Hoban Boys, The

DESCRIPTION: On the night of October 27, a hurricane blows in. The next day, the singer sees the wrecks of the Minnie and Lilly & Jim. The singer's own Mayflower has been towed to St Pierre and looted; they pay the fee to the French, clear customs, and head home.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1976 (Lehr/Best-ComeAndIWillSingYou)
KEYWORDS: sea ship storm wreck
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lehr/Best-ComeAndIWillSingYou 51, "The Hoban Boys" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #28979
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Old Mayflower" (theme of wreckers) and references there
NOTES [696 words]: "The Hoban Boys" text mentions no year. My guess is that it refers to the October 28, 1921 storm but, while there is documentation for damage by that storm in Trinity Bay and Conception Bay (Fred Martin's site has a list of those losses) and Robert Parsons mentions damage at Hermitage Bay and Fortune Bay, I find no information about losses in between, at Placentia Bay.
Northern Shipwrecks Database, and that database's owner -- David Barron -- also has no specific information about ships lost on that date; he recommends I review microfilm of local papers for that week. I contacted a Placentia Bay newspaper, The Southern Gazette, but they have no information about the storm (they started publication in 1975) and thought "only the Telegram or the defunct Daily News would have recorded that info." The Telegram has not responded to my inquiry.
Neither Ms. Lehr nor Ms. Best could pin down the year for this storm; Ms. Best, noting that "sometimes dates in songs are imperfectly remembered and passed on, as you will no doubt realise" wondered why I would take the dates mentioned in the ballad so literally. Obviously, that's a good point. Even for such a famous sinking as "The Loss of the Atlantic," for which I've seen six distinct versions, Ranson [Songs of the Wexford Coast] p. 88 has the sailing date from Liverpool April 18 -- rather than March 20 -- for a wreck that occurred on April 1; Ranson's other version has the sailing from Queenstown on March 21 -- as should be -- but the departure from Liverpool as March 14.
Any further research will have to be done in Newfoundland. - BS
The place names in the song make it clear that the location is indeed the Placentia Bay. The gale apparently took place October 27 and after. The ships involved are said to be the Minnie (lost on Woody Island), the Lilly and Jim (or Lily and Jim, or some such), the Mayflower, and two ships that were not involved but might rescue the survivors, the Argyle and the Daisy.
The Argyle is the best hint. The most noteworthy Newfoundland ship named Argyle was one of the members of the Alphabet Fleet (for the Alphabet Fleet, see the notes to "The Wreck of the Steamship Ethie"), which was placed in service in 1900, and which served in Placentia Bay (Hanrahan, p. 3). she was in service until 1946 (Hanrahan, p. 199) although she was sold in 1941 (Connors, p. 4). That doesn't quite guarantee that the events in the song took place between 1900 and 1946, but it's the way to bet.
The name Daisy is not as clear a hint, but there was a tug Daisy which served in St. John's in 1880 (Power, p. 45). These tugs tended to be utility vessels, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same ship, moved to Placentia Bay when she got older. This would tend to imply a relatively early date.
So does the mention of paying a fee to the French. The French had settled the western parts of Newfoundland in the period before the American Revolution, and even after Britain took over the island, the French had rights on the "French Shore." It wasn't until 1904 that the French gave up their last rights in the region (Noel, p. 34). So I think a case could be made for a date before 1904.
Galgay/McCarthy2, p. 105, has a list of thirteen ships lost on October 28, 1921. As Ben said, none were lost in Placentia Bay, but they were lost on both sides of her, and some of the names might have inspired the names in this song: D. P. Ingram, Jean and Mary, Passport, Prospector, Pansy, Natoma, Brothers, Willis Martin, Dianthus, A. Hardy, Cactus, Gordon, and Galatea.
"The Old Mayflower" also mentions a ship named Mayflower being looted. Whether that describes the same event as this I do not know.
Because the event took place in October, the Minnie involved is presumably not the Minnie which was wrecked on Kelly's Island, January 6, 1886 (Galgay/McCarthy3, p. 160), nor the Minnie Parsons, which was lost on an unknown date in the Strait of Belle Isle, not Placentia Bay (Galgay/McCarthy1, p. 87). Similarly, the Lilly is not the HMS Lily wrecked near Point Amour, Labrador in September, 1889 (Galgay/McCarthy3, pp. 119-128). - RBW
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