Tag: shipwreck

Posted on

Capt. Charles John Bloomquist of the Sophia

In the midst of the 1918 Influenza epidemic and World War One, another big marine disaster occurred in the cold waters of the Lynn Canal.

Capt. Charles John Bloomquist was a passenger on the night of the grounding of the Sophia. The story of the Princess Sophia loss on October 24, 1918 in a blinding snowstorm, has been well documented, with a number of White Pass employees onboard heading back to Victoria for the end of the season. One report in the Daily Colonist on November 3, 1918, stated that only 2 of the victims drowned, the rest suffocated in the crude oil spilling from the ship.

I was curious to know a bit more about the Swedish Captain Bloomquist. He was born in 1867 in Stockholm, Sweden and came to Canada in 1883. He lived with his wife, Catherine at Shawnigan Lake, a small farming community 28 miles north of Victoria. He was listed there in the 1909 directory of Vancouver Island, also he kept a room at the Dominion Hotel in Victoria.  He left behind 4 sisters but no children.

He had worked for 20 years on the boats in the Yukon. He was the master of the White Pass Steamboat Dawson.  Before that he had worked for the Canadian Government on the Quadra and the Sir James Douglas.

The Princess Alice brought many of the bodies back to Victoria on the 12 of November 1918. On November 15 he was buried in Victoria with the Victoria Columbia Masonic Lodge as pallbearers. Rev. F.A.B. Chadwick gave the service. Catherine is buried with him at the Ross Bay Cemetery, she died November 27, 1969 at the age of 92! Here is a picture that Anne Scott made of the grave in Victoria! Posted on Find A Grave for this story – Thank you so Much Anne!!!

 

from the Daily Colonist October 29, 1918

Posted on

Dr. Richard M. Allen

Dr. Richard M. Allen was in Skagway in the winter of 1897 as seen in the photo above. He is in the dark outfit leaning on the post. His descendent, Natalie Gohrband kindly allowed me to post this previously unseen family photo. Family lore says he died on a shipwreck at the Kuskokwim River in 1899, but it could have been on the Jessie which sank there in 1898. It was described in a book by Gordon Newell titled the Shipwrecks of 1899, so that may be the source of the confusion.

The Jessie swamped in turbulent water at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River on June 28, 1898. Rev. Welsh and 18 miners from the Columbia Exploration Company were believed to have been massacred by the Yupik Natives or lost in the wreck. One person, a trader called Ling survived and sent word to St. Michael of the shipwreck.

 

http://www.alaska.boemre.gov/ref/ships/2011_shipwr/2011_Shipwreck.pdf;

Posted on

George S. Black

Another Skagway Sleuth sent me this nice photo of the grave of George S. Black buried in Fairbanks at Birch Hill Cemetery, plot: Pioneer 2, tier: 2 , row: 7.

Here is the previous story in the blog on him:

http://www.skagwaystories.org/2011/09/george-s-black.html

Posted on

Princess Kathleen part two


Gordon Newell wrote this very interesting narrative of the sinking of the Cruise Ship Princess Kathleen in 1952:
“Death of a Princess
The loss of the S.S. Princess Kathleen on September 7, 1952 was the most recent and best-remembered disaster to a large cruise ship in Pacific Northwest waters. It occurred in the waters of a notorious ships’ graveyard north of Juneau, not far from where the Island went down in 1901 , the Union Steamship Company’s Cutch in 1900 and the Princess Sophia that slipped off Vanderbilt reef in 1918, carrying all 343 persons aboard to their deaths.
It was three o’clock in the morning when the Kathleen, steaming at normal cruising speed through the light rain, struck almost without warning on the rocky shore. The first officer, who had charge of the watch, was unable to explain why the ship was a mile and a half off course.
The SOS was promptly flashed on the air, but on the wrong frequency. [What the ?!?!]
After two hours without an answer it occurred to someone to check on the situation and a ship-to-shore telephone call was placed to the Alaska Communication System, after which a nearby Coast Guard cutter hastened to the scene, arriving at 6 a.m.
Although the Princess Kathleen remained high on her rocky perch for nearly twelve hours after her stranding, no apparent effort was made to seal off her hull from the sea, nor was any of the passenger’s baggage removed. At 2:40 p.m. the incoming tide floated the liner briefly, but she filled fast, slipping back until she literally stood on her stern, then slipped under 90 feet of water.
The unhappy passengers filed damage suits for the loss of personal property-clothes, jewelery, watches, luggage, cameras-which all went down with the ship, the claims averaging over a thousand dollars per person. CPR attorneys, however, quoted that interesting provision of admiralty law which limits the liability of shipowners ‘to the value of the vessel at the termination of the voyage’ (which was zero, since the Kathleen was a total loss), plus her ‘pending freight,’ which consisted mostly of the fares paid by the passengers for a voyage that was never completed. [what clever attorneys!!]

Eventually the company refunded the fares paid and settled property losses at the rate of $200 per passenger. Although there were those who felt they had received their money’s worth in having taken part in a spectacular and much-publicized shipwreck, a good many of the Princess Kathleen’s passengers view her last voyage, to this very day, as an extremely high-priced lesson in the vagaries of maritime law.”

Newell: “Pacific Coast Liners” 1959.

Posted on

Princess Kathleen


The Cruise Ship Princess Kathleen was built in Glasgow in 1924 and went through the Panama Canal in 1925 on route to her “triangle service” between Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria. The King and Queen traveled aboard Princess Kathleen en route to Victoria in 1939.
In 1949 she started her Inside Passage runs and was the preferred cruise ship that could carry 1800 passengers and 30 automobiles.
Unfortunately on September 7, 1952 the Princess Kathleen ran aground at Lena Point in Alaska’s Lynn Canal at low tide; it was later determined that radar was not operational at the time of the grounding. The United States Coast Guard was alerted two hours later and a rescue cutter arrived at 0630. The crew tried to reverse off Lena Point, however as the tide rose, her stern became swamped. All passengers and crew were transferred to lifeboats and ashore as she slid into deeper water and then sank.
The wreck of Princess Kathleen sits in approximately 50 ft -100 ft of water and is accessible to divers, however, tides and currents in the vicinity of Lena Point are strong. The wreck contains approximately 155,000 US gallons of Number 6 fuel oil and in April 2010 crews began operations to salvage the fuel in advance of a possible catastrophic leak.

Posted on

A “Superb” Disaster


On this famous date of the Titanic disaster, here is a local marine disaster. I first saw a number of deaths on the 4th of July 1914 and for years tried to find out about what happened. You will not find this story anywhere else.

On the evening of July 3, 1914 a few young guys in Skagway decided that they did not want to spend the holiday in town, but instead go to the big city, Juneau. So they piled in the little gas-powered boat “Superb” piloted by Captain George Black. On the 3rd of July at 9 p.m it was still light, and would be for another two hours. As they sped away from the dock, these 20 men waved goodbye to their friends as a light wind from the south picked up. By the time they passed Haines and got to Seduction Point, they were making little headway in the fierce south wind. Capt. Black decided to turn around and head for Haines where they pulled in about 1 am. There, 4 passengers off-loaded and 4 other passengers, including Myrtle Burlington, an African-American woman known as the “Smoked Swede” got onboard. At 2 am they decided to push on to Skagway, only 12 miles away. Capt. Black crossed Lynn Canal and tried to stay close to the east side. When they got to about a half mile south of Sturgill’s wood mill, the boat lurched throwing the passengers to the port side. Now the boat flipped over throwing everyone into the dark water. This was at 4 am and dawn was just beginning, but they were in the shadow of the mountains. Three men who were sleeping below were barely able to get out, Mr. Orchard broke a window to get out, badly cutting his hand.
The shock of the cold water must have been bitter, but once their clothes became waterlogged it was all they could do to cling onto the sides of the overturned boat as it drifted out away from shore. By now, Jud Matthews tried to save the Austrian, Amerena and Myrtle by tearing off her clothes and hooking her arm onto the boat. Tom Running finally decided to swim to shore and once he reached Sturgill’s, he ran back through the woods, losing the trail, to town where he got Charles Rapuzzi and Wirt Aden as well as Tom Ryan who headed out in boats. It was now 6:30 am. When they reached the boat which was now clearly seen from shore, the only survivors were Arthur Boone, Sam Radovitch, Orchard, Cassie Kossuth (see earlier blog), Jud Matthews, Peterson, and George Black. Rescuers recovered the body of John Logan and searched for the other 11 all day, cancelling the town’s festivities.
Lost were: Stanley Dillon, age 18, Henry Bernhofer, age 27, John Eustace Bell, Oscar Carlson, Bob Saunders, Lynch, Sam Rodas, Myrtle Burlington, Thomas Mateurin, Monte Price and Nicholas Amerena.
Later that day when it was realized the bodies had sunk to the depths of the ocean, the search was called off. Because so many people had come to town for the baseball games and the dance it was decided to go ahead with those events.

A few days later there was an editorial questioning why there was not an inquest into the accident, but it would seem there was none. Seen above is the scene of the accident, on a calm day.

from the Skagway Alaskan of July 5, 1914.