|
Nature of Casualty
Abandoned after trapped in ice. Vessel survived crush of 1871 and was taken in tow by bark
Florence in July 1872. Later it was cut adrift in bad weather, ran aground, and lost. 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 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. New York Times 10-31-1872
1872: Twenty-five miles north of the Mary, the Seneca was frozen into a cake of ice. She was in
relatively good condition with her mast standing, but with her "bowsprit gone, bulwarks stove and
rudder carried away.".... 1872: Captain Williams put Herendeen charge of the Minerva and then moved
on to the Seneca, just as the ice surrounding her was beginning to break up. He took the Seneca in
tow and was heading south when a strong northwesterly came up. Williams had to cut the Seneca
loose to save his own ship. The Seneca went ashore and was lost; nevertheless, the Florence and the
Minerva arrived in San Francisco in October with a combined cargo of 1,300 barrels of whale oil and
$10,000 worth of baleen -- as well as walrus oil and ivory. Bockstoce, John R., Whales, Ice, and Men:
The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic, University of Washington Press, Seattle Washington,
1986:163, 165
|
