Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 25, no. 2 (November 1992), p. 6

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Ship of the Month - cont'd. She had been bound from Port Stanley and Port Dalhousie for Montreal with a cargo of 6, 000 bushels of wheat, 250 barrels of flour and 300 kegs of butter. BANSHEE's upperworks washed off before she was abandoned by her crew. John Nagle, a printer heading home for Montreal, was drowned. Ten were saved in BANSHEE's small boat, and seven more climbed aboard a piece of wreckage and eventually washed up safely on Timber Island. The steamer RANGER passed BAN SHEE on Thursday, at which time the latter was sunk in 18 feet of water. U n fortunately, at the time, the seas were running too high for RANGER to attempt to get any of the survivors off Timber Island. A great feeling of apprehension was created in Toronto when the first report of the wreck arrived. The report was understood as meaning that the larger sidewheeler BANSHEE (II), of the Royal Mail Line, had been lost, and as this boat had departed Toronto on Wednesday afternoon (August 21) for Montreal with upwards of sixty passengers on board, the numerous friends of those persons were exceedingly anxious regarding their safety. The sidewheel BAN SHEE, however, passed down the upper St. Lawrence at her usual hour on Thursday morning, the news of this relieving the fears of those in Toronto. The "Whig" reported that the sunken BANSHEE (I) was raised. It also reported that the purser, Mr. Scott, cash under his care. Later to be a captain, John H. the steamers COLONIST, ST. LAWRENCE, CITY OF LONDON years he was skipper of the famous propellor PERSIA. in a good position to be had saved the books and Scott went on to command and SCOTIA, and for many Despite the preliminary optimistic report in the "Whig", however, the sunken BANSHEE never was raised. At the time of her loss, she had been owned by Mr. Charles Rose (reported elsewhere as John Rowe), of St. Thomas, Ontario, and by Captain Howard, of Quebec, who was commander of the steamer MAGNET in 1861. Both the cargo (valued at $6, 000) and the BANSHEE herself (valued at a conservative $2, 000) were insured. Our late T. M. H . S. member, Willis Metcalfe, wrote: "On Sunday, October 15th, 1967, Mr. Dennis Kent and members of the Quinte Aqua Divers, Belleville, found the wreck of the propellor BANSHEE, which was lost one mile off Pt. Traverse. The remains of the wooden ship were in some 24 feet of water on the Timber Island Bar. Over the winter months, the location was lost, but on July 30th (1968), after nearly two months of searching by Q. A. D., it was re found and p inpointed. " Later exploration proved that the remains which they had found and called the BANSHEE actually appeared to be two vessels, one on top of the other. Part of the wreckage appeared to be that of a propellor, and it was in the correct general area for her remains, but it has yet to be determined whether it actually is BANSHEE and, if so, what the identity of the other wreck might be. [9] The second BANSHEE was a wooden-hulled sidewheeler, 175. 0 feet in length, 25. 0 feet in the beam and 9 . 1 feet in depth, and 294 tons. She was built at Portsmouth, Ontario, in 1854-1855 by George Nelson Ault. She was powered by a vertical beam engine, with a cylinder of 40 inches diameter and a stroke of 11 feet, which had been built by Ward's Eagle Foundry, Montreal. She was fitted with very large paddlewheels of the radial (non-feathering) type, which were 30 feet in diameter. The "Kingston Daily News" on June 21st, 1854, announced the launch of a new brigantine from the Marine Railway Ship-yard at Kingston, this likely being the ORKNEY LASS. There was another, larger vessel on the stocks in the same yard, partially planked. She was a clipper-modelled lake bark, probably the CATARAQUI, owned by Robert Gaskin. At Portsmouth, Mr. Ault had in frame a first-class, fore-and-aft clipper schooner of about 300 tons. (The only schooner credited to Ault in 1854 was the JAMES LESLIE, built at Colborne, O n t a r i o .) During the 1854 annual "Spring Walk", the editor of the "Whig" reported that at Hatter's Bay "or Portsmouth, as some people absurdly name it, in Mr.

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