The Mary A. Hall Ashore

New York, 1895

At daybreak Tuesday morning a youth named Ernest Beebe, living on Orient Point, discovered a large three-masted schooner fast on the rocks close to the shore. The stranded vessel was the Mary A. Hall of New York, Capt. M. N. Veazie, with a cargo of lumber. She was in no immediate danger, and, as the sea was running high, no attempt was made to reach her, nor did any of those aboard try to get ashore.

After a while the captain wrote a message on a shingle and cast it overboard. It was soon washed ashore, and proved to be a message to Capt. Scott of New London asking for a tug.


Suing a Blacksmith for Slander

John and Forrest Abrew, feed merchants at Islip, have begun suit for $1,000 damages for slander against Israel Conklin, a blacksmith at East Islip. The case grows out of a business transaction and some uncomplimentary remarks which Conklin made concerning the methods of the Abrew brothers.


A Teacher's Alleged Cruelty

Complaint has been made to members of the board of education in Whitestone, that Miss Edith Armstrong, a teacher in the grammar department of the public school, has been ill-treating some of the pupils, and the matter will be brought up for investigation at the next meeting of the board.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 22, 1895, p. 1.

MacMillan Party Intact

1916

Battle Harbor, Labrador, Sept. 8. — The Grenfell Mission schooner George B. Cluett, which went to the relief of the Donald B. MacMillan Arctic expedition in July 1915, has returned here, Only Captain H. C. Pickles and the crew are aboard, MacMillan, Dr. E. O. Hovey, who led the relief expedition, and the other scientists of the party having elected to remain for a time in the northern part of Greenland.

The MacMillan party wintered aboard the Cluett in Parker Snow Bay east of Etah and Captain Pickles reports that on July 28, 1916, when the Cluett left North Star Bay, Greenland, about twenty miles north of the expedition's winter quarters, all the party were in good health and had an abundance of supplies.

The MacMillan party were joined by Knud Rasmussen, the Danish explorer, who has been engaged in that region in mapping out the coast, and it is understood that they will return by way of Denmark.

The Cluett was just able to get clear of her anchorage through a narrow lane of ice, and after four weeks of battling with heavy ice, reached open water at a point about the latitude of Durban Harbor, forty miles north of Cape Dyer. Throughout August fog and southerly head winds prevailed. The hull of the Cluett on her arrival here appeared to be in good shape, in spite of the hard winter through which she passed, and her buffeting by the ice on her trip south. Her engine has been out of commission since last October and her propeller shaft and rudder chains are broken.

The crew seems to be in good shape, despite the shortage of food and other hardships through which they passed. The winter's diet of salt horse and bread was varied by a supply of birds and sea pigeons, which were netted in large numbers, and whale, sea walrus and Polar bear meat.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6.

No Use for $1,500,000 Fund

1916

Original Bequest Was Made to Aid Needy Immigrants.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri. — This city is trying to find some way in which it can make use of a fund of $1,500,000, which for many years has been growing continually but at present is utterly useless to anybody. It is known as the Mullanphy immigrant relief fund.

Bryan Mullanphy in 1851 bequeathed to the city one-third of his estate for the relief of poor immigrants on their way to homes in the West. The original bequest amounted to $500,000, but it has grown to $1,500,000, most of which is invested in tenement-house property, bringing in an annual income of approximately $38,000. Last year the trustees were able to spend only $2,141 for the stipulated relief.

Sixty years ago, in the days of the prairie schooner, the Mullanphy fund was very welcome and proved a blessing to the stranded immigrants, who were enabled to resume their journeys with new hopes. As the years went by, the stream of immigrants grew smaller. In time the western trails became busy highways, winding thru prosperous farming communities. The covered wagons of the immigrant bound for the West became so scarce that they were a novelty. The need for a fund to aid immigrants finally virtually ceased to exist.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

Schooner Is Saved By 13-Year-Old Boy

1920

Stays at Helm and Guides Leaking Ship to Port

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Jan. 1. — A twenty-four hours' battle with death ended here with the arrival of the little schooner S. N. Castle, a 13-year-old boy at the helm, bringing to safety his father, the captain, his sick mother and a crew of three men.

The Castle, a three-masted schooner, was ninety-four days from Apia with a cargo of copra. Three days from the Samoan port the Castle started leaking and shipping seas at the rate of twelve feet a day. The donkey engine was started to run the pumps and the cargo of copra fed as fuel.

Harry Anderson, 13, manned the ship, while his father worked with the men at the pumps.

Wave Tosses Fisherman Out of Dory in Storm

1915

Victim of Accident Drowns Out From Boston

BOSTON, Mass., Dec. 16 — Just as the fishing schooner Elk, Capt. Patrick Murphy, arrived at the Fish Pier, South Boston, in the gray of dawn the other morning, with her colors at half-mast, Philip Kusa, aged 24, one of two men lost from the schooner a fortnight ago during a gale on Browns' Bank, came in aboard the Yarmouth steamer, reporting that his dorymate, Gordon Goodwin, aged 22, of East Publico, Mass., had been washed from his dory and drowned.

The drowned man was a brother of Griffin Goodwin of the schooner Flavilla.

The Elk had been fishing on Browns' for several days. One morning recently, the dorymen, fishing two in a boat, were out hauling trawls. At sundown, Kusa, making his first fishing trip, and Goodwin failed to report aboard.

There was a high wind blowing and a terrific sea. Captain Murphy sailed about searching for the two men, but without success.

Meanwhile the two dorymen were battling with a terrible sea. Their little boat was tossed about like an eggshell. Finally a vicious wave washed Goodwin clean out of the boat, while Kusa clung on for dear life.

Unable to do anything to save his companion young Kusa clung to his boat and watched his companion sink. All that night he was tossed about by the waters and all next day. About 5 o'clock that night, weak from lack of food and drink and unnerved by the fearful experience of seeing Goodwin drown, Kusa was picked up by the schooner Pauline.

The schooner landed him at Shelbourne and he secured passage to this port.