The Sinking of the American Steamship Clallam
The small passenger liner Clallam was only six months old when she was lost with great loss of life in January 1904.—Wikipedia photo
The sinking of the American steamship Clallam while en route to Victoria is one of the worst in provincial record. But, more than a century later, there’s so much more to this tragedy than just the date, place and circumstances of her foundering in a storm in Juan de Fuca Strait.
From a storyteller’s viewpoint, there are two equally compelling sidebars: How her company agent spotted her in distress from the rooftop of Victoria’s Driard Hotel and how he tried, in growing desperation, to send help by way of ships berthed at Esquimalt.
How he finally persuaded the captain of the Gulf Islands steamer Iroquois to brave the gale, only for him to have to turn back for fear of losing his own ship.
How, 14 years later, the circumstances of the loss of the Clallam’s passengers had a direct bearing on a captain’s decision not to abandon his own ship during a lull in the weather; a decision that led, only hours later, to the greatest loss of life in British Columbia maritime history.
* * * * *
You can bet that not a single shopper in downtown Victoria knows the eerie connection between one of British Columbia’s worst marine disasters and one of the city’s leading department stores.
But, but before I tell you, let’s begin with a January email from reader David McCoy who prompted me to dig this great story from my files...
Charles Dickie lost money on the Richard III Mine but his last regret was that one of its owners was aboard the Clallam, on her way to meet with him and fellow investors. She and the other women and children passengers were drowned.
--Author's collection
David (one of the many who spells Paterson with two ‘t’s’) wrote to say he’d just finished reading my book, Riches to Ruin, which chronicles the history of the Mount Sicker copper mining boom at the turn of the last century. He “really enjoyed the...book [and] recently noted a connection to the story in the book Great Shipwrecks of the Pacific Coast by Roger C. Belyk, and am attaching a copy of page 101, detailing information on some of the passengers that did not survive the sinking of the S.S. Clallam, Seattle-Victoria on Jan 8/1904.
“My apologies if you have already seen this reference to C.W. Thompson and Lenora Richards...”
Now Chronicles readers who are blessed with photographic recall will remember my series of several months ago based upon the memoirs of Charles H. Dickie who worked his way from Ontario to Michigan to California to Vancouver Island where he became co-proprietor of Duncan’s frontier-style Alderlea Hotel, known as the “miner’s and logger’s resort.”
A position that made him privy to all the local gossip and goings-on in the Cowichan Valley which was then booming because of the copper strikes on Mount Sicker. After investing in what became the mountain’s richest producer, the Tyee Mine, he sold his shares for a tidy profit. In the meantime, “A claim adjoined the Tyee on the east upon which I had cast a longing eye. I finally succeeded in acquiring it and at the 480 feet level we encountered high grade ore and the shares went skyward, but I was President of the company I had organized and I held on to my stock until things went wrong and I still have my shares. We made money fast with the Richard III, but never succeeded in locating a large body of ore, and in time closed down for lack of funds.
“One factor or incident with respect to the mine I regretted above all others was: I had bonded the claim from a lady in Port Townsend, and when matters were looking well I wired her to come over and see the property and have a talk respecting matters. She left on the ill-fated ‘Whatcom,’ [he means the S.S. Clallam] and she, and many others, were drowned in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.”
This is where David’s reference to Roger Belyk’s book comes in. In his chapter on Clallam, “The ‘Hoodoo’ Ship,’ Roger notes that one of the passengers who was lost was Lenora Richards, “part owner, with her estranged husband of the valuable Richard III copper mine”. He describes her as being an exception to the standard supportive housewife of that age, having accompanied her husband to Mount Sicker and sharing in the prospective mine’s discovery. Now, with Dickie and others as partners, negotiations were underway to sell the mine to a consortium and the papers were ready to be signed.
Hence Mrs. Richards boarded the Clallam for Victoria. She never arrived, of course, because the little passenger liner, overwhelmed by storm, foundered with great loss of life. Thus, years later, Dickie admitting his sorrow for her untimely demise in his memoirs...
Now let’s get back to the Victoria department store which has an eerie but forgotten link with the ill-fated S.S. Clallam. The Bay Centre (formerly the Victoria Eaton Centre), occupies two city blocks bounded by Douglas, Government, Fort and View streets in Victoria’s Old Town area. When it opened in 1989 it was the city’s first large shopping mall and included the site of the original Eaton’s store (previously Spencer’s) at 1150 Douglas Street. The old Eaton’s and several other historic buildings were demolished or reduced to becoming facades for entirely new construction. (Eaton’s, which bankrupted in 1999, was followed by Sears Canada then The Bay, today’s Hudson Bay).
Coincidentally, I’d clipped the Times Colonist’s weekend magazine which featured a four-page spread on ‘Victoria’s Facadism Problem’ with front-page before-and-now photos of the Driard Hotel, built in 1892. Once Victoria’s premier hotel until it was eclipsed by the Empress, it later was used as part of Eaton’s then incorporated into what’s now the Hudson Bay complex. Of the hotel itself only the front facade was saved with a rebuilt roof. That said, however, if you go by appearances, the Driard Hotel is still there.
It’s the old story of half a loaf being better than none and, the fact is, setting historical purity aside, the present day ‘Driard’ with its two rooftop towers and restored colour scheme is a handsome replica and a worthy legacy of pioneer hotelier Sosthenes Maximillian Driard (1819-1873).
But today’s post isn’t about hotels or heritage any more than it’s about shoppers thinking of history when they visit the Hudson Bay. Our interest in the Mall’s Driard Hotel component is because of its tenuous, fascinating and all but unknown connection to the tragic steamship Clallam.
So—finally!—to that black Friday in Victoria history, Jan. 8, 1904. Here’s my article that appeared in The Islander to mark the Clallam disaster’s 60th anniversary:
On that day the American steamer Clallam, loaded with holidaying families, sank almost within sight of the relatives, friends and curious that lined Oak Bay beaches. Fifty-three persons, mostly women and children, were lost.
Victoria was to be her final port of call of her voyage from Tacoma with stops at Seattle and Port Townsend to pick up more passengers and goods. When, at 12:15 p.m., she sailed from Port Townsend she was believed to be carrying 61 passengers and 31 crew although these numbers vary with almost every account and children weren’t treated as fares so weren’t included on the manifest.
The first to notice Clallam in trouble was E.E. Blackwood, local agent of the company which owned her, Puget Sound Navigation. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, as was his custom near the scheduled time of arrival, he climbed the seven flights of stairs to the roof of the Driard Hotel to check her position. Although a strong southwest gale was blowing as he peered through his binoculars, he wasn’t worried. After all, she was just six months off the builder’s ways.
Frowning, Blackwood readjusted the powerful lenses in amazement. His eyes must be deceiving him—Clallam seemed to be making no headway. But at that distance, he couldn’t be sure.
Back on the street, he hailed a hack and rushed to Clover Point. Fifteen minutes later he was again inspecting the tossing ship through his glasses. His suspicions were confirmed. Clallam must be disabled as she was slowly drifting out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, towards Discovery Island.
Hurrying to the Colonist Hotel, the nearest telephone, he contacted his office and was told that no tugs were available. “There must be a tug somewhere,” he replied. “I’ll keep trying...”
And try he did.
For the next hour the increasingly anxious Blackwood called every towboat owner in the city. Tugs Albion, Sadie, Lorne, Mamie and Hope were out of port. In desperation he telephoned the CPR’s B.C. Steamships’ offices. Yes, they had ships in port. But they couldn’t sail—their fires were out and the engineering crews were on leave.
Even if the firemen were assembled, another five hours would be necessary to make steam.
The Public Works Department refused to send its tug Princess out in such weather. And the Dominion Government’s gallant old workhorse Quadra was indisposed, her machinery being overhauled.
Then Blackwood remembered that the Esquimalt-based tug Maude always kept up a head of steam under an agreement with Lloyd’s of London. Finally, he managed to contact her owners who agreed to dispatch her at once.
“Thank heavens!” was all he could reply.
Clallam was but half an hour’s steaming distance from port. If all went well she’d be safely docked in an hour.
In desperation agent Blackwood even called the Esquimalt naval base, only to be told that it would take hours for the flagship HMS Grafton to raise steam.--Author's collection
Blackwood returned to his office, to find his secretary awaiting him with an urgent message. “Mr. Bullen at Esquimalt called. He said that the Maude can’t go out after all. Not enough ballast or something...”
The exhausted agent sank into a chair. He’d tried everywhere. As a last resort, he had his secretary wire Seattle. The telegram would undoubtedly bring assistance but by the time tugs arrived it would be dark and they might not find the Clallam until next morning. By then anything could have happened to her.
On a long chance he telephoned Esquimalt naval base and was told, that the flagship Grafton was available, but that seven or eight hours would be necessary to dispatch her.
Suddenly, on impulse, he placed a long distance telephone call to Capt. A.A. Sears of the steamer Iroquois at Sidney. Explaining the emergency he requested the captain to intercept the CPR steamer Charmer as she returned from Vancouver.
He groaned when Sears replied, “Charmer passed 15 minutes ago.” However, Sears agreed to search for Clallam himself. At 5 p.m., one and one-half hours after Blackwood first observed Clallam in difficulty, Iroquois steamed from Sidney.
Unknown to Sears, his own brother was aboard the labouring ship and would be lost.
Port Townsend replied to his telegrams and tugs Richard Holyoke and Sea Lion put to sea at 7 p.m.
In the meantime, Blackwood met Charmer to ask if her captain and officers if they’d seen the Clallam. No, they replied. He then pleaded with Capt. J.W. Troup, CPR manager who was aboard, to send Charmer out in search. But. Capt. Troup said he thought that “no good could be done by the Charmer going out to join the search, as the Sound [Port Townsend] tugs would pick her up and bring her to safety.”
The small Gulf Islands ferry S.S. Iroquois which tried in vain to find the floundering Clallam was herself a victim of shipwreck seven years later.--Salt Spring Island Archives
So S.S. Charmer remained at her pier.
By this time almost the entire Pacific Northwest had learned of the situation and worried Victorians waited with increasing tension. When Clallam had failed to arrive on schedule, the crowd waiting at the pier, upon being told that she was in trouble, hurried to Clover Point. As the helpless steamer drifted out of sight many carried on to Oak Bay. Clallam was last sighted near Discovery Island. Everyone knew that the rugged shore of this small island is directly exposed to the full force of a southwest gale.
At 11 o’clock, Iroquois returned to Sidney. Capt. Sears reported that he’d thoroughly searched as far as Cattle Point but had seen nothing of any other vessel in the stormy night and he’d become concerned for the safety of his own vessel which wasn’t designed for open waters. He was of the opinion that “one of the two tugs from Port Townsend had found her”.
The tugs Bahada and Magic joined the search and, upon arrival from San Francisco, the American steamer Umatilla reported having sighted a vessel wallowing in the Strait on the U.S. side. But the ship was seen only vaguely at great distance so Umatilla’s master didn’t know her identity or if she was in trouble.
The next day, newspaper headlines confirmed the public’s worst fears: Clallam had sunk with great loss of life. The story of her last hours was told by the few survivors.
By 4 p.m. Friday, her engines flooded, Clallam had drifted to within two miles of Discovery Island. Capt. George Roberts decided to put the women and children into lifeboats and set them ashore on the island where they could be cared for by residents. He believed that with experienced seamen manning the boats they’d reach safety.
Two boats on her lee side were launched but the falls of a third became entangled and the boat plunged into the sea; only two were pulled back on board the ship. The other two managed to make 600 yards before they capsized and all drowned in sight of those still aboard the ship. Not a single woman or child survived.
Darkness fell. Those aboard Clallam who were wearing life preservers eagerly discussed the possibility of repairing the damage to the ship. It was hopeless, they knew, but it was something to do. Some even tried to bail the sinking ship with buckets.
Suddenly, lights were spotted nearby. It was the tug Richard Holyoke which, after a struggle, managed to secure a towline. But the strain it put on Clallam was so great that she began to part her timbers. The water poured in faster.
Unaware, the tug continued pulling, managing to make fairly good headway despite the high running seas. All aboard the groaning hulk shouted to the tug but couldn’t be heard for the storm. As Holyoke slowly butted her way forward, the waves crept up on the survivors huddled on the main deck. For nearly two hours Holyoke continued towing. Then the Sea Lion arrived on the scene and pulled alongside the wreck. Capt. Roberts yelled to Capt. Manter of their danger and Manter steamed ahead to alert Capt. Hall to cut the hawser.
When the strain on the Clallam suddenly eased, she rolled over on her beam and began her final plunge. Some survivors crawled onto her exposed side and clung there while waves broke over them, threatening to sweep them away. Only at great risk to their own lives were the towboat men able to save most of them as Clallam disappeared.
The tugs stood by until daylight but no one else was found alive. The 31 survivors were taken to Seattle. Bodies were being recovered for days after the tragedy.
Pacific Northwest newspapers gave the disaster prominent coverage n the following weeks. Capt. Roberts, 55, and a veteran of 29 years at sea, was lauded for his courage and efforts to save the passengers. Then, what began as doubt and suspicion became open accusation as he was held responsible for the loss of his ship and 53 lives.
It was found that he hadn’t displayed distress signals at any time. If he had, the Iroquois would have seen him and reached him a full two hour before the Holyoke instead of passing him by in the darkness. A Nanaimo passenger charged that Roberts refused to let passengers transfer to the Holyoke and that, although within a few miles of Victoria, had ordered the tug to tow them back to Port Townsend.
It was also this passenger’s belief that Roberts wanted to keep the remaining passengers on board to bail!
At the marine inquiry it was revealed that the collier Mackinaw had passed her shortly after Clallam’s engine room flooded. Had Roberts sought her aid at that time perhaps everyone could have been saved. But Capt. Roberts had apparently been more concerned with the high cost of salvage.
Most damaging was evidence of his “economizing” because of his financial interest in the ship. Rather than spend money on the rudder stock, which he knew to be strained—it was described by knowledgeable shipping men as being “the next thing to worthless”—he’d left it as it was. It had made the Clallam the hardest vessel on the Sound to handle,” according to the Tacoma Ledger. So hard to steer, in fact, that the Puget Sound Navigation Company had ordered a new rudder and it was sitting on the dock in Seattle. When caught in the storm, Roberts couldn’t turn back to Port Townsend because the rudder was too weak.
Another feature of the wreck that baffled professional mariners was that the waves had smashed the ship’s deadlights, the protective covers or shutters that protected portholes and windows. “A sea strong enough to smash the deadlights would stave in the side of the vessel itself,” an unidentified source argued, “unless there was something awfully faulty about the deadlights.”
It was also discovered that lifesaving equipment aboard the Clallam had been inadequate. It all suggested false economy and was laid at Capt. Roberts’ door.
In a letter to the Colonist a writer who appears to have been a professional mariner and who signed himself as SAILOR, criticized the Clallam’s lifeboat capability and drew the conclusion that many others had reached: “The thing in a nutshell is this: The master was incompetent, the vessel was unseaworthy, and the object in view was to save salvage. In my humble opinion, murder in the first degree.”
The official verdict of the Coroner’s Inquest, held in Victoria, was as scathing—that the victims came to their death about four miles southeast of Trial Island by drowning and exposure, “and that Capt. George Roberts, the master of said steamer ‘Clallam’ did feloniously and unlawfully kill and slay the said persons... The jurors also find that the chief engineer of the steamer ‘Clallam’ is deserving of censure for being negligent in his duties in not keeping the pumps in working order.
“The jurors also find that the steamer ‘Clallam’ left Port Townsend on January 8, 1904, in an unseaworthy condition, having defective deadlights, a defective rudder and improperly equipped lifeboats...” Because the ship’s upper works had broken free and continued to float, an examination had discovered that they’d never been bolted to the hull! “I don’t know, gentlemen, what held the upper works in place,” marvelled ship’s carpenter and witness S. Sea. “I never saw a boat so constructed.”
The jury also recommended that the Dominion Government keep a large and equipped vessel on stand-by for future marine emergencies.
A warrant was issued for his arrest but Roberts never returned to Victoria and never stood trial. Across the line, Chief Engineer Scott DeLaunay’s license was revoked and Roberts’ master mariner’s certificate suspended for a year. DeLaunay’s defence, that he’d not persisted in warning his employers of the defective deadlights was for fear of losing his job, and that the pumps had become fouled with floating coal, was dismissed as “the merest twaddle”. Contrary to all popular reports, U.S. marine inspector John Bermingham ruled that the Clallam was “a seaworthy boat, and that judging from the evidence the vessel was not steering badly”.
Incredibly, he was of the view that water entering through the deadlights didn’t sink her—she was sunk by her own pumps sucking in water through a sea-cock which had been left open!
Ironically, Clallam’s sinking didn’t come as a surprise to some. Just before launching, the U.S. ensign was hauled up her mainmast for the first time. Only when it began fluttering in the breeze was it realized that the flag was upside down—the universal distress signal. Then, as she was being launched, she began to slide down the ways so quickly that the bottle of champagne didn’t break against her bow but fell and slid along the side of the vessel.
It was believed by old sailors that such a ship was doomed to be lost within a year.
As if that weren’t enough, it’s common belief that animals can sense danger. As the Clallam loaded passengers and cargo for what would be her final voyage, there was excitement below decks when sheep being led aboard by the flock’s leader, called a bell sheep, refused to board and fought until seamen gave up in exasperation.
Upon publication of my article, John Shaw, editor of The Islander, told me three personal anecdotes involving the wreck of the Clallam. The first one, he said, had never to his knowledge been made public—that the ship’s purser had supposedly decamped on a life raft with the contents of the safe, $80,000, and hadn’t been seen since.
John’s uncle died in the wreck. Survivors told how, when the lifeboats containing the women and children capsized, he’d dived over the side to save a nearby woman and was able to grab her by the hair. When his body was recovered weeks later, his hand was still clutching long strands of hair.
And: telephones were few in Victoria in 1904 but John’s mother had one. She was awakened during the night by its ringing. When she answered there was no one there. She hung up but it rang again a few minutes later. Again there was no one on the other end of the line. Mrs. Shaw glanced at the clock. It was later determined to have been the exact time of the Clallam’s sinking.
* * * * *
Such was the drama that began on the storming afternoon of Jan. 8, 1904 when E.E. Blackwood climbed those long flights of stairs to the Driard Hotel’s roof to watch for the incoming Clallam with his binoculars, only to see her in apparent distress and begin his heroic but futile attempt to send her help.
Something, I bet that no shopper ever thinks of when wandering the aisles of The Bay today!
In last week’s preamble I mentioned that there was another sidebar to the Clallam tragedy besides that of agent Blackwood and the Driard/Bay Centre. Actually, there are three more.
On Mar. 23, 1911, the small steamer Sechelt sailed from Victoria Harbour, bound for Sooke with four crew members, “an estimated” 33 passengers and a heavy cargo of railway steel. At the William Head quarantine station she discharged a dozen passengers and continued on her way at 4 p.m. Once into Juan de Fuca Strait, she was struck by high winds and heavy seas that, it’s surmised, forced Capt. James to put about. In doing so, she was struck broadside by “big breakers” and began to tilt. Two eyewitnesses watched in awe as she slipped under in a matter of minutes. There were no survivors.
This posed a problem for the local press; because the Sechelt was new to the region and little known locally, they needed something their readers could identify with. Their inspired solution was to compare the Sechelt with a more familiar local vessel, the inter-island Iroquois that, seven years before, had attempted to assist the stricken Clallam. Capt. Sears objected for obvious reasons.
But not for long. Just over two weeks later, Iroquois met her own fate off Sidney. Said to be overloaded with a deck cargo of baled hay, she capsized in a gale within minutes of leaving her dock. Capt. Sears who’d courageously braved the storm in search of Clallam and his officers and crew survived by abandoning women and children passengers to their own fate.
Like Capt. Roberts, he had a vested interest in the vessel hence, it was charged, his decision to overload the Iroquois and to sale into the teeth of a gale to meet his schedule. He was charged with manslaughter but acquitted.
We’re not quite done.
Fast-forward to November 1918. The CPR’s coastal flagship Princess Sophia slams into Vanderbilt Reef at high tide in Alaska’s Lynn Canal where a previous company liner, the Islander sank with the loss of 43 lives after striking an iceberg at full speed. Initially intact but impaled, the Sophia’s Capt. Locke decides to wait out the storm and declines offers from attending vessels to remove his passengers because of the bitterly cold winter weather.
Next morning, all that can be seen of the Sophia is are the tips of her masts. Overnight, she’d swung round on the reef and filled. There was not a single survivor of the 343 men, women and children on board, making this British Columbia’s greatest marine disaster.
It’s believed that Capt. Locke’s fateful reluctance to abandon ship was influenced by the loss of Clallam’s lifeboats in high seas off Discovery Island, 14 years before.
There’s a final link between the shipwrecks of the Clallam, Islander and Princess Sophia: Capt. J.W. Troup, CPR manager who’d turned down agent Blackwood’s plea to send the company’s ship Charmer in search of the Clallam.
Perhaps it’s as well that only the facade remains of the real Driard Hotel where, on a storming Friday afternoon and evening in January 1904, E.E. Blackwood frantically tried to find a ship that would sail to the stricken Clallam’s assistance.
Otherwise it might be haunted.
Exterior of the Bay Centre --From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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