Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1875 — Loss of the Steamship Vicksburg. [ARTICLE]

Loss of the Steamship Vicksburg.

Naw York, Jmw 10. The steamship State of Germania, which arrived this morning, brought five seamen of the Dominion Line steamship Vicksburg, from Montreal for Liverpool, which was sunk by ice-on Tuesday, June 1. The men were picked up June 5 nearly dead from exposure, but since then have been rapidly inftwoving. They tell a fearful tale of distress. Other boats were launched with a large number of persons, but the greater number were seen to perisn without getting in the boats. The Vicksburg went down in the midst of ice, and the boat was surrounded by icebergs and a field of ice when picked up. The other boats have not yet been heard from. The five men rescued had their feet and legs very much swollen, so much so that their boots had to be cut from their feet. They are still suffering from their great exposure to the wet and cold, but are recovering as fast as could be expected. The statement of James Crowley, one of the survivors, is to the effect that there were on board a crew of sixty men, eight saloon passengers—five men and three ladies—and about twenty steerage passengers, of whom four were females. On Bunday evening, May 30, they encountered large fields of ice, but succeeded in avoiding any serious accident until about noon on the next day, when the ship struck heavily aft on the port quarter, carrying away the fans of the propeller, and a hole was knocked through the plates on that quarter, through which the ship made a great deal of water. The hole was stopped up with sails, so that but little water came in, and then all hands were employed in throwing the cargo overboard. On the morning of June lan examination showed the after-steerage to be filled with water, and six feet and a half of water in the main hold wells. The fires in the engine-room were soon drowned out, and the Captain gave orders to launch the boats with their respective crews and told them to mind that the distance from St. Johns was 120 miles northwest. Crowley says: “Iproceeded to launch No. 1, and it was capsized in lowering. She was full of water. O’Brien and I baled her partly out, when Grogan, Wilkinson and Williams jumped in. We could not hang on to the ship owing to the sea on and the ice about. O’Brien saw the Captain on the bridge beckoning the boat back, we having drifted about 150 yards from the ship. The ship sunk about ten o’qtock, floating boat No. 2 from her chocKs with the chief officer and about thirty people in her. She got clear and pulled to the windward. O’Brien, after the ship went down, saw the Captain and some persons floating on a bale of hay among the wreckage. We tried all we could to pick them up, but, owing to the boat being half full of water and the ice about, were not able to do so. We slipped our mast, kept company with the other boat for about two hours, and then lost sight of them to westward. We decided then to steer south to get clear of the ice. We hove the boat to, with an oar and a bucket as a drag, till daylight on Wednesday morning. We had in the boat about three gallons of water, forty pounds of raw beef, fourteen pounds of bread wet with salt water, ana a compass, which did not fall out when the boat capsized. Again we put sail on the boat and steered south, the wind blowing from the northward and westward all throughout the scene, and bitterly cold. About four o'clock in the afternoon we hauled the boat’s head to the northeast till Thursday morning, then tacked to the westward till about three o’clock in the afternoon, and again lay to with the drag till nine o’clock in the evening, when we took in the drag and made sail, and stood to the northeast till Friday morning at daylight. We then tacked to the southwest till mid-day; tacked again to northeast till morning, when about half-past ten o’clock we sighted your ship. We got out the oars and pulled away dead to windward till you picked us up. I think that forty-odd people, with the Captain, went down with the ship. We had blankets on our boat for the three ladies and stewardess, which were lost when the boat capsized. We saw no ladies in the chief or second of* fleer’s boat”