Page 10 - Wreck of the 'Marshall Frank'

ISSUE : Issue 31

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1982/6/1

ARTHUR AND SARA SEVERANCE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 We always suspected they were looking for a good safe resting place for her. And she found it, right alongside of the Winging Point Rock. The smoothest weather--of course, foggy, thick fog. They must have had some pretty good navigation for to land her in there that day. All they had to do was put a gangplank from the ship to the rock and walk ashore, walk to the rock. Sara: I have the stool that the captain was sitting on, from the wheelhouse--he brought it down to me as a souvenir. I had the cook, and he said to me, "You wait," he said, "I'm going to get up to the ship. I know where there's a lot of food," he said. "I'll bring it down." He went up, and he brought a pan with a lovely meat loaf in it. I still have that pan, and I bake bread in it. Arthur: She was supposed to be coming down to Louisbourg. She had made a few trips carrying coal from Louisbourg up to Hali? fax. She did her part in the Second World War, I guess. The old ship was cut up. Scrap metal--most of her was hauled in out from Winging Point, and trucked in--probab- ly in to the steel plant. She was recycled, anyway. The Wreck of the Marshall Frank' Dan Norman MacLeod, Framboise: Aw, it was a pretty cold winter. It was pretty cold weather at the time the Marshall Frank was on (February, 1949). But the day it hap- pened, it was a fine day, beautiful day. And I was shoeing the horse in the garage-- it was one shoe that had come off on her-- I was hauling pulp--there was someone walked in. How many came to the house, was it 3 or 4? Mrs. MacLeod: I think there were 5, gave them breakfast. Dan Norman: And they never said a word. Said, "That's a fine-looking horse you've got there," you know, they seemed so unconcerned. I said, "Where did you come from?" "We're shipwrecked," he said. "We're shipwrecked." They told me it was up the shore. They'd come up the lake, you know, up the cove. They hit a reef. And they abandoned ship. The captain wanted them all to abandon ship. But there were 5 that didn't. They got hysterical, more or less--the mate was telling me--and they wouldn't leave the ship. And they said it was no trouble to get in the dory--they had lots of dories, no end of dories--and they went out. It wasn't rough at all. Only a heavy roll coming in. And when they left the ship it was in the nighttime--they could hear the other fellows hollering and hollering for them. And that's the last they ever heard of them. And when the boat hit--they said they hit west of where the boat came in, but they didn't. Because the Marshall Frank came in from the eastward and went up right on the gut rocks (in Marie Joseph Inlet)--put her bow right up on it. And she listed in. And if they had stayed on board they could have walked off without wetting their socks, low tide. But anyhow, those 5 finally left the boat. And that's all they heard of them after the hollering. But the reef the boat hit is the one east there--it's shoal, shoal water--from the end of the bank to the Big Breaker--it's a shoal, shoal reef--well, that's where they hit, I know that's where they hit. '''nf'' ??HH'''''i> ' I 3''*V-'L • '',1 'p-'.>'/|| 1 >'?*- . ' 1 ??' '& ''??- * ''''''1 ??:. 1 '"S' See, when those 5 men left the boat there, they went for shore--well, it's only a couple of fathoms of water--there's always breakers any sea at all, at all. And they all got drowned. The 5 of them. (So after the rest left the boat, they decided to try to come in.) Well, they must have. That's what the mate was telling me. "They started hollering and we didn't see them an3niiore. And the hollering stopped." But in the morning when I was talking to him, he said, "We're not sure what happened to them. I'm kind of afraid they got drowned, but I'm not too sure." Okay. I got my cousin, you know, Donald John--and we took the horses, and we took them back down after they had breakfast at our place--and she was in full sail, boy, there on the rocks. And when we got down there, the big bank, there were 3 of the bodies ashore then. So we picked them up Ramsay's Honda Shop Motorcycles, Parts & Accessories" Cor. Charlotte & Townsend Sts. 539-7644 Sydney 539-1730 ATLANTIC SPRING & MACHINE CO.. LTD. 564-5559 - 40 Kings Road, Sydney - 564-5550 General Machine Shop & Forge, Mining Equipment, Mar? ine Repairs, Welders, Automotive Springs, Fasteners

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