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The Old World Connection by Roger Guttridge Dorset, England From The Downhomer, November 1995 A Letter from Fogo A letter sent from Fogo more than 150 years ago provides a first-hand account of a young visitor's first encounter with the North Atlantic and its hostile climate. The letter, signed by William Waterman Junior, is one of several Newfoundland related documents among the family papers of Mary Waterman and her daughter Ann Harrison, owners of Organford Manor a few miles from Poole. Their Waterman and Cox ancestors were involved in the Newfoundland fishing trade in asssociation with the Slades until about 100 years ago. The letter, headed "Fogo Harbour June 17th 1844", was sent to "Tom"- thought to be William Waterman's cousin Tom Cox. William appears to have been sailing from Poole to New York via Cadiz and Fogo. From his comment that "they tell me I have grown very much since I left Poole", we can also assume he was still a young lad, probably on his first trans- Atlantic voyage. "I like the sea very well," writes William, "though I can assure (you) I have had some very severe hardships since we left Cadiz. On the (Newfoundland) Banks we met with great quantity of ice which prevented our getting into our port." "One calm day we got the boat out to go shooting a bird called a Noddy, and after you have shot one, if you let it lay in the water, they will fly round you so near that you may knock them down with the stock of your gun, and I can assure you we had some fine sport. We shot 11 and should have had a great many more but we had no more shot. These birds are very good to eat and are about the size of a wood pigeon". While sailing among the ice, they also shot a seal but were unable to reach it. William also speaks of a collision at sea. "On the Banks a large brig' ran into us in the starboard fore chains and carried away our rigging, bulwarks and main gaft(?)." The North Atlantic weather obviously made a big impression on William because he refers to it again, vividly and at length, on page two of the letter. We had a bitter cold time amongst the ice, gales of wind, the salt water freezing on you as the sprays came over the vessel and hail and snow in such quantities that the decks were like glass. We had to shovel the snow off the decks before we could walk about and knock the ice off the ropes before we could get them to run through the blocks. My clothes has often been as stiff as possible from first getting wet and then letting it freeze on me. "Fancy yourself with us on a dark, windy night holding on by a rope to keep your footing, the seas soaring and breaking over the vessel and freezing on you, the masts and rigging creaking, and the snow and hail beating on your face, and then pulling the icy ropes, and then I think you would rather be at home in your bed than to have to have eight hours on our deck (on) such a night as I have described. "What I tell you is the truth, and this I have gone through, and then again to make things still worse we were short of bread and (there) being no prospect of getting to our harbour we were obliged to come on an allowance of two biscuits per day. But that was almost enough, with other things, to satisfy my hunger." William goes on: "we have at length reached Fogo after six weeks tossing about on Atlantic's waves and are now taking in ballast for New York and shall sail in a day or two. And there it will be so warm that we shall scarcely be able to wear any clothes so that one had need of a good constitution to stand it." William asks Tom to tell Aunt Cox that "amongst it all I am happy and comfortable for when I came away I made up my mind to put up with the hardships. Another document in the Waterman collection, dated May 1886, shows William Waterman Junior, a merchant, of Broadstone, near Wimborne, Dorset, as the sole owner of a sailing brig', the Superb, built at Poole in 1825. The papers state that the Superb last sailed from Poole to Newfoundland in 1875 and was broken up at Hall's Bay "in the northern district" of the colony about 1883. "We have on occasions written our friends at Twillingate for the document but they have been unable to find it and so we assume it has been either mislaid or destroyed, writes Waterman. More papers from the Waterman collection- including a letter from Twillingate dated 1866 and one from Poole describing the state of the Newfoundland trade in 1848 - will be quoted in future issues of The Downhomer. A picture of the Superb is shown in this article.
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