
trench around the steamer. She
lies parallel and close to the
bankf,] which is about twelve feet
high[,] in a gully between two
reefs. Her bow is dry at low tide
and there is about one and a half
feet of water at her stern at high
tide.
The salvage effort was a complete failure. The ship did not budge and again
spent the winter on the rocks.
The following summer, the James
Reid Wrecking Company of Sarnia,
Ontario, took on the task. Captain
James Reid Sr. undertook to float the
ship on a percentage of the value on
delivery, the amount to be determined
by the salvers and the insurers, Lloyd's
of London. Freeman Leslie of St. Peters
Bay worked with the Reid Company
crew to free the Turret Bell. Six decades
later, he described the salvage operation for Guardian columnist Neil A.
Matheson. Jacks were employed, Leslie
remembered: "The ship was lifted up to
the limit of the height of the jacks, and
then a powerful tug would pull the ship
in the direction of the water until she
was back on the ground again. Then
the operation of jacking her up would
start all over again."
Progress was slow. By September 18,
the steamship had been moved seaward 13 feet. By October 31, she was
out 100 feet and into a depth of 7 feet of
water. The Guardian for November 13,
1908 noted, "She is now in good water
but as she is on a sandstone ledge the
greatest care has to be used in any
efforts that are made to float her into
deep water."
As autumn gave way to winter, the
salvage attempt became a race with
time, weather, and tides. Lolly ice was
forming around Island wharves when
the Guardian published this update on
December 7: "The Turret Bell' has not
moved her position in the last ten days,
as it was too rough for the tug to get
around the north side with coal. Now
that the weather has moderated, the
prospects for floating her are more
favourable/' Eleven days later, the
Guardian carried the good news that
the Turret Bell had been successfully
jacked off the rocks and was 700 feet
from shore in seven and a half feet of
water at low tide. Her bow, which had
been pointing southwest, was now
swung around to the northeast — the
direction she would take when towed
around East Point to Charlottetown.
But the final step would have to wait
until spring. It was too late in the season to risk the voyage. So, the Turret
Bell was pumped full of water to anchor
her in place, and a man was assigned
to live onboard over the winter.
The Turret Bell's rescue was now a
matter of time. The winter passed
without incident. As early as May 17,
1909, Captain Reid of the Reid Wrecking Company was in the province to
supervise the Turret Bell's removal to
Charlottetown. However, fate kept to
her own timetable. On May 26, the
Guardian reported that the wrecking
tug James Reid had met with an accident to her machinery at Mulgrave.
She had to be towed to Pictou for what
proved time-consuming repairs.
Finally, on Sunday, July 31,1909, at
3 a.m., the Turret Bell left Cable Head
in tow of the James Reid. Despite her
long entrapment, the whaleback steamer had steam up in her boilers and was
able to operate her donkey engines and
steer herself. After a brief stop in Souris,
tug and tow arrived in Charlottetown
that evening at 8 o'clock.
Epilog: "A Matter of General
Comment"
Among the crowd on the Marine Wharf
waiting for the Turret Bell's arrival
that July evening was the Lloyd's
agent, Fred Hyndman, and his young
grandson, Walter. As his grandfather
inspected the ship, Walter remembers
peeling large flakes of rust off her hull.
Amazingly enough, except for being
badly rusted, the Turret Bell was in
sound condition after her three years at
Cable Head. It was a great day for both
the insurers and the salvers: Lloyd's
would eventually recoup a large portion of their loss, and Captain Reid
stood to receive a profitable percentage
of the ship's value.
Reid was the man of the hour in
Charlottetown during the week that
Bruce Stewart and Company made
temporary repairs to the Turret Bell.
On August 5, the Guardian remarked,
"The Turret Bell' is the only vessel
that has ever been salved after stranding on the North Shore of the Province
and the successful achievement by
Captain Reid who got her off last week
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Freeman Leslie of St. Peters Bay, shown
here during the 1960s, was one of the
crew hired by the Reid Wrecking Company to help float the Turret Bell.
is a matter of general comment." Meanwhile, Stewart and Company reported
the ship "to be salved in remarkably
Good condition."
On August 13, the Turret Bell, again
under tow, left Charlottetown for
Quebec. After further repairs, she would
return to the shipping lanes — none the
worse for having been "wrecked." The
ugly duckling had survived.
Sources
Many stories about the wreck and salving of the Turret Bell have been handed
down by word of mouth. Over the years,
some of these have become vague and
distorted — none more so than the version I grew up with: that the ship had
been hauled overland to Souris for
some reason. I realize now that this
misconception grew out of the name
"Haul Road" and the fact that the ship,
in tow, made a stop at Souris Harbour
en route to Charlottetown. Fortunately,
period n e w s p a p e r s at the Public
Archives of Prince Edward Island and
the Confederation Centre Library contain numerous references to the wreck
and salving of this unusual ship.
I have enjoyed talking with many
people in the Morell-St. Peters area and
wish to thank the following for their
assistance: Fred MacEwen, Alexie
MacLaine, Harold Lewis, Roddy Pratt,
and J. F. W. Sutherland, as well as
Miles Matheson and Allie Maclsaac of
the Department of Fisheries in Morell,
where a large, framed picture of the
Turret Bell (taken from a Morley Acorn
postcard) hangs in the office.
I also want to thank Walter and Fred
Hyndman for the use of the pictures of
the Turret Bell and Mrs. Mickey Burge
for the use of the picture of her grandfather, Freeman Leslie. iSi
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