- Original Article
Before the Titanic : The SS Atlantic
Before the SS Titanic, there was the SS Atlantic, a "state-of-the-art" White Star Line ship going to her grave on April 1, 1873, within sight of the Nova Scotian coast and taking with her a staggering number of lives (over 500). The sheer "unthinkable" nature of the Titanic disaster with its enormous toll of casualties has made that ship’s name well-known around the world. The Atlantic’s loss is a tragedy little known even in this province.
The story, however, so fascinated Greg Cochkanoff that he spent over 25 years studying the disaster and seeking any scrap of information concerning it. Over the years, he dived the locale of the wreck, adding more pieces to the story which has been published as SS Atlantic: The White Star Line’s First Disaster at Sea. Sadly, Cochkanoff died suddenly last year before the book was completed. Bob Chaulk, diver, researcher and author, shares the interest in the Atlantic’s story and has contributed extensively to this book, as well.
While basically the story of the disaster, this book sheds light on the construction of ocean-going ships as steam continued to take over from sail, and on the changes in attitudes concerning ships built mainly for the immigrant trade to North America.
Built at Harland and Wolff’s South Yard, Belfast, the Atlantic was designed for steam (with four masts to carry sails, just in case), and changes in her hull construction and shape heralded things to come.
By March 1873, she had made 18 successful trips across the Atlantic Ocean, conveying thousands of people to new lives in the New World.
The book traces in some detail the work of outfitting her for her 19th and last voyage and describes life aboard ship for her "33 cabin passengers, 800 steerage and 143 crew."
The voyage was relatively uneventful, except for the usual stormy weather to be expected in the North Atlantic at that time of year.
The ship’s destination was New York but her captain, Capt. J.A. Williams, was concerned about a possible shortage of coal and decided to head for Halifax instead. Which is why, on that last night of March, she was heading towards an unfamiliar coast, looking for, among other things, the Sambro light.
Moreover, Capt. Williams had retired from the bridge at midnight, leaving orders that he should be called at 3 a.m. Those orders were disobeyed but the inquiry found him at fault and recommended that his masters’ certificate be suspended for two years. He lived with the disaster and its terrible toll for the rest of his life, grieving especially that all the women aboard and all the children, with one exception, had perished.
The breaking apart of the ship, from the time she struck the rocks off Prospect to the rescue of the last survivor (in itself a hair-raising account), is set out in the book in poignant detail. Readers are not spared any of the harsh images of what happened to the people aboard the Atlantic that night.
It’s all there from the screams of the women trapped in their quarters as their hull section broke away and rolled deeper into the sea, to little Rose Sleat, slipping out of a would-be rescuer’s arms in the rigging, to the man and his wife (one of the few women to reach the deck) who embraced before being swept into the water, to the men who made it from the wreck to Golden Rule Rock only to watch as the rising tide began washing them back into the sea. Illustrations and maps show how close to safety the victims were.
When survivors began arriving at the nearest house, the home of the Clancy family, they were welcomed with blankets, hot food and a warming fire. A man rowed across to other houses to send the word and people in Terence Bay and neighbouring areas responded as soon as they heard what had happened. The sheer numbers of the survivors drew on every available resource.
After aiding in the rescue of other survivors, Third Officer Brady, generally regarded as one of the heroes of the tragedy, walked to Halifax carrying news of the disaster and seeking help. At first, the fact that it was April 1 prompted many people to regard the news as just another joke. Once they realized that it was true, the response was immediate. Relief vessels were dispatched at once to the scene, while officials prepared to receive the survivors, most of them being sent on to New York.
In those days, press and television didn’t bring word of such events to the living room as they do today. The White Star Line centred its attention — and publicity — on other things, including, in time, its larger, even more modern vessels, the Olympic and the Titanic.
Time passed and only those closely affected by the disaster — families and friends, and the people of Prospect and its vicinity — would have remembered the ghastly events of April 1, 1873. Most of the bodies recovered from the sea were buried in a mass grave at Sandy Cove where a monument was set up in 1905.
In this book, Bob Chaulk, an experienced diver who has visited the wreck site many times, takes the readers down with him into the cold depths, pointing out to them traces of the ship today and items scattered across the sea bed. (Thanks, folks. You go on ahead. I’m staying right here on land.)
Cochkanoff dedicated this book "to the children …" lost in the wreck (all but one 10-year-old boy), "their simple dreams and innocent lives so cruelly snatched away on the very doorstep of the ‘Land of Promise’." This book is Cochkanoff’s memorial, as well, and a fitting one.
Today’s ocean-going ships have the latest in scientific aids to propulsion, navigation and are built to withstand greater hazards than were the Atlantic and the Titanic. However, sunken derelicts, rogue waves and capricious weather remain among the threats to shipping on many of the world’s oceans. The sea still has its perils — and its power.
One other thing about the book; it has put Prospect on my list of places to visit — by land.
Lorna Inness is a former senior editor for The Chronicle Herald.