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The Edith and Elinor

 

November 27, 1931

Six Drowned After Collision
Sch. Edith and Elinor of This Port Rammed in Fog Off Yarmouth Wednesday
Captain Theriault and Five Saved by British Steamer --Dragger Sinks After Crash

Death reached out in the Bay of Fundy early Wednesday evening and claimed six members of the crew of the local dragger Edith and Elinor, Capt. Simon Theriault, which went to bottom four minutes after the bow of the British freighter Gypsum Prince, bound from Winsor, N. S., to New York, had cut a jagged hole in the dragger's hull.  Capt. Theriault and four members of the crew, and a Lynn man who was making his first trip to sea, were saved.  The Gypsum Prince cruised around for three and a half hours, following the crash, but failed to find any of the missing six men.

DROWNED

Bradford Whynot, native of Port Medway, N. S., leaves a wife and three sons in Gloucester
Ernest Gillen, native of Nova Scotia, two children in the states, one in Nova Scotia, widower
Joseph Rose, about 50, married. His father, a lobster fisherman, was drowned off Salt Island in 1893.
Augustus Foley, about 54, cook, single, leaves three sisters and two brothers in Gloucester
James Brothers, 39, native of Forgo, N. S., married, three children, lived in East Boston
Youlis LeBlanc, of East Boston

SAVED

Capt. Simon Theriault of Gloucester
Manley Goodick, Gloucester
Paul Pitts, resident of East Boston
John Powers, Gloucester
Alexander Stack, of East Boston
Oscar Thibadeau, of Lynn

Word of the accident which occurred at 7.30 o'clock Wednesday evening, reached here around 10 o'clock that night and spread like wildfire through the city.   The skipper is one of the most popular skippers out of this port and his crew were all well known fishermen, having followed the sea for years. The sinking of the Edith and Elinor, a vessel but two years off of the stocks at Essex occurred about 10 miles out of Yarmouth, near Baccaro light.  Finding fish scarce on other banks, Capt. Theriault decided on this trip that he would reach up into the Bay of Fundy a bit and try his luck.

Fog shut in early Tuesday evening and the vessel which left here Monday after coming off of the railways, was groping her way through the heavy mist.  Four men were on watch at the time, two forward and two aft.  In the pilot house with the watch, stood Capt. Theriault and Thibadeau, while two others had the watch forward.  Out of the mist come the sound of a whistle, a deep, mournful whistle, the Gypsum Prince proceeded up the bay.   Back went the answering siren on the Edith and Elinor, and then six waited.  They saw nothing but darkness ahead and around them.  No sign of the steamer, no realization of its closeness did the men have until there loomed close beside them the high hull of the British freighter.  Figures were at her rail forward.  Then the bell in the engine room tinkled and her engines stopped, were reversed and she started to back.  The momentum, however, was such that the freighter could not be halted nor her course changed and with a crunching sound her steel bow cut deep into the waist of the dragger.  Almost before the strike, the life boats of the freighter hit the water and her crew rowed toward the schooner.  The schooner's own boats were useless.  They were hung over the pilot house and no one had a chance to even reach for an axe to cut the lashings.

The bow of the steamer held to the jogged "V" shaped hole, then she backed out.  Two sections of the Edith and Elinor pointed sky-ward and water rushed into her by the tons.  Four minutes after the crash only bits of wreckage could be seen floating on the water, and although nothing was big enough for a man to cling to for any length the boats of the freighter cruised back and forth over the spot where the Gloucester boat went down in a vain search for some of the six men reported missing.

Capt. Theriault and his five companions he were landed at Yarmouth today will reach Boston tomorrow morning leaving Nova Scotia tonight on the Yarmouth steamer.  The Edith and Elinor was insured with her outfits for $68,000 with the Boston Insurance Company through the agency of Warren A. Elwell.

 

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