Nature of Casualty
Abandoned after trapped in ice. In 1872, found 5 miles South of Point Belcher. 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 Bringhampton Republican publishes the following private letter from Capt. William H. Kelley, of the
that city, who was Captain of one the fleet of whalers deserted in the ice Point Belcher a year ago, and
is again in the Arctic in command of a vessel: The Reindeer sank and the Florida lies ashore on
Sea-Horse Islands, burned to the water's edge; and all the rest of the fleet were either carried away by
the ice or crushed to pieces in shapeless masses, or burned by the natives.....the bark Seneca (brother
Ned's vessel) was dragged by the ice up the coast some distance - her bowsprit gone, bulwarks stove
and rudder carried away. she was then frozen in solid, and so they found; she will probably be saved if
she is not stove..... Since writing the above I have seen the Seneca. I don't believe she will be got off.
She lies high aground and on her beam ends. The hull of the Champion lies two miles south of her; the
Reindeer still further south; only the Minerva will be saved. New York Times 10-31-1872
1872: The Reindeer was bilged and over on her beam ends. Next they found, upside down, to hulks
that they could not identify.... Ned Herendeen set to work at once on the best ship, the Minerva. They
chopped the ice out of her hold, took out what remained of her cargo, thus lightened, they got her
afloat and at anchor. They refitted her with some new gear and sails, bought all the baleen they could
from the natives, and collected the oil that had washed ashore in casks from the Reindeer and
Champion. The other ships took some gear and cargo from the wrecks. No records remain of the
Eustace's and Francis Palmer's salvage. Bockstoce, John R., Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of
Whaling in the Western Arctic, University of Washington Press, Seattle Washington, 1986:163-165
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