Omar Pasha (Schooner), aground, 24 Nov 1860

DISASTERS ON LAKE ONTARIO. - The schooner EDITH, of Oakville, was beached in the gale of Saturday, one mile south of Stoney Point Light - no cargo. Also, the schooner OMAR PASHA, with a cargo of wheat from Toronto. Both vessels went to pieces. Crews saved, except the cook of the PASHA.
      Buffalo Daily Republic
      Tuesday, November 27, 1860
     
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Schooner OMAR PASHA, wrecked on Stoney Island, November 27th., vessel and cargo worth $30,000 and owned by Gooderham & Worts, Toronto
      Toronto Leader
      November 28, 1860
     
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We regret to learn that the schooner OMAR PASHA, one of the fleet of Gooderham, Worts & Wilmot, was wrecked in the recent storm. She had cleared from this port for Cape Vincent with a large cargo of wheat, and we believe that both vessel and cargo will prove a total loss, amounting, it is said, to between $25,000 and $28,000. There was no insurance on the cargo, this firm insuring all their shipments themselves.
      Toronto Globe
      November 29, 1860
     
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      Schooner OMAR PASHA, cargo wheat, driven ashore in a snow-storm on Stoney Point, Lake Ontario. Vessel and cargo a Total loss, and one man.
      Buffalo Morning Express
      March 11, 1861. (Casualty List, 1860)

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      We regret to learn that the schooner OMAR PASHA, one of the fleet of Gooderham, Worts & Wilmot, was wrecked in the recent storm. She had cleared from this port for Capt Vincent with a large cargo of wheat, and we believe that both vessel and cargo will prove a total loss, amounting, it is said, to between $25,000 and $28,000. There was no insurance on the cargo, this firm insuring all their shipments themselves.
      Toronto Globe
      Thursday, November 29, 1860

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More Disasters . - We have heard of the following disasters on the lake since our report yesterday P.M.: Schooner REVOLVING LIGHT, with a cargo of wheat, is ashore at Cape Vincent. Schooner A. HANDY is ashore at South Bay, lost her boat, some of he canvas, and is leaking. Schooner ENTERPRISE, bound from Wilson to this port with wheat, is ashore at Long Point. Schooner OMAR PASHA, with a cargo of wheat from Toronto, is wrecked near Stoney Point. The cook perished. Schooner EDITH, light, is reported a wreck one mile above Stoney Point. Schooner QUEEN CITY put into Kingston with loss of sails.
Propeller COASTER is ashore eight miles below Stone Mills, Canada, and will be a total wreck. Schooner TORNADO, with a cargo of corn from Chicago, is wrecked near Kingston. Crew all lost, and vessel gone to pieces. Schooner MARCO POLO is capsized near Long Point. Schooners ST. GEORGE, MARY, WILD ROVER, and two or three others, names unknown, are ashore near South Bay. The latter was bound from Milwaukee to this port with wheat.
Schooner CAPE HORN, from Milwaukee to this port with wheat, is ashore at Point Peninsula, with four feet of water in her hold. Cargo mostly gone. Capt. Estes, of the steamer ONTARIO, reports a black three-master vessel ashore on one of the islands down the lake, but she was so covered with ice he could not make out her name. The barques CLAYTON and QUEBEC, bound for the St. Lawrence, are ashore above Kingston.
The tug PAGE left here this morning, on a wrecking cruise. She will first go to the relief of the schooner MARQUETTE, ashore near Nicholson's Island, after which the vessels beached at other points along the Canadian shore can obtain her assistance if desired. Capt King telegraphs that the MARQUETTE can be got off without much difficulty. The tug BLOORE, Capt. Wheeler, has gone down the lake to render assistance to the vessels ashore between Cape Vincent and Stoney Point.
      Oswego Commercial Times
      Tues., November 27, 1860

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      Saved By A Cow.
      The Experience of a Ship-Wrecked Crew at Stony Point
      "Speaking of narrow escapes by ship-wrecked sailors," said Captain James Jackman, of the schooner Gold Hunter, Saturday, "reminds me of an experience I once had about thirty years ago and I shall never forget. I have been in tight places but the experience of that night was the most terrible in my career as a sailor.
"It was late in the fall, with snow on the ground and a bitter cold night, when the vessel I was sailing went ashore on Stony Point. The seas broke over the vessel, and she soon broke in two. Singularly enough, we had all taken refuge aft and when the vessel broke the after part was carried by the sea high up towards the shore. We managed to get off, wet through and covered with ice.
      "We did not know which way to go as not one of us had ever been there before. Finally a light was discovered a long way off and the crew of seven started towards it. On the way the cook gave out and fell beside a fence we had to climb. We did not notice that he was missing for some time. He died there during the night and his body was not found till the following morning.
      "We struggled along as best we could but finally decided that it would be impossible to reach the house in which the light was burning. After wandering around for a time we finally came upon an old shed in which there was a cow. The men were almost frozen and thoroughly tired out. The cow lay on the shed floor in some hay and the seven men lay down around her. I actually believe that the animal heat from the cow kept us alive till morning."
      Oswego Palladium
      December 6, 1886
     
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      OMAR PACHA
A dreadful thing happened to the schooner OMAR PACHA, whose wreck was also mentioned in the Leaders, despatch. Capt. Frank Jackman, who died last April told about it the last time he was in the Telegram office. Capt. Henry Jackman his uncle, was part owner and was sailing the vessel for Gooderham & Worts, grain merchants as well as distillers, and she had left Toronto with a valuable cargo for Cape Vincent.
      In the thick snowstorm she struck on one corner of Stoney Island, one of several large islands, before Lake Ontario begins to narrow up at the east end for the St. Lawrence River. They did not know where they were but they noticed that the mainmasts, which crashed when the vessel struck, did not wash alongside but projected at right angles from the hull, as though supported at the upper end. The schooner began to break up immediately, with seas smashing everything above deck and busting the deck planks,and one by one the crew of several retreated along this projecting spar, into the blank white wall of the whirling snow.
      When they passed the crosstrees they found that the topmast head reached to a snowdrift on the brink of the lake bank, and along this slippery bridge they scrambled until they were all ashore.
      It was blowing a blizzard, and they had no idea of directions, but they staggered through until they came to a rail fence. This they climbed with difficulty, so as to get the shelter it afforded, and in the lee of it, they crept along, hoping it would lead them to some shelter. At last something huge loomed through the snow, and they found themselves in a barn-yard, and felt their way by the walls and fences till they reached the farm-house.
When they were dragged into the kitchen by the hospitable farmer there were only six of them. The seventh, the cook, a big stout man was missing. With poles and lanterns they fought there way back through the snow as far as the lakeshore, looking for him shouting , hallooing without results. They concluded he must have fallen from the broken mast, as they were making their was ashore, and been drowned, there was not enough of the vessel left, when they got back to the wreck, to make it possible for him to have survived there.
Capt.Jackman and his crew were on Stoney Island for a month, until the lake froze over at the east end they were able to cross over to Kingston in a sleigh. Their friends had given them up for dead.
In the spring, Capt Jackman returned to the island to see it there was anything that could be salvaged from the Omar Facha. She had completely disappeared. But in a melting snowdrift in a corner of the fence they had climbed with such pain was the corpse of the Omar Pacha's cook.
The poor man had fallen back from exhaustion, in the effort to climb, and had smothered in the snow, unseen of his suffering shipmates.
the OMAR PACHA was a two-masted schooner of 220 tons register, built at Oshawa during the Crimea War by a travelling shipwright named Lamorse or Lummaree. He also built the schooner JAMES COLEMAN at Dundas, the PARAGON at Oshawa. the Barque REINDEER at Coldwater.
      OMAR PACHA or, in more modern spelling OMAR PASHA, was as many may not know and some may have forgotten, an Austrian who embraced the Moslem faith and was brilliantly successful as a Turkish general against the Russians, he was at the height of his popularity when the schooner named after him was built.
      Schooner Days,
      Toronto Telegram
      March 4th. 1935
     
     
0MAR PACHA " schooner of 220 tons; built at Oshawa in 1853 for Gooderham & Worts, she was sailed by Capt Jackman and was valued at $9,000
      taken from List of Canadian Vessels, 1857
      in the Toronto Globe May 6th. 1857