Night Flora Emma Was Lost the Straubenzee Came Through: Schooner Days CCCVII (307A)

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YES, mention of the Flora Emma brought a pleasant tinkle from Capt. John Williams' telephone.

"I was in Oswego the night the Flora Emma was lost, in ninety-two. It was my first season in the Straubenzee.

"We got a load of lumber for the same place, the Standard Box works at Oswego, and came in after the Flora Emma. She was lying at the wharf to unload, and we had to wait for her.

"Oswego harbor at this time had a long breakwater, with a gap in it, stretching across its front to protect it from northerly winds. The breakwater was very high on the outer or lake side, with a lower line of cribs inside it. About the middle of the breakwater, on the shore, was the D.L. & W. trestle where the coal was loaded. West of the trestle, in the new harbor that had been formed by the breakwater, was the Standard Box factory wharf. East of this trestle was the entrance to the river and the harbor proper. East of that again was some cribbing and docks and the hill with Fort Ontario on its top and the lifesaving station at its foot.

"We moored on the inside of the breakwater, to wait our turn to unload, and that afternoon the glass dropped in warning for a blow from the westward. The sea began to run down the lake, and it became very uneasy lying where we were. Although we had tightened up on all our lines they stretched as she began to rise up and down and surged on them, and with a little more play she surged worse, so we struck the fly for the tug to take us out of that.

"We didn't stand very well with the tugs just then, because I was trying to make the Straubenzee pay and sailed in and out whenever I could. A tug was in no hurry to come and commenced to haggle, and said it was blowing too hard to take any responsibility for handling a loaded vessel like the Straubenzee in that wind. So I said to leave us alone.

"She was rearing up and down by this time and parting her lines and pulling out timberheads on board and niggerheads on the breakwater. The seas were spilling over the high part of the breakwater and flooding the lower deck of it, and we were wading around in our boots and oilskins, getting more lines out. I ran my big towline and the canal snub up ahead, and then swung the starboard anchor out on to the crib-work with the donkey engine, and found a place for it to hold among some timbers where the crib had decayed.

"Then I swung the port anchor on to the chain of the starboard one and worked it forward so as to drop it inside the line of the breakwater as a spring. After that I let my afterlines go, and she tailed off from the breakwater, hanging by her anchors and the towline and snub. The wind was a little north of west, perhaps, so that the breakwater, running west by south, gave something of a lee, although the seas were now rolling over and the water inside was rough. She backed and filled as though she could not make up her mind whether to butt the breakwater or tail off, so we double-reefed the mizzen and set that on her. After that she rode clear of the breakwater, head to wind and sea, snug as a weathercock.

"And meantime the Flora Emma had broken adrift to windward of us, at her moorings at the box factory slip. We saw her driving past quite close, and offered to take a line from her on to our port quarter timber-heads. She had only one or two men aboard beside the mate's wife, who was the cook, the rest of the crew being uptown, and they couldn't get the line out. Before we could give them one she was out of reach. If they had been able to get a little sail on her at this time, say the staysail with the sheet well off, she would have rounded up for them as she passed the trestle and gone into the harbor.

"But they were busy giving her the anchors, and these could not get a grip on the stony bottom. We held because one anchor was in the crib work and the heavy lines took up the strain. She just missed the trestle and blew along inside the breakwater till she was past the end of it and into the open lake. Then the tug E. J. Redford tried to save her, but got a line in her wheel or burst a steampipe, or both, and dragged in with her on to the beach close to the life-saving station. It was a wild night and we didn't know all that happened, and how Capt. Featherstonehaugh of the tug had been scalded and drowned, until next day. The life-savers took the crews off.

"It was a hard blow for Capt. Tom Fox, of the Flora Emma. She had been his home and his all for many years. He had brought up his family in her. His sons sailed with him. His daughter had married the mate, and remained in the vessel as cook. The pair of them were as nice people as you would want to meet, and they looked after the old man well. It was a pleasure to see such devotion, and a grief to see such a fine home lost through the vessel being left shorthanded with a gale coming on.

"I've had my own troubles at Oswego. Once, later, I had to wear the Straubenzee around after getting her down there, and stand out in the lake because it was blowing too hard to take her in. Our mizzen was split clean across and the foresail so badly torn it had to have two new cloths. After we got the rags muzzled and had pulled her well off shore I gave her the anchors and all the chain we had in the locker. She just kept on going as if the chains had parted. They were across her bobstays and pulled these out and that let the bowsprit and jibboom heave up and down. With them unstayed and our sails torn we were in a bad way, for we seemed unable to anchor and we had little chance of getting anywhere.

"We bent our river line and the canal snub on to the ends of the chains and back over the quarters, so as to take the strain off the windlass, and at last, with all this chain behind her, she swung up to it and rode head to sea. Then the bowsprit really began to jump. We conquered this by getting preventers through the hawspipes, on top of the cables, and heaving them taut with tackles.

"It was curious to see how men show their true characters in emergencies. There was one rather sickly lath-like lad in the crew, who was all the time being ridden by a big hulking chap of the heavy hand and slow thinking type. When things were at their worst this lad was at his best. He worked harder than anyone. We were all pretty well worn out, but he volunteered to go out on the heaving jibboom and stow the flying jib after it had been hauled down. 'You'll do nothing of the kind!' said the big fellow who had been riding him. 'That's no job for a boy like you. Do you want me to be getting a black-bordered letter from your mother, calling me a murderer? You stay in board and let me at it.'

"The pair of them went out on the plunging spar, fought the sodden sail into shape, and were the best of pals ever afterwards.

"We rode out the gale to our anchors in the open lake, all that uncomfortable night, and next day it quietened enough for the tug to come out for us. The lifesavers came along, too, and they were very welcome, for we hadn't enough strength left to heave in all that chain. When we did get the anchors clear of the water we found the stock of one had broken off and was missing, and the other had lost its flukes. They were just so much broken iron, with no holding power beyond their weight.

"But we got in all right, stripped our sails and sent them to the loft for mending while we loaded, borrowed anchors from here and there, and started home next day with a full cargo of coal at a fair freight."

THE SIR C. T. VAN STRAUBENZEE OF ST. CATHARINES, when Capt. John Williams sailed her—drawing by C. I. Gibbons, tugboat fireman artist.