Nightmare - Come True: Schooner Days CXXIII (123)

FIFTY YEARS AGO come next July I did the hardest work I have ever done. That was hoping to raise the James R. Benson.

She was a big topsail schooner of the old Welland Canal type, with three masts and square upper and lower topsails on the foremast. She was owned by Nealon firm of St.Catharines, and when I joined her in the summer of 1884 she was engaged in the square timber trade between Toledo, Ohio, and Garden Island, opposite Kingston. She was sailed by Captain George Mackie, and Joe Brooks was the first mate. She had two. Ben Longale was the second. The crowd forward consisted of Jim Mackie, a brother of the captain, who was drowned a few years later when a vessel in which he was sailing was dismasted off the Main Ducks; James Looby, who joined the ship at the same time I did; Toy O'Mallie; a Greek whose first name was George, and myself, Harry McConnell of Picton.

We were bound up Lake Erie, light, in company with the schooner James M. Nealon, owned by the same firm, to load timber again at Toledo. We had a head wind all forenoon. After dinner our watch, the starboard one, turned in for a sleep, for it was our time below until 4 o'clock.

It was dark as a well down in the forecastle, and, sailorlike, we lost all track of time as soon as our heads hit the hay. I was wakened by Tony O'Malie saying "Didn't you hear the watch call?"

"No, said I.

"Well," said he, "it's eight bells and it will be my trick at the wheel first."

We dressed by the light of the lantern and climbed up on deck. It was still early afternoon. Tony went aft to take the wheel, and the man already there asked him:"What are you coming here for?"

"It's eight bells, ain't it? answered Tony.

"No, only four. I've just begun my trick," said the helmsman, and Tony came back to me, grumbling and swearing over his mistake. We had still two hours of our watch below left, and we stumbled down the forecastle ladder to our bunks.

"It's a funny thing," said Tony, "but I was sure as anything that George the Greek came down to the forecastle here and lit a cigarette and told me it was eight bells. I must have dreamed that, but if I did it came right on the heels of another dream, for I had dreamt that the Benson had ruled over with us and we were having a fearful time getting the cook on the side of the vessel."

This, remember, was at two o'clock in the afternoon when he told me this.

Our cook was Mrs. Mackie, the wife of the captain,; a great big woman, weighing two hundred pounds, cheerful as a cricket, an A-1 cook, and like a mother to us all. She came from Garden Island. When a little girl there fell off the dock in twelve feet of water, Mrs. Mackie dove in and brought her up while all the men around trying to rescue her with pike poles.

Tony and I were soon asleep again, and at 4 o'clock, in the afternoon, when it really with eight bells, we were called, the mate pounding on the fore scuttle and shouting out: "Turn out, turn out, shake a leg, and stand by for squalls!"

We could hear the rain pattering on the deck overhead, so we got into our oil skins before we came up. Tony went aft and took the wheel. The watch we were relieving was not sent below, but all hands turned to and shortened the vessel down. We clewed up the main and mizzen gaff topsails, hauled down the jibtopsail and then took in the upper and lower topsails on the foremast. The sky was very black, but not the heft of the squall had not come. It burst in a mixture of wind and rain, and the old man sang out: "Haul down the flying jib! Lower away the foresail!"

Ben Longale put Jim Mackie and me on the flying jib downhaul, while he let go the halyards, and the first mate, Joe Brooks, let go the fore peak halyards, while George the Greek let to the throat halyards of the foresail.

That was the last we ever saw of George, holding his turn on the lee side of the foremast as the thundering sail slowly creaked down.

We were so busy that we did not see the squall strike, but the deck suddenly slanted under our feet until there was no standing on it. I was trying to make a run for the fore rigging, into which Ben Longale and Jim Mackie had already jumped, when the starboard anchor weighing nearly a ton, fell inboard from the rail. I jumped on the bowsprit and climbed out through the knight heads as the bowsprit went under water and the Benson rolled over on us all. Poor George, being on the lee side, had the whole ship on top of him. He vanished forever as completely as he had done two hours before when Tony O'Malie woke up.

I shall never forget the picture the Benson made then as she lay on her side with the water pouring into her hatches and her loosened canvas flailing out with the wind. I saw Mrs. Mackie half out of the window in the captain's room. She disappeared, as though she had fallen backwards. Joe Brooks dived over the rail amidships, and slipped along the Benson's bottom until he struck the centreboard, with was all the way down. Tony and the captain jumped over aft and came up on the vessel's bottom as she rolled completely over.

The hull lay head to sea, lower forward than aft, so that Jim Mackie, Ben Longale and I, clinging to her forward, were sometimes in water up to our necks. Joe Brooks and the captain and Tony and Looby were a little better off aft, for their part rode higher.

Lake Erie is a shallow lake anyway, especially at the western end where we were, and after one or two rolls the topmasts of the capsized Benson snapped off as they struck the mud, and this let her roll up on her side again.

We had two horses on board, to work the capstan for loading timber, and they were stalled on deck in the horse box. When she rolled back on her side we could see that they were drowned in their halters.

Joe Brooks cried out, "My God, Mrs. Mackie is drowned!" Just as he spoke she came up to the top of the water, trying her best to keep afloat. She was a good swimmer.

Joe was near her and grabbed her and I edged along to him, and between the two of us we dragged her up onto side of the vessel. She had fallen back from the captain's room into the dining room and been washed out of the door of the cabin. She was nearly gone when we got her, but clinging to the ship's side, we kept rolling her and lifting her until we squeezed the water out of her.

I took off my oil-skin coat and wrapped it around her, and she began to come to. She commenced to kiss the sleeve of the coat and say, "You will forgive your mama, won't you, Tony?"

She was semi-delirious and was not thinking of Tony O'Malie at all, but of her little boy at home in St. Catharines. Next she sang a hymn all the way through. I've forgotten the words. Then she began to pray, and kept on praying.

In the squall we had lost sight of the James N. Nealon, but as it lifted we could see her up about five miles to windward of us. There was just the bare chance that she would see us, lying flat on the water, before night would blot us out. We crawled along the rail and broke open a cabin window and fished out a table cloth and made that fast to a 15 foot strip of the bulwarks which we tore off. As the Benson lay her mizzen crosstrees were about fifteen feet above the water. That was the highest bit of her. We crawled out along the mizzen rigging to the crosstrees and lashed the strip of bulwarks there with our flag. But the Nealon could not see us and went on.

Another vessel was coming down the lake, with the wind on the starboard quarter. She looked as though she would pass within two miles of us, but as her sails were between us and her there was not much chance of her crew sighting us. Still I crawled out to the mizzen cross-trees again and took off my oilskin pants and stood on the outer slat of the cross-trees and, hanging on the strip of bulwarks which we had made fast, with the flag, waved and waved and waved. Ben Longale on below me, waving his cap.

Tony O'Malie was in the rigging half way out to the crosstrees, on his hands and knees, praying. He stretched up and had a look at the vessel and right in the midst of his prayer shouted, "By cripes she's dropping the peak of her mainsail!" The dropping of the main peak was the first sign that they had seen us. They had to drop it to jibe her over to come near us. In a few minutes the vessel hove to, quite close, and lowered yer yawl boat.

The boat came alongside with great difficulty, on account of the sea, and we had a lot of trouble getting Mrs. Mackie into it. The yawl took us all off and then sculled around to the lee side of our rescuer. She was named the Bay Trader, out of Long Point. Jim Looby and I got aboard her to haul Mrs. Mackie in. The rest were to pass her up to us Capt. Mackie shoved one of her arms up to me. I got a good grip on her, but her wrist was crooked from an old injury. Looby was unable to get a hold and the captain, in trying to shove her up towards me, pushed the yawl boat away from the schooner. So Mrs. Mackie's whole weight came on her crooked wrist, and she screamed with pain.

"Don't let go, Harry," shouted the captain and I pulled, and Looby caught a hold, and we dragged her aboard and carried her to the Captain's room in the Bay Trader's cabin. As soon as all hands were out of the yawl boat we turned to and helped the Bay Trader's crew hoist it up on the davits. Then she squared away for Port Colborne.

The boys in the Bay Trader fitted us with dry clothes and got us some supper and told us to turn in for a good night's sleep, saying they would sleep next day. We filled all the bunks in her forecastle.

Next morning at seven bells we were called. I went aft and took the wheel, and the Bay Trader boys went down to breakfast. When they came up one of them relieved me, and I went forward and washed with the rest of the our crowd and waited for our breakfast call.

But no bell rang.The mate of the Bay Trader at length went aft and asked the cook if breakfast wasn't ready yet.

"No," said she. "I hired her to cook for one crew, and that's all I'm going to cook for."

I have known many lake cooks, and most of them fine women, but this was a stem-winder. She never offered Mrs. Mackie a dry stitch and never said a word to her. Even the captain of the Bay Trader was afraid of her, for when the mate reported to him he only said, "Well, you go and get their breakfast." He did.

While we were at it, Mrs. Mackie came out from the captain's room, where she and her husband had been accommodated, with a cheery, "Well, boys how are you?" We told her "Fine," and wanted to know how she was. "Very good, only very sore. The only thing I can remember is my wrist hurting me. Oh, how it did hurt!"

The Bay Trader took us to Port Colborne, where we were put up at the Maple Leaf House. The Captain wired the owners, and that night we started with the best tug available, to look for the lost Benson. We had to lie under Long Point until next day, the wind was blowing so hard, but the next day we found her, still floating, on her beam's ends. We got a line on her and started to tow her to Rondeau Harbor, that sailors call the Round O. It was slow work, but another tug came up next day and we got into the pier.

The schooners T. R. Merritt and James M. Nealon, sister ships of the Benson, came to help us. We were fourteen days getting her on her feet. It was the hardest work I've ever done. Both the Merritt and the Nealon had full forecastles, and there was no place for us to sleep except on the timber with they were loaded.

The way we got her up was by passing long timbers from the Merritt across the pier over the Benson, with chains around the schooner's bottom coming up to the timbers. Then we used jack screws, heaving up a little at a time. What with timbers and chains breaking and the endless shifting of the gear, it took almost two weeks, working night and day to get the Benson's deck above water. Then we were a long time pumping her out, but at last we got her clear and took her down to St. Catharines, where she was owned, for a refit.

The James R. Benson was built in St.Catharines, in the dock opposite the axe factory, in the winter of 1873. She was rigged complete, even to the batwings over her upper topsail, before she was first floated. This account of her capsizing is substantially as told by Harry McConnell in the Picton Times a few months ago.

The Bay Trader was a fine big schooner scow sailed by Capt. Lon Dace, of Port Rowan, at this time. In her crew which accomplished this rescue of the Benson sailors was one of the Becker boys, a son or stepson of that grand lake heroine Abigail Becker, of Long Point, who rescued the crew of the schooner Conductor in 1855.

"By cripes!" shouted Tony in the midst of his prayer, "She's dropping the peak of her mainsail! they've seen us!"