Nature of Casualty
Abandoned after trapped in ice and crushed. Tornfelt, Evert E., Burwell, Michael, Shipwrecks of the
Alaskan Shelf and Shore, U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Alaska OCS
Region, 1992
The five northernmost ships, the Roman, Comet, Concordia, Gay Head, and George, were completely
surrounded. Slightly to the south the John Wells, Massachusetts, Contest, J. D. Thompson, Henry
Taber, Fanny, Monticello, and Elizabeth Swift were not as tightly gripped... Masses of whaleboats
were already heading south, relaying provisions to the ships in clear water, when on Wednesday, the
thirteenth, the ice crushed the bark Fanny and dragged the bark George past the Gay Head, smashing
her jib-boom on the way. Bockstoce, John R., Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the
Western Arctic, University of Washington Press, Seattle Washington, 1986:154, 157-158
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