n , "hurri- Island. During the winter and July, he was greeted with a welcome O cane" has always been a faraway spring, the last painful scenes in the arch reading, "Courted long, won at word, more suited to doomed Spanish drama/farce of Confederation had last." Condescendingly mindful of treasure galleons or palm-treed beach- been played out. Faced with a choice Islanders' ego, Dufferin flattered the es than to red soil. Even when the between fiscal bankruptcy and politi- conceit. The Island, he wrote Sir John rag-tail of some tropical storm strikes cal dependency, the Island govern- A. Macdonald, is "quite under the the Island, it is largely spent, chilled ment had reluctantly done what 99 of impression that it is the Dominion by the North Atlantic and broken every 100 Islanders had once alleged- that has been annexed to Prince by the massive breakwater of Nova ly opposed, negotiated entry into the Edward Island, and in alluding to L/V^VLIU. JLJ%JL%. liOi a x v / a y s . wn 24. A u c i i S i new . That trip c n n i a r t T rip-iT^a p<"!<-»r\-l-Q/~J +r»o c o m a HiC O L X L M V ^ ^ C , X AXCtVV*. CLIJLKJLJ LV^VX LXXA^ "O'CIXXIV^ 1873, a full-fledged Atlantic hurricane spring, electors had sullenly chosen tone." All that August, newspapers crashed ashore in Maritime Canada between "terms" and "better terms," exulted in the rough and tumble of with devastating consequences. It and on 1 July the self-governing a spirited contest for the six federal was known as the August Gale, and colony of Prince Edward Island had seats created by Confederation. The it would be the second worst natural become the seventh, and smallest, mud-slinging would continue well disaster in Island history. Yet today it province in the Dominion of Canada. into the fall as a series of by-elections is virtually forgotten in this province. Ottawa had been rather good- filled the vacancies in the provincial natured about stitching such a small legislature created by the resignations patch into the great Canadian quilt, of new senators and would-be MPs. The Summer of Confederation agreeably improving on its original Of course, the proximate cause of terms once pressed. When Lord Confederation had been the construc- Already, by August, 1873 n a d been Dufferin, the Governor General, tion costs of the Prince Edward Island an epochal year on Prince Edward visited the newest province that Railway, which within a single year

1 0 had pushed the Island government to slowly to re-curve northward as it track shows it passing 150-300 nau- the brink of financial ruin. There had bumped along the outer edge of the tical miles south and east of Nova been evidently scandal; certainly mis- sub-tropical high pressure zone that Scotia, with an eventual landfall on calculation, and arguably misman- sits athwart the Sargasso Sea each Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. agement in the whole railway busi- fall. By the 20th, it had crossed the But a close examination of contempo- ness, but whether or not a sinister Tropic of Cancer, well off-shore, about rary newspaper coverage in Maritime plot had "railroaded" Prince Edward 900 nautical miles east of Florida's Canada tells a different story. By the Island into Confederation remained southern tip. Then something - per- early morning of 24 August 1873, the only dark rumour. In late August, haps two things - happened; the inex- August Gale was on a collision course the railway that had so dramatically actness of 1870s meteorology (and for Cape Breton and Prince Edward altered the Island's destiny was far the notorious waywardness of hur- Island. It was a killer, and it would from finished. The Nova Scotian visi- ricanes) allows only speculation. The strike Maritime Canada at the very tor whose "Trip to P. E. Island" began hurricane bent back northeastward, height of the shipping season. serially in the Semi-Weekly Patriot on as it passed over, or maybe along, the 23 August, had traveled strictly by axis of the warm Gulf Stream. It may horse and buggy. But the iron horse also have absorbed another low pres- Landfall was coming. As the rails crept west- sure system moving off the continent. ward from Summerside, supplies and Instead of weakening as it passed over There was a new moon on Friday building materials were stockpiling at the cool waters of the North Atlantic, night. The next morning, 23 August, western ports such as Alberton. the storm intensified, and accelerated. dawned fair and warm on Prince By the early morning of 23 August, it Edward Island, with temperatures Summer waxed golden as the 0 Halifax Reporter's correspondent was well east of New York City, spiral- hovering around 70 Fahrenheit and drank in the pleasures of primitive ling northwards. a gentle breeze from the south-south- Island tourism, promenading on the In trying to reconstruct the path west. But the barometer was already beach and admiring the rich fields of of the August Gale, meteorologists at falling, and as the day wore on, the grain and potatoes: "The tourist from the United States National Hurricane sky grew overcast. Around 4:30, Rev. the Maritime Provinces may travel Centre have long given the hurricane R. W. Dyer, the Anglican minister in many lands ere he beholds a sight a northeasterly track after 23 August. Alberton, set out for Kildare Capes. more magnificent than the agricul- As early as late 1873, the American In his diary that night he noted an tural beauties of this tight little isle." Island farmers were more prosaic in their assessment; 1872 had seen a dismal harvest, but 1873 "never looked more promising/'

A Perfect Storm While politicians blustered and sum- mer dreamed, a hurricane brewed in the equatorial waters off West Africa. By mid-August it was working its way westward across the 15th parallel. As it neared the West Indies, it began

The track historically assigned to the August Gale steers the storm well away from , but a weather map drawn by the U.S. Army Signal Service immediately after the event - and damage reports -suggest a path crossing eastern Nova Scotia.

11 ominous turn in the weather. "It some difficulty, got the waggon [sic] marvelled the Islander, "was the came on to rain, still we went on. and the horse through the stumps blasting character of the wind when ...The wind is increasing: there cer- onto the road again." In a few hours at its height, and the swell of the tainly will be a storm." Saturday he was safely back in Alberton, but tide, the former scorching foliage night's rain was driven by a north- stormy weather, with showers and like frost, and the latter carrying west wind. By dawn on Sunday the a raw northwesterly wind, persisted everything before it in on the land 24th, the rain had stopped; but the through Tuesday. By then, the from fifty to one hundred yards - as wind was moving round easterly, August Gale had moved on. the boldness of the ground might and it freshened into a "half-gale" as Reverend Dyer had only hyper- check or its level admit - beyond the day wore on. The rain came back; bole with which to gauge the force anything ever known before." Over in torrents. Nearly two inches fell in of the gale. The person on the Island and over again, phrases like "never Charlottetown on Sunday and nearly in the best position to measure it before seen," "unprecedented," or four inches would fall before the more precisely was Henry Cundall, "worst in memory" recur in newspa- storm blew itself out. Charlottetown businessman and per reports. The heavy rain kept all but a few local observer for the fledgling By Tuesday, 26 August, the first people from attending Reverend Dominion Meteorological Service. reports of damage had already Dyer's service that Sunday in Miss But for some reason, Cundall had begun to trickle in, eye-witness Travers' parlour at Kildare Capes. taken in his anenometer overnight. accounts and hearsay, spreading on He preached from Romans 8:32: The most he could say was that at 11 the wings of rumour and along hast- "He who did not spare his own Son a.m. on Monday morning the wind ily repaired telegraph lines. In cities but gave him up for us all, will he was blowing at 37 miles per hour. and towns all over the eastern sea- not give us all things with him?" "I Nevertheless, Cundall calculated board there were similar scenes to enjoyed the sermon," he confided to that the storm, "at its highest, could the one played out in Charlottetown his journal, "had a very nice service." not be estimated at less than from in the week after the storm. "During By afternoon, there was too much 50 to 60 miles an hour." Across the the past few days," an Island corre- wind and rain to think of going on harbour at North River, naturalist spondent reported to the Saint John to his Tignish charge. He remained Francis Bain had no anenometer, but Daily News, "the News Room has at Miss Travers', and for the next 24 he did make a precise note of wind been visited by anxious and excited hours, his diary became a running direction at the storm's height. It crowds, and the telegraphs there are commentary on the gale's onslaught. was, he recorded in his diary, a point of the most disastrous character." "Wind increasing," Dyer wrote east of north. that evening. "It is blowing a gale; Barometric pressure was another the trees are blowing to pieces measure of the storm's severity. It Elemental - plums falling to the ground. Oh, took three days, from Thursday eve- how awful! There is no doubt but ning to 10 o'clock on Sunday night, It is difficult for us today to appreci- that there will be an awful loss for Cundall's barometer to fall 0.8 ate what a sea-going society Prince of life and vessels wrecked.... It is inches, levelling off at 29.34. But Edward Island was in 1873. Besides now 10 o'clock p.m., and no abate- Prince Edward Island was clearly not building vessels for export (60 to 130 ment: the house is shaking greatly. in the direct path of the hurricane. At per year), Island shipowners operated Went to bed about 10 or 11 and it North Sydney, the barometer plunged a fleet of almost 400 vessels by the was still blowing a gale." But he did the same distance, from 29.8 to 29 late 1860s, and in 1873, Island-owned not sleep. "Oh, what will become of inches, in only 12 hours on Sunday. shipping neared 70,000-tons. Every the poor fishermen! The Lord have On the Magdalen Islands, where the coastal community had its share of mercy on us." The storm reached its wind blew "with a violence never captains, and both surplus sons and peak shortly after midnight: "About equalled in the experience of the part-time farmers regularly went to 12 o'clock the wind rose higher and oldest frequenters of that coast," the sea. Although business was slipping higher. Oh how the house shook! barometer reportedly bottomed out by the early '70s, Island vessels still Could not sleep. I never felt a house at 28.9 inches. If accurate, these are controlled a healthy share of the shake as Miss Travers' new house remarkable readings. According to regional carrying trade, from sooty did. From 12 until one o'clock it blew modern, metric meteorologists, a fall little schooners carrying coal from almost a hurricane. The trees - apple in barometric pressure of one millibar Cape Breton, to grain-laden brigs trees, plum trees, cherry trees, are per hour for 24 hours is considered a and brigantines, to barques and blown and whipped to death. Plums meteorological "bomb." The reported barquentines and full-rigged ships are lying thick on the ground, and drop in North Sydney between noon plying the timber trade. Since mid- apples too." and midnight on Sunday was 2.25 century, a local fishing industry had By dawn on Monday morning, millibars per hour! emerged as well. Encouraged by free the worst of the gale was over, but Cundall's sober measurement and trade with the United States, Island it was still blowing hard and raining. Dyer's anguished observation were vessels had finally joined the great After breakfast, anxious about his mirrored in the published accounts mackerel fleets that scoured the Gulf family, the intrepid Reverend Dyer of the gale. All across the region of St. Lawrence each summer and set out for home: "Got as far as the news reports shared a common qual- fall. And so, the August Gale caught turning from the shore when I met a ity of astonishment. "The extraor- many Islanders on the water, and any great tree right across the road. With dinary feature about this storm," narrative of the storm's impact on

12 The storm put at risk hundreds of vessels, in particular the huge American mackerel fleet. the province must take into account Near Merigomish, Peake Brothers of quantities of merchandise - flour, the predicament of Island ships and Charlottetown lost their new brig sugar, salt, packages - out onto crews around the region. Zeroni. Three more Island vessels the street. Caught up in the flood- One of those places was the were wrecked in Harbour, tide, drifting timbers smashed into . According to where wind and surf destroyed wharves and walls. the Saint John Daily News, "A great the breakwater, breached the walls A few miles up the coast, number of small schooners belong- of the lighthouse and pushed the Pugwash Harbour provided doubt- ing to Charlottetown are a total lighthouse keeper's cottage off its ful haven for another Island vessel. wreck on the North Shore of Nova foundations. As their outbuildings Late on Saturday evening, the 700- Scotia." The statement was vague, but floated away the keeper and his wife ton ship James Duncan had cleared more or less accurate. As the power- escaped by boat. At Brule Point, in Charlottetown Harbour bound for ful storm winds funnelled through Tatamagouche Bay, Charlottetonian Liverpool. Named for her owner and the Northumberland Strait, they liter- John Hughes' schooner /. /. Marshall the queen of his shipping fleet, she ally piled up a wall of water. Down was driven ashore 100 feet beyond was heavily laden with deals and a at Wood Islands, Angus MacMillan the usual highwater mark. Even miscellaneous cargo of fish, includ- went down to the shore on Sunday there, according to the Patriot, sea- ing 313 cases of an emerging export, night to gauge conditions. "He was weed was carried 10 feet up her canned lobster. The big ship beat on the breakwater," the Island Argus masts and rigging. Captain Lord's lit- out into the Northumberland Strait, explained, "and the tide suddenly tle schooner Mary Kate was aground, but the mounting gale soon forced rising three feet in [a] single wave, though less spectacularly, nearby at Captain Hickham to run for shel- he had to betake himself to the roof Tatamagouche Head. On the other ter on Sunday. "Miraculously," the of a small cookhouse near by, where side of the Malagash peninsula, the James Duncan made it into Pugwash he had to remain for hours, exposed storm surge invaded the seaside Harbour, but even there she wasn't to the pitiless storm, expecting every town of Wallace. By midnight on safe. The flood tide pushed her and minute to be his last." Sunday, the wind had hauled around several other vessels aground on the Where the Strait narrowed, the from north-northeast to north and harbour mud. The same tide washed phenomenon intensified, and the then northwest: "The waves were 30 head of cattle off a small island at combination of hurricane, high tide, immense and white with foam." the mouth of the harbour, and dawn and Friday's new moon produced Along the waterfront, the water on Monday revealed a surreal shore- an unprecedented - and dangerous was three to four feet deep in some line, littered with timber, dead cattle, - storm surge late on Sunday night. stores, as the storm surge washed and soggy merchandise.

North Shore harbours, like the one at Rustico, were especially vulnerable to the storm surge that accompanied the gale

13 The James Duncan would fare drowned when their lobster factory famous. Launched in 1864, she had better than many vessels stranded was caught between fire and flood, made a name for herself in her youth by the August Gale. The soft mud of and at Pointe-du-Chene, the Northern with a series of very quick passages the Pugwash flats protected her hull Hotel was so undermined by waves across the North Atlantic. The August from injury and once her deckload that it toppled off its cliff-top site. Gale found her salvaging a cargo of was removed, she was light enough Meanwhile, a 900-ton American ship, deals from a stranded vessel at North to float clear. She would resume her loaded with deals, was reportedly Cape. Early reports had her wrecked voyage to Liverpool only a week blown ashore into the woods 150 there, but, in fact, running under bare behind schedule. yards above the average high tide poles, she was driven clear across the On the Island side of the Strait, the mark. At Baie Verte, the storm surge Strait, where she ran hard aground gale whipped up a tempest in the lit- breached the ancient Acadian dykes on the south beach at Richibucto. tle teapot of Charlottetown Harbour. and flooded the low-lying marsh- Three of her crew were lost, but the At the eastern end of town, where lands. Even at the western end of the rest were able to leap to safety. an earthen embankment carried the Strait, in Buctouche, the high tide was Maritimers along the Northumber- new railway east and then north in a four to five feet higher than anyone land Strait might be excused for great arc out over a stretch of marshy could ever remember. Here, on the thinking they had borne the brunt of ground, the tracks simply disap- outer fringe of the hurricane, it was the August Gale, but all the evidence peared. Heavy seas smashed through still "one of the most severe storms suggests that the full force of the hur- the embankment, "carrying away ever experienced in this vicinity." ricane was felt in eastern Nova Scotia rails and ties, while the water in the There were several vessels ashore and Cape Breton. In Guysborough depot yard was in places more than a at Buctouche, and over a dozen at County, Canso and Baddeck, dozens foot deep. At the city gas works, the Richibucto, most of them large ves- of buildings - barns, houses, even flood waters reached the doorstep of sels engaged in the timber trade. churches - were blown down as if Manager Murphy's house, and lapped Among those square-riggers was made of straw. Others were moved, against Lea and Gale's sash and door the Island-built barque Undine. Her witnesses swore, 20 to 30 feet off factory on Grafton Street, halfway owner was politician/entrepreneur their foundations. In the same region, between Edward and Cumberland f. C. Pope. A wily survivor in the rat- there were reports of acres of forest Streets. All along the waterfront, the pit of Island politics, he levelled, as if from the shock wave of gale pounded wharves and drove had just led Prince some nuclear explosion. The story at vessels from their moorings. Edward Island into sea was, if anything, worse. The little harbour ferry Elfin Confederation At North Sydney, "a darker, was disabled, and three as premier, and gloomier and wilder night no one schooners ended up ashore that August, he could imagine." Dozens of schooners at Rocky Point. On the was campaign- had taken shelter in its long, narrow east side of the harbour, ing to become harbour. When the wind suddenly the breakers broke right one of the veered around easterly on Sunday over the ferry wharf Island's first evening, it blew straight down the in Southport, washing six federal harbour and sent "a tidal wave ten away its clay in-fill and MPs. The damaging the wharf Undine was timbers. By storm's end almost as (left) J.C. Pope, (below) Undine. it, like almost every other wharf along the Island's southern coast was in ruins. Similar scenes were repeated along the New Brunswick coastline. At Shediac, from which the Charlottetown Steam Navigation Company's side-wheeler Princess of Wales maintained a daily connection to Charlottetown, there was chaos and panic. As the Island Argus laconi- cally put it, "the Princess of Wales had the misfortune to have the railway shed . . . blown over and thrown upon her." The steamer missed her crossing on Monday. She might have fared worse. The railway wharf itself, along with thirteen railcars, and the freight houses, were destroyed, fust to the north, at Caissie's Cape, two men

H Israel Mayo's Summer Vacation

After his summer sojourn on Prince Edward Island; the waters/' The ferocity of the gale gradually eroded Mayo's bra- Halifax Reporter correspondent described the new province vado, and he spent a tense, sleepless night. At the height of the as, "the most delightful spot to spend a week or fortnight's storm, as Mayo and his servant huddled in their upper room, holidays." Israel Mayo, vacationing at his family's fishing sta- they heard a bumping sound repeated above the howl of the tion at North Rustico, formed a somewhat different impres- wind. When Mayo opened the front door, he was amazed to sion. His story which originally appeared in the Gloucester discover a small boat knocking against the side of the build- Telegraph, constitutes the most extended eye-witness ing. The little house atop its piles was a tiny island amid a account of the August Gale. night-dark sea. The North Rustico of 1873 was a clutch of dwellings and By morning, the wind had fallen, but the storm surge con- fish houses built on piles along a sandspit that juts out from tinued in defiance of the normal ebb and flow of tides. Hungry the western entrance to Rustico Bay At noon on Sunday, and cold, Mayo and company foraged for provisions, wading with the wind roughening the waters of the Gulf, "the tide up to their armpits in water to reach the other fishing shacks. began to make very fast." Conditions deteriorated quickly. Mayo even had a chance to visit his horse, which was stabled Later that afternoon, as Mayo was trying to secure a fishing in the unroofed storehouse. What it thought of the storm went boat to the shore, the roof suddenly blew off a nearby store- unrecorded. house, crushing the boat at the other end of his rope. Mayo It was Tuesday before the sea returned to its normal level. By prudently retreated indoors. Mayo's estimation, "the rise of the tide above the ordinary high As darkness came on, the storm surge rose higher and water level was about five feet, and there was a steady flood tide higher, flooding the sandspit and threatening the buildings for twenty-four hours." He obviously had had his filf of adven- there. Most of the fishermen had by now abandoned the ture. Even as the first reports of the storm began to circulate, he area, but Mayo, for the reasons that people in hurricanes do was on his way home to Gloucester. It would be entirely under- such things, decided to stick it out. As a precaution, he and standable if he failed to endorse the anonymous travel writer's his companions moved to an empty house on higher ground. verdict about Rustico: "The view of the Gulf is delightful, the "Below them beachward was a vast expanse of seething bathing magnificent, and the air redolent of health."

*5 Mackerel seiner with dories. Seining meant larger crews and larger schooners, but they were vulnerable to heavy weather. feet high, sweeping toward the docks and 60 at the coal port of Cow Bay that Congressman R. C. Parsons of and wharves/' Vessel after vessel (now Port Morien). At the Magdalen Cleveland had envisaged when he broke loose of its moorings and drift- Islands, where the bulk of the mack- and his son had shipped aboard the ed pell-mell onto shore. A local report- erel fleet had taken refuge, the storm mackerel schooner. Within the week, er struggled heroically to capture the surge reportedly reached eight feet Congressman Parsons was on his way pandemonium of that night: "Houses higher than ever before and 43 to home (apparently by rail) with a rat- were being stript of their doors, shut- 60 mackerel schooners were blown tling good anecdote to regale dinner ters, chimneys; barns unroofed and ashore. guests with back in Cleveland. hay flying through the air; fences fall- Suddenly unsafe harbours wit- But not everyone made it around ing by the miles; lumber rushing over nessed scores of groundings around North Cape or into the relative safety one's head as if alive and possessed the region, but remarkably few of the Magdalen Islands. And if the with wings; and fruit trees, potatoes, deaths. Many of the stranded ves- number of vessels wrecked along the grain being destroyed by the acres. sels were even re-floated, although North Shore was far fewer than in The howl of the storm drowned the even the most dogged salvagers were 1851, the loss of life was proportion- loud cries of the ship-wrecked sailors defeated by how far inland the storm ately much higher. Ever since the scrambling up the cliffs or in terror surge had deposited some of the Yankee Gale, the American mackerel clinging to the rigging. The elements wrecks. Vessels caught at sea were in fleet had trended towards large "clip- were wild, crazy, frenzied, drunk." much graver peril, none more so than per" schooners, fast and sleek, and Among the stranded vessels at vessels trapped by the gale out in with more carrying capacity than North Sydney was the Charlottetown the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Irresistibly, their predecessors. Instead of jigging schooner Margaret fane, which it swept them south towards the for the mackerel, as in the old days, drifted "a considerable distance up August Gale's deadliest coast, the they sent out small boats to encircle the harbour" before fetching up North Shore of Prince Edward Island. whole schools of fish with large nets, at the foot of a steep clay bank. At gradually tightening the noose of that point, the Captain's wife took the seine until the mackerel were matters into her own hands. "Being The North Shore of Home trapped. Bigger vessels and newer anxious," the Islander reported in methods entailed larger crews. an admirable understatement, Mrs. In 1851, a sudden storm had smashed Where the jiggers had carried eight McDonald "ventured on a leap for the American mackerel fleet against to ten crewmen, the clipper schoo- her life, and cleared the vessel some the northern coast of Prince Edward ners generally needed 17 or 18, more twenty feet up the bank at a bound. Island, wrecking between 75 and no than many brigs and barques. And She alighted with safety and unin- vessels. On the day before the August that, in turn, increased the potential jured." The reporter failed to record Gale, the captain of the Undine for tragedy because the price for whether or not Mrs. McDonald reported, there were 100 vessels off speed and capacity was sea-worthi- accomplished her Olympian bound the Island's northern tip. But 1873 ness in heavy weather. The larger in or out of her skirts. was no Yankee Gale. Most of these schooners did not sail well into the Warned by weather and their fall- vessels had either run for shelter in wind, and if they lost their canvas, ing barometers, many vessels had the Magdalen Islands or weathered they were especially vulnerable. beaten the August Gale into port, North Cape, putting the low bulk The August Gale grimly illustrat- but it didn't seem to matter how of western Prince County between ed the risk. At least two American secure the anchorage was. The gale themselves and the rising storm. schooners wrecked near the rocky overwhelmed whole fleets of vessels Among the latter was the Laura A. hook of North Cape Reef. Among the at their anchors. Around 30 vessels Dodd} which rode out the August 17 men lost on the Carrie P. Rich of ended up ashore at North Sydney, Gale at anchor off West Point. It Provincetown, Massachusetts was 23 at Pictou, somewhere between 43 was not the sort of sailing vacation her master, 42-year-old John McLeod

16 of Park Corner (sometimes referred waterlogged and dismasted, her hold captain, crew, and former owner to as "Johnnie GarlancT); whose body filled with cod. In the cabin search- hauled themselves ashore through was recovered at Miminegash. The ers found three bodies, evidently the sucking undertow, "saving noth- body of crew mate John Gillespie brothers: two men and a boy. The ing but what they stood in." of New London washed ashore near boy was still in his bunk, partly Hardly had that ordeal played out Tignish; 26 miles away. Another undressed. The rest of the 12-man when a much larger vessel crashed 18 men were lost nearby on the crew, all Shankels and Corkums ashore nearby. She was the barque Gloucester schooner C. C. Dame. from around LaHave, Nova Scotia, Alan, out of Padstow, England, And two Kings County men, John had been swept overboard. bound from Montreal with a cargo McPhee of Glencorrodale; Lot 46, and There were Island vessels, too, of grain. Of eleven sailors, only John McKinnon of Goose River, were in the fishery. Like Congressman four made it safely to shore. It was among the 18-man crew of a second Parsons, Charlottetown bookkeeper Captain MacDonald of the Dominion, Gloucester vessel, the James G. Tarr. A Montague Aldous had made an adrenaline still racing from his own few pieces of that schooner, and two unfortunate vacation choice. Having shipwreck, who plunged into the bodies, came ashore at Campbellton, just sold his fishing schooner surf to rescue the Alans boatswain. Lot 4. Three vessels, 53 deaths. Dominion to his brother[?] John, he Never, MacDonald marvelled to the There was another cluster of was evidently tagging along on a Charlottetown Patriot afterwards, wrecks around East Point at the summer cruise aboard his former had he seen such a sea in the Gulf. opposite end of the Island, although vessel. Around noon on Sunday, By month's end, Aldous was back reports leave it unclear exactly how as the gale began to rise, Captain to the safety of his ledgers, his life many vessels were lost there. One MacDonald of the Dominion wore no longer in the balance. Captain of them was the mackerel schooner the vessel's head north and hove to MacDonald's heroism went unre- Angle S. Friend of Gloucester, which out in the Gulf. On Monday after- warded, if not unremarked. Back on foundered at her anchors with the noon, canvas all torn, she was forced Hog Island, the Dominion was aban- loss of her entire 14-man crew. to run before the storm and was cast doned, buried in sand right up to According to another eye-witness away on Hog Island, the narrow her scuppers. The irony of that fate - account, "A brigantine [more likely a range of sandhills that blocks the given her name - was probably lost schooner] with 17 men on board was entrance to Malpeque Bay. While the on the province's anti-Confederates. struck by a sea off the east point of Dominion wallowed in the pounding Besides the Alan, there were five Prince Edward Island and was over- surf, her crew tied a line to a barrel other square-riggers wrecked along turned. When she righted the spars and heaved it overboard. It washed the North Shore by Tuesday morn- were gone clear out of her, the hull ashore, where four men "who ing. Aside from the 720- was driven on the rocks and every had been detained there ton Liverpool barque soul on board perished." The name by the storm" made Muscongus, ashore at of the vessel "could not be ascer- the rope fast. Stanhope with her cargo tained." One by one, ^ of lumber, the rest were The Americans weren't the only hand over ' '% , locally owned, more proof of ones fishing mackerel in the Gulf hand, £\V*i/ft ' %K how much the Island's great that summer of 1873. The vessels ipowning families had ashore around Cavendish included invested in the car- the schooner Bonnie Jean, three rying trade. Perhaps weeks out from Port Medway, Nova the greatest ship- Scotia. She was a total wreck, owning family of her 10-man crew all drowned: all, the Yeos of Port "These were all young men Hill, had launched and the only supports of a pair of barques widowed mothers on 9 August. Now, aged parents/7 The barely two weeks schooner Thetis later, both were wrecks. James Yeo's was picked Edith, 292 tons, was up off New ^ ashore at Malpeque, London, while his brother John's Maggie, 260 tons, had ended up "high and dry" on

'^^ > v 17 Cascumpec Sandhills at the entrance to Alberton Harbour. A little dis- tance away lay R. T. Holman's well- known brig Kewadin. The canny Summerside merchant; soon to become a household word on Prince Edward Island as owner of the prov- ince's first department store chain; had been using the Kewadin to trans- port rails for the new railroad. R. T. Holman and John Yeo were com- paratively lucky Not only were the crews of their vessels saved, but the wrecks themselves were eventually re-floated - Yeo actually bought the Maggie back from its salvager. By November, both were back at sea. The Kewadin was one of two rail- carriers that Reverend Dyer saw off Alberton when he set out for Kildare Capes on Saturday the 23rd. The other was the Faith, a Welsh brig owned by Captain William Richards of Bideford, the Yeos; brother-in-law. It would be another 119 years before Charlottetown waterfront 1878. The gales storm surge swept away the railway curious scuba divers solved the riddle embankment and covered the grounds of the City Gas Works. of her fate. In the desperate darkness of that Sunday night, as the Faith about the number of vessels and lost "with all hands," the total might rode out the storm at her anchors just lives lost in the August Gale. "We easily be closer to 150. outside Alberton Harbour, her cargo hear today of great loss of life," Nor is there any reliable casu- of steel rails broke free in the hold, Reverend Dyer recorded in his jour- alty count for the region as a whole. smashing through the brig's hull a nal on Tuesday, the 26th. "Some say The most frequently cited source, quarter of the way down the port-side 18, some say 40, others more; in fact a report out of Washington, D.C., bow. She sank in seconds. There were no one knows yet how many were dated October 1873, estimated 1,032 no survivors. lost." Newspapers dealt in a similar vessels, including 435 small fishing And so it went, as the chitter- currency: rumour and speculation. schooners, "known to have been ing telegraph spelled out its terse By 31 August, the New York Times destroyed in the neighbourhood of stories of shipwreck and loss, and was reporting 40 vessels lost on the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the newspapers retailed them for read- the Island's North Shore, with only Atlantic shores of Nova Scotia, Cape ers around the region and across the 18 lives saved, although it rightly Breton and Newfoundland." The continent. By October stories about doubted the latter figure. The Saint reported number of deaths was 223, the great gale had finally petered John Daily News for 1 September although the study conceded that out. There were new headlines, as the was closer to the mark, claiming 500 would be a more accurate figure. Pacific Scandal slowly capsized the that 27 vessels were ashore on the Whatever the actual figures might Conservative government in Ottawa Island. In fact, extant sources list 25 have been, the vast scale of the disas- and the Great Panic on the New York named vessels lost on Island coasts, ter was unmistakable. Stock Exchange triggered a world- and even allowing for double-count- By the time the Charlottetown wide recession. But the sea continued ing among the unidentified wrecks, Patriot re-printed the damage report to provide its own postscripts. The it is likely that there were probably from Washington on 25 October, the body of a man was discovered on the another 9. most visible scars from the August beach at East Point on 18 September: The number of deaths is even Gale on Prince Edward Island had "He was very tall and well dressed, harder to calculate. In making a plea begun to heal. The bodies had been but his body was so mutilated that he the following year for more light- buried. A surprising number of the could not be recognized. A book was houses on Island coasts, two Island stranded vessels had been re-floated. found in his pocket in which was the MPs referred to 200 boats and schoo- Even the railway was running. In name 'Charles Christnel/ It was sup- ;/ ners and 200 lives lost at sea during mid-September, a small train car- posed he belonged to Cape Ann. 1873. They might be forgiven this rying 250 excursionists toured the exaggeration; these were, after all, finished section of track between political speeches. Current research Charlottetown and Summerside. The Storm Wrack suggests that at least 115 people crops had recovered, too, and it was were killed in Island waters during a much better harvest than anyone As with most i9th-century storms, the August Gale, and given the num- had ever expected in the immediate there was considerable confusion ber of unnamed vessels supposed aftermath of the storm. The heaviest damage was on the east- article. Wives are weeping for their fact, by 1900, when the first writ- ern waterfront. The seas reached all husbands. . . ; sisters are mourning ten recollections of the Gale began the way to Lea and Gale's sash and for brothers; and little children ask, in to appear, numerous descriptive door factory on Grafton Street. plaintive tones, 'Why does not father elements from the August Gale had come home?;,; Sentimental language been appropriated for the telling of was hardly necessary to encompass the Yankee Gale. Written accounts the scope of the disaster. At the now incorporated descriptions of time, it was the single deadli- coastal flooding and crops blighted ?Ik e s t storm in the history of by the salt spray. There is none of the Gloucester fishing fleet. this in the newspaper coverage of In all, 128 men died. As the Yankee Gale in 1851, but the Proctor lamented, "Many newspapers of 1873 are rife with of these were among such details. The arc of memory was the best skippers and not so much broken, then, as bent smartest fishermen of to serve the story of another storm the port." at another time. Time completed the process begun by economic and social change. And so, when North The Arc of Memory Shore communities began publish- ing their histories in the 1970s, the Getting its details wrong August Gale was almost entirely but its analogy right, the absent. N Islander for 5 September The August Gale has been better 1873 claimed, "No such sum- remembered in Nova Scotia, though mer storm has been known it is often confused with another to have occurred since 1852 [sic], "August Gale," this one on 24 August when two hundred sail of fishermen 1927. But even there, in the storm were wrecked on the north side of surge of media coverage that accom- Not all the damage could be so the Island." Indeed, the August Gale panied in the fall of easily or quickly mended. For the remains the second deadliest storm 2003, there was practically no refer- owners of shipwrecked and damaged in Island history. And yet, like the ence to the one storm in Maritime vessels, even if insured, the gale was storm itself, the memory of the history that most closely paralleled it. a heavy blow, since it deprived them August Gale soon died out on Prince The rapid subsidence of the August of their living at a crucial time of the Edward Island. Unlike the Yankee Gale in popular memory seems year. The damage inflicted on the Gale, it inspired no poems, no paint- astounding. Perhaps it shouldn't. Gloucester fishing fleet, the region's ings, no articles, and precious few Historical, especially folk historical, largest, topped $100,000. Of 138 ves- stories. Long before rapid modern- amnesia is nothing new, even if it sels at risk, nine were lost with all ization broke the chain of memory does a disservice to the past. It does hands, and another 32 vessels were that once anchored Island culture raise intriguing questions about the driven ashore, although only 5 of to its past, the August Gale began to nature of memory: what we remem- these were total losses. As the New blur in popular memory. ber and why, and how that memory York Times observed, "The direct In some measure, events con- is shaped over time. Severe trauma money loss does not seem great, spired against the storm's recol- scars individual psyches, and for a but it must be remembered that the lection. While shipbuilding and generation or so, the outline of that disaster came in the middle of the seafaring enjoyed a long twilight scar is still visible in a family or fishing season, and that nearly one in Maritime Canada, the age of community, but it fades away unless half of the Gloucester fleet was lost sail on Prince Edward Island faded reinforced by the larger society. For or disabled. The mackerel fishery quickly. The shipbuilding industry, societies tend only to remember being one of the chief industries of rebounding strongly in 1873, c°l~ things that serve a purpose. In an the town, it is evident that the calam- lapsed entirely over the space of age that has largely divorced itself ity will prove to be very serious." three years in the late '70s. And even from the perils of the sea, and a place And nothing, of course, could as Confederation shrank Islanders' where hurricanes are a news clip replace lost lives. Down in self-importance, the shipping indus- from somewhere else, the story of the Gloucester, the Fishermen's Own try dwindled greatly in the closing August Gale has no ready purpose. Memorial and Record Book was decades of the century. By 1900, It's no morality tale, as the Yankee already on the presses when word of except in the inshore lobster fishery Gale began, about impiety, no storm the August Gale fell on the town "like only a handful of Islanders went warning of annual risk, no store- a clap of thunder from a cloudless down to the sea in ships. house for needful nautical lore. It is a sky.;; Victorian pathos coloured pub- But there is more to it than that. It distant nightmare, remembered, if at lisher George Proctor's hurried adden- is almost as if there is room in folk all, for its entertainment value. dum to his book: "Day by day the sad memory for only one great storm. Until the next time. news came, and there is mourning For Islanders, that storm has always throughout the town as we pen this been the Yankee Gale of 1851. In

19 Sources longer extant, several of these off-Island larly indebted to local researcher Joseph papers published "special reports" from Malone, who volunteered his time and This article began as a twice-given talk Prince Edward Island. The Sessional expertise during the initial phase of the in the 1996 Island Lecture Series. Many Papers published in the Canadian project. Besides sharing photocopies other projects have intervened since, and Parliamentary Proceedings for 1874 and of material from the St. John's Courier it has taken eight years - and Hurricane 1875 provide an incomplete but valuable and Harbour Grace Standard, Alan Juan - to coax me back to the topic. cross-reference, both in the Department Ruffman of Geomarine Associates Ltd. While the August Gale shows up occa- of Marine and Fisheries' published list in Halifax has been enormously help- sionally on internet sites, one of the only of wrecks and its record of vessels regis- ful in providing contextual material on printed accounts is New Brunswicker tered at Maritime ports in 1874. Atlantic tropical storms, putting me in Eric Allaby;s centennial compilation, The There are glimpses from other prima- touch with "extreme weather event" August Gale (Saint John: New Brunswick ry sources as well. The American Consul experts, and using his own irrepress- Museum, 1973), which draws upon vari- in Charlottetown dealt with American ible interest and expertise to help fix a ous Maritime newspapers, as well as the wrecks on Prince Edward Island more accurate track for the hurricane. I Lloyd's Lists for its catalogue of wrecks. (PARO 3024/3), while George Proctor's have drawn in particular on two papers Back in Number 32 of The Island Fishermen's Own Memorial and Record that he has delivered: "Hurricanes of Magazine, Allan J. MacRae recounted Book, published just after the storm, Renown," public lecture at the Maritime the loss - and discovery - of the Faith. provides a contemporary account of Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, 21 Of the newspapers published on the losses in Gloucester, Massachusetts. September 2004; and "The Forgotten Prince Edward Island in 1873, only the Island shipping registers (available at and Misplotted Hurricane of August Semi-Weekly Patriot, the Island Argus, the Robertson Library, UPEI, as well as 24-26, 1873," Maritime Moments of the and the Summerside Journal (after 1 the Public Archives) helped me diagnose Millennium, Annual Conference and September) are still extant. But the the number of Island wrecks. The let- General Meeting, Canadian Nautical August Gale was widely reported, and terbooks of James Duncan & Company Research Society, Ottawa, 8-10 June, more of the Island story can be pieced (PARO 2654/358) provided details about 2000. Among those extreme weather together by a close reading of storm the James Duncan's narrow escape. experts, I dealt happily in the mid-1990s coverage in off-Island newspapers. It Diaries have been useful, too. Henry with Edward N. Rappaport, now Deputy was front-page news, for example, in Cundall (PARO 3473/1); L. C. Owen Director of the National Hurricane the New York Times, which followed (PARO, HF.3466/HF.71.12.2), and Dr. Centre in Miami, and Jim Abraham the story for weeks through telegraphed John Mackieson (PARO 2353/340-359) of the Maritimes Weather Centre in reports from Nova Scotia. I have also are regrettably terse, but Carter Jeffrey Halifax. In recent years, distinguished been able to consult The Times of directed my attention to the far more marine author John Rousmaniere shared London, the Montreal Gazette, the Globe vivid entries in the journals of Rev. R. his expertise about gauging meteoro- and Mail, the Saint John Daily News, W. Dyer (PARO 3251/1), while Dr. Doug logical "bombs." That they may well Fredericton's New Brunswick Reporter, Sobey reminded me to consult the elo- disagree with my conclusions about the Le Moniteur Acadien (Shediac), the St. quent journal of naturalist Francis Bain track of the Gale merely shows that the John's Courier and the Harbour Grace (PARO 2353/95). storm needs still more attention from Standard. Besides re-printing stories Many other individuals have also con- weather experts rather than amateurs from Island newspapers that are no tributed to my knowledge. I am particu- such as me.

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