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Elias Sollows (b.1907 d.2001) tells of the many shipwrecks he remembered over the years.
1996
Tiverton, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Elias Sollows, born in 1907, recalled some of the more memorable shipwrecks in his time.

Do you remember any stories of shipwrecks?

"Well, the first ship wreck ever I remember, I was 4 years old and an old three master ran ashore down, well they called it Clifford's Point, cause it was over where all the Cliffords lived. By Clifford was born down there where Les Powell lived. Old man Clifford, John Clifford, had a house there. And that three master, there was only one lost out of her, that was the cook, he went up in the riggin' and she came in over a big rock there and fired the spars out of her and killed him. I'm pretty sure it was Jim Cossaboom found his body just below what they call Buckman's Landing in a glutch a day or two afterwards.

And you were only 4 years old, so how did you, what made you remember it?

"Well, I can say I seen the cook. John Pyne hauled him up by home and it was by horse, to take him to the church to put him there until they had a way of getting him shipped out. And Father went out to see him and I went out. I'd seen the Bonavista, I was only 5 years old, because Berta took me over an extra fine day in March and I can say I seen her there before she washed to pieces."
Is that the one that was on a Sunday? Mum use to tell about someone opened the Church door and said "Ship Ashore" and everybody left in a hurry.

"The night before I got over there, just got there when they got the rope ashore, a Portuguese he was, he got in the tub, and they had no rope to haul him ashore with, so he got in the tub and she rolled down and that tub would wash and he came ashore that way on the block on the big rope. Well, the next one had to be the cook's wife for the women were suppose to leave the ship first. Well, I got there just when Marvie run down the beach and run into here, and grabbed the tub with her! She stayed to Marvie's, her and her husband and the cook and mate stayed down home and they had two out to George Outhouse, the Portuguese and one of the other fellows."

That would have been a fishing boat, was it?

"Oh, no, it was an old freighter, a three master. She'd been to St. John or was going to St. John, I don't know which. She never had nothing aboard of her. And the old Allen Green had nothin' aboard her."

But some of them did - some of the times you got some things off them.

"Tail end of the war, that was 1918, when the war was done, first war, that ship the Corinthian that had well, a million dollar cargo for them times."

That would be a lot.

"She had flour, pork, can milk, timber, lumber for building air planes.Anyway, we got word up here around 5 o'clock that she was ashore on Batsons and Lloyd Blackford and Murray Small took one of them little 33-34 foot boats with just a covering on it and took down. They went off - and when they got there Wilf Welch was off there in a freighter and George Crocker was off there in this boat that he run fish to Maritime in from Westport and Freeport and here. He used to gather up the haddock and take them to Maritime. Well so they went, Lloyd and Murray went alongside after awhile. They burnt coal and they took an awful crowd just to keep fire going. Twenty four hours around."

So that wasn't a sailing ship, the Corinthian?

"Oh, no, she was a big ocean going steamer. She had all kinds of furniture in her,even to a piano where she had been a passenger ship. And anywhere, after awhile 27 of them agreed to get in that little boat. Lloyd and Murray planted them aboard Welch, went back and brought the other 28 and after awhile talked it into them they was going to stay. Lloyd put them aboard Crocker. Crocker and Welch got a gold watch apiece, Lloyd and Murray was their gasoline out - never got a thing. Anyway, the next day, Capt. McKin, he was an old shipping master, he had the Keith Cann at that time, he came up and it was smooth and he went along side and tied right fast and they cleaned out everything - why he got a load of stuff right off the bat. But that, I can remember them bags of flour of dough, and the rest inside was just as good flour as you ever had."

It hardened enough on the outside to keep some of it good?

"Yeah, that dough, well you see it was put up English weight 140 lbs. And 16 of them made an English Ton, 2240. And the lard was put up 56 lb. Boxes - two blocks of lard in the 56 lb. Box and 40 of them made an English Ton. And the pork - that was put up in crates, well almost, some of them made out of ¾ hardwood some of them had 800 lb. Of pork in it. How they preserved it I don't know cause there was no refrigerators then. But it had a salt to it, I remember Father, Dalton and I and Austin gathered up, oh, they must have had 1500 board feet or more of plank home there in the field and the insurance man came up from Yarmouth and Elmer Gower from Westport come with him up home and he come in the house, and this old Purdy, the old insurance fellow he says, I don't smell you frying doughnuts - father said no, and he said " didn't you get any" and father says yes, I got a little. Well, he says, I don't care as long as you keep it out of sight. And out in the milk house, there was 1000 lb. of lard, so anyway, he says "What are you going to have for supper". I smell something cooking. Father says, salt herrin'. That's what we had. He says, "I'm staying to supper, I've been eating pork for 4 weeks out of that ship, between ham and roast pork, boiled pork. So him and Elmer stayed. And had salt herrin'."

This would have been a steel ship?

"Oh, yes"

But the ones that were going to it were still wooden sailing boats, is that it.

"Oh, yeah. They as just small fishing vessel. Sam Foote took a row boat out of the cellar, down over the bank and rowed down there and rowed back."

Wow, that's a long way.

"They wasn't fishing that year. That winter Austin was haddock fishing with Cleveland Elliott.He was a feller just about like Bernard, if anyone went out, he was the one. And if anyone got a run of fish, he got 'em. And the highest they got was 170 lb. of haddock trawling, and all they done was sail around out in the streak and pick up stuff coming out of that old wreck."

So in a way, it was a good thing for the Island.

"Oh, it was. I know Dalton went down with Dougie in his boat, and when he came home, he came home with a back load of blankets, and two great big tablecloths was about 40 odd feet long for them big tables she'd have in her dining room. Allen Line, I remember mother cut them up for tablecloths . She was a godsend for the Islands in them times. That margarine she had in her, was in big oak barrels just same as them liquor barrels they use to get from Bridgetown to where they bottled the liquor for to salt lobster bait in. The oak staves was that thick".

Interview conducted by Margaret Ossinger in 1996 for Islands Historical Society