Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1911 — SEVEN DIE IN GALE ON LAKE [ARTICLE]

SEVEN DIE IN GALE ON LAKE

Tug Silver Spray Sinks Off Cleveland after Struggle. I—. !■ I »*» FISHING FLEET IN DIRE PERU Thrilling Btories of Fierce Contests with Waves of Lake Erie Are Told by Vessels EnterIng Harbor. Cleveland, 0., March 17.—The furious gale that swept over Lake Erie caused the loss of the Sliver Spray, a fishing tug of Erie, Pa., and her crew of seven men. The Booth Fisheries company owned and operated the boat. It went down off Cleveland harbor after battling with the heavy seas for twenty hours. The last seen of her was when Capt. Hansen of the life saving station sighted a vessel a few miles out burning torches as signals of distress.

Later the tug Buckeye, Capt. Cornelius, patrolling the breakwater, sighted what is believed to be the pilot house of the Silver Spray afloat in the lake off East Fortieth street. Two bodies, which Capt. Cornelius believes belong to members of the Silver Spray's crew of seven, were lying on the breakwater. It was impossible for the tug to get near enough to take off the bodies.

The following constituted the crew of the Silver Spray: James Purdy, captain, Erie Pa.; Robert Watts, engineer, Erie, Pa.; Edward Holmes, Cleveland; Charles N. Brasse, Cleveland; Henry Anderson, Cleveland; Thomas Reed, Erie, Pa.; unknown boy, Cleveland. Later the Buckeye saw pieces of wreckage washed against the breakwater. Rescuers aboard the tugs Castanet and Lorain recovered the bodies of five of the seven men drowned. Thrilling stories of battles to make the harbor with immense waves beating down their vessel and freezing spray transforming it into a mass of Ice, weye told by the eight members of the crew of the Effle B„ another member of the fishing fleet which put into the harbor. The men were almost frozen and arrived half dead from their exposure. They said they had seen nothing of the Silver Spray. All of the tugs, twenty-six in number, counitng twenty-two that left Cleveland harbor and four that left Erie, have been accounted for except the Silver Spray.