Greenland Disaster (I), The

DESCRIPTION: A sealing expedition leaves St. John's for the ice fields and all is well. When the men reached the ice, a storm comes up and freezes them. There are 25 dead and 23 missing. The singer concludes by hoping his audience will pray with him.
AUTHOR: Mrs. John Walsh ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland)
KEYWORDS: storm disaster death hunting
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Mar 21, 1898 - Greenland disaster
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Doyle-OldTimeSongsAndPoetryOfNewfoundland, "The Greenland Disaster" (1 text, 1 tune): pp. 40-41 in the 2nd edition
Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland 146, "The Greenland Disaster" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing, p. 79, "The Greenland Disaster" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff, pp. 46-51, "The Greenland Disaster (1)," "The Greenland Disaster (2)" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
ADDITIONAL: Higgins: Pamela Higgins, _Perished: The 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster_, Boulder Publications, 2013, p. 17, "The Greenland Disaster" (1 partial text, 1 tune, a reprint of Doyle)
ST Doy40 (Partial)
Roud #4080
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Greenland Disaster (II -- Sad Comes the News)" (subject)
cf. "The Greenland Disaster (III -- Miscellaneous)" (subject)
NOTES [1930 words]: Horace Beck in his book Folklore and the Sea (Mystic Conn.: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1985), p. 208 gives a brief account of sealing disasters in Newfoundland that he obtained from George A. England, Vikings of the Ice (London, 1924) pp. 54-59. - SH
England's account really covers only three events, and even those only superficially. All three resulted in pieces cited in the Index: The Greenland Disaster of 1898, discussed here; the Newfoundland Disaster of 1914, for which see "The Newfoundland Disaster (I)," and the disappearance of the Southern Cross, for which see "The Southern Cross (I)."
This song is item dD34 in Laws's Appendix II. Laws knew only the version in Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland; obviously it is more popular than he thought.
The versions of this song are very diverse; Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing's, e.g., tells the story of the disaster in detail, while Doyle's is a bit briefer on that account but spends many stanzas detailing the names of the dead. Some of this may be caused by the vast numbers of Greenland Disaster poems floating about; Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff have four probably non-traditional versions (lumped in the Index as "The Greenland Disaster (III -- Miscellaneous)") in addition to the two traditional forms (this and "The Greenland Disaster (II)").
Of all the tragedies great and small in the history of the Newfoundland sealing industry (and they were many, for sealing was hard and dangerous work), none seems to have embedded itself as deeply into the island's consciousness as this. Even if we ignore all the pieces about the disaster printed in Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff, the story of the Greenland seems to be the event that most often turns up in ordinary histories. Feltham, p. 58, says, "the Greenland, even in my youth, almost a half-century after the disaster that bears her name, conjured up mental pictures of raging blizzards and dead and dying men." Greene, pp. 63-64, wrote "Many of the survivors were shipmates with the author four years afterwards, and their stories of suffering and of madness, of self-sacrifice, and of a wonderful endurance, were heart-rending in their relation."
As late as 1956, people were still collecting stories of the Greenland Disaster; Winsor, pp. 85-87, is an account by Nathan House, who was then 84 years old, and so was 26 at the time of the disaster.
The Greenland was built in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1871 -- and although she had a steam engine, it had only 75 horsepower (Feltham, p. 59), so her sails still played a vital part in her work; she could not go far or fast on her engines alone, and could do little to batter her way through ice. Despite this significant drawback, she went to the ice for the first time in 1872, and returned there every year until 1907, serving three different owners and ten different captains, including members of the famous Kean, Dawe, Barbour, and Winsor families (Feltham, p. 59).
From a very early date, she seems to have been regarded as unlucky -- e.g. in 1884, just two years after she was transferred to Newfoundland, she burned to the waterline and sank at her moorings, but was rebuilt (Galgay/McCarthy, p. 37).
By 1898, seals were getting harder to find than in the early 1800s, and the ships were getting more expensive. Ships couldn't afford to just harvest seals in one spot near the ship. So the habit had evolved of having "watches" of sealers -- usually four watches, i.e. gangs of dozens of men, per ship -- which would leave the ship to go hunting. (According to Nathan House, one of the "Master Watches" or watch leaders, quoted on p. 85 of Winsor, each watch on the Greenland consisted of fifty men.) Often the captain would leave one or two watches in one place, then sail off somewhere else and drop another watch, and so on. The watches left behind had to walk back to the ship or hope it can back for them (Cadigan, p. 184).
The song is correct in saying that the Greenland was commanded by Captain Barbour. The Greenland's captain in 1898, the year of the disaster, was George Barbour (1858-1928); one of eight sons of Benjamin Barbour, five of whom -- George, James, Joseph, Thomas, and William -- became sealing captains, although George is the only one of the brothers to get much mention in poetry. He was born at Cobbler's Island near Newtown in Bonavista Bay; Ryan, p. 498, and first commanded a sealer in 1893; DictNewfLabrador, p. 12). His wife, Lucretia Oakley of Greenspond, was the first teacher at the school in Flowers Island (Kean, p. 23), so the family did much for Newfoundland.
The Greenland left port on March 10, 1898 (Feltham, p. 59), with 207 men aboard (Galgay/McCarthy, p. 38; Winsor, p. 83, says there were 208. The difference may be that one counted the captain and the other didn't). It was a year and a voyage marked by rotten luck from the beginning; the Greenland had harvested a good haul of seals, but before they could load them, the carcasses were supposedly stolen by other crews (Feltham, pp. 59-60). According to Cadigan, p. 185, it may have been the notorious Abram Kean who was responsible. (For Kean, see "Captain Abram Kean.") At least, Kean's Aurora was the only ship in the vicinity when Barbour came back to find his seals missing (Collins, p. 192. For the Aurora, see "First Arrival -- 'Aurora' and 'Walrus' Full"). Barbour chased the Aurora to try to get his pelts back, and had a screaming brawl with Kean, but Kean (who frankly strikes me as a psychopath, based both on his history and on his autobiography) refused to give Barbour any satisfaction (Collins, pp. 192-193). Kean also made a vigorous defense of his conduct in the papers (Ryan, p. 306).
The need to make up for the lost seals explains why Greenleaf's text refers to a "saving" voyage; with much of his harvest lost, Barbour had to at least try to break even; a "saving trip" was a "moderately profitable voyage" or one determined to make enough to get by (StoryKirwinWiddowson, p. 436).
Hoping to make up the loss, four of the Greenland's watches of sealers had been let out at different points when a large storm blew up on March 21 (Winsor, p. 83). Captain Barbour had gone back to where he had left off the first watch, and picked them up -- but then was jammed by the ice and had no way to reach the other three watches as the storm closed in; all he could do was sound his whistle and hope they could find him (Galgay/McCarthy, p. 40. Unfortunately, this was a lesson not learned; in 1914, the Newfoundland Disaster -- subject of "The Newfoundland Disaster (I)" -- would likely have been prevented if Westbury Kean, the captain of the Newfoundland, had been willing to sound his whistle). The whistle was no help; a lake developed on the ice between the ship and the men, giving them no good path to get home even though they knew where to go (Ryan, p. 306). All they could do was try to huddle together and set up "pinnacles" of ice to guard against the wind. Six died that night; others seem to have fallen into the sea due to snow- and wind-blindness (Winsor, p. 83). Some men managed to light a fire and kill and eat a seal pup, but conditions were so bad that even men close to them could not join them to get warm by the fire and contribute equipment that could be burned (Winsor, pp. 83-84)
At daylight the next day, Captain Barbour sent out as many men as he could to find the lost sailors. They found six men "barely alive and 24 frozen corpses." Another body was found the next day, and the Diana and Iceland, which came to help with the rescue, found one more survivor and fourteen more bodies the next day. (Feltham, p. 61; Galgay/McCarthy, p. 41. For the Diana, see "Arrival of 'Aurora,' 'Diana,' 'Virginia Lake,' and 'Vanguard,' Loaded"). In all, 48 men died, and only 25 of their bodies were found (Feltham, p. 62; there is a list of all the victims on p. 63; Winsor, p. 84, also has a list, plus a list of where funeral services were hed; Ryan, p. 324 n. 153 has another list showing where different accounts gave different names; Galgay/McCarthy, p. 38, has a copy of Barbour's first message to the owners at Baine Johnston and Company summarizing the disaster and asking where to go, and also gives a list of the dead on pp. 69-70). In addition to the dead, several others ended up needing limbs amputated (Ryan, p. 306). Greene, p. 63, says that "65 of those that had been saved were badly frostbitten."
The song lists the names of two of the dead -- in the Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland version, Mike Hennessey of St. Brenden and William Heaton of Harbour Grace. Ryan's list of casualties does not include a William Heaton, but there was a William Heath of Harbour Grace. The name of the other man is less certain. The Evening Herald listed a Michael Hennessey of St. Brendan's, but the Evening Telegram called him "Nicholas Hennessey" and the Evening Herald called him "M. Hennebury." A local consulted by Ryan says that Michael Hennessey was the correct name. In any case, it's clear that both the references in the song were to actual casualties of the disaster.
The Greenland's bad luck wasn't over; she grounded on the way home and barely survived (Feltham, p. 61; Winsor, p. 86). She had tried to bring the injured to her home port of Harbour Grace, but there was no hospital there, so the ship (once she was re-floated) had to move on to St. John's (Winsor, p. 86).
Interestingly, George Barbour continued to be given commands (he would command sealers for 35 years, starting in the Walrus and ending with the exceptionally modern Beothic II in 1928; Ryan, p. 498), and seemingly had little trouble finding sealers; "Captain Barbour was respected by his men because he always tried to consider their wealth and safety, despite the considerable blot on his career.... [I]t was generally felt there was absolutely nothing he could have done to have averted the disaster. The sudden unheralded storm came within an inch of destroying his vessel" (Feltham, p. 86 n. 58). Indeed, his career total of 752,563 seal pelts was second all-time for any captain (Ryan/Drake, p. 75; the all-time record was by the aforementioned Abram Kean,). There is a photo of Barbour on p. 75 of Ryan/Drake; p. 25 of Winsor has an 1899 photo of him alongside other famous sealing captains such as Abram Kean plus a portrait of him on p. 71, Arthur Jackman, and Alphaeus Barbour.Winsor, p. 45, has a (very grainy) photo of the Greenland entering St. John's Harbour after the disaster.
Cadigan, p. 184, says that some reforms followed the disaster, but not enough to prevent future tragedies such as that described in "The Newfoundland Disaster (I)," which was even more costly than the Greenland story but was similar in many ways.
Despite this horrid history, the Greenland continued to go to the ice until 1907. In late March of that year, while commanded by Captain Dan Bragg (mentioned as captain of the Greenland in "The Sealer's Song (II)"), she broke her main shaft and soon began to go down (Feltham, pp. 65-66), though it took long enough that there was no great loss of life that time time (Winsor, p. 45).
In addition to the three songs on the Greenland Disaster, the Greenland is also the subject of "The Sealing Trip of the S. S. Greenland 1891." There is a picture of the Greenland as she appeared in 1888 on p. 17 of Ryan/Drake. Higgins, pp. 16-17, also has a picture, as well as reproducing the page of the Evening Telegram reporting the disaster and listing the dead. - RBW
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