Loss of the Riseover, The

DESCRIPTION: "The Riseover left Northern Bay, with lumber she did sail" for St John's. They are forced to leave the ship by raft in a heavy storm. Nearing shore, the raft breaks in half and John Pomeroy and Sparks are lost.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1951 (MUNFLA/Leach)
KEYWORDS: drowning sea ship storm wreck death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Nov 19, 1911 - Riseover wrecked on Muddy Shag Rock, per Newfoundland's Grand Banks Site
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Peacock, pp. 958-959, "The Loss of the Riseover" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lehr/Best-ComeAndIWillSingYou 94, "The Wreck of the Riseover" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4408
RECORDINGS:
Ned Lee, "Wreck of the Riseover" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
NOTES [304 words]: A detailed account of the Riseover wreck is included in Tales from the Kittiwake Coast by Robert E. Tulk, pp. 90-91 [available as a pdf file from the Canadian National Adult Database site.] - BS
A brief summary is also found in Frank Galgay and Michael McCarthy, Shipwrecks of Newfoundland and Labrador, Volume III, Creative Publishers, 1995, p. 161. The Riseover was a "schooner, ran on Muddy Shag Rock near Musgrave Harbour, Novermber 19, 1911. Captain Pumphrey [sic.] and his crew of five made a raft of lumber and escaped from the wreck. Raft split on a rock and four men went one way, two another. The four were saved, the two were lost."
A slightly fuller account is in John Feltham, Northeast from Baccalieu, Harry Cuff Publications, 1990, pp. 60-61, which opens by declaring, "It was the little islet called Muddy Shag that proved to be the nemesis on Captain William Pomeroy and his Lunenburg-built schooner." The schooner displaced 81 tons. The crew, in addition to William Pomeroy, were Williams Jones, William Percy, James Pomeroy, John Pomeroy, and Archibald Spracklin (presumably the "Sparks" of the song; he was the brother-in-law of brothers William and John Pomeroy). She was carrying 100,000 feet of lumber. In a heavy storm, skipper Pomeroy was aloft watching the rocks, and gave an order that was mis-heard, causing the helmsman to run her onto the rock.
Given the storm, there was no way they could remain on the ship or on Muddy Shag. So the crew decided to use all that lumber to build a raft and head for Peckford Island a few miles away in the direction the wind was blowing. But, as the song says, the raft broke in two, with John Pomeroy and Archibald Spracklin on the smaller part. Some of the lumber from their part of the raft was eventually found, but the bodies had disappeared. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.4
File: Pea958

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography