19th Century Lower Saint Lawrence Maritime History.

Navigating the Lower Saint Lawrence in the 19th Century.

"The Wreck of the Colborne", a short story by Margaret Grant MacWhirter, from her volume "Treasure Trove in Gaspé and the Baie des Chaleur", published by Quebec Telegraph Print Co, 1919.

	"Throughout the two old Provinces of Canada, there was in the year 1838 no name better known or more frequently mentioned than that of Sir John Colborne. The uprising against the Government that had broken out in 1837 flared up again in the following year, and Sir John, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Canada, was the man of the hour. Under his military operations, the flame of insurrection was soon stamped out, although it has been charged that on some occasions he was unneccessarily severe. However, this is not under consideraton here." "In order that he might have a table service in keeping with his high position and style of living, he caused to be sent out from England a valuable collection of silver plate, and by a rather remarkable co-incidence, the plate was shipped on a vessel that bore Sir John's name, the Colborne of Hull, England. The Colborne was a barque of 350 tons, commanded by Captain Kent, an experienced seaman. During August, 1838, she took on her cargo at London, and considering the smallness of the vessel, it was one of the most valuable cargoes ever shipped out of the Thames, consisting of general merchandise, wines, spirits, sperm oil and spices...... Besides Sir John Colborne's valuable plate, there was a large collection of costly ornaments for churches in Lower Canada and £40,000 in specie in boxes, each box containing one thousand sovereigns. A large portion of the money belonged to the government, and much of it was intended to be used in paying the troops in Canada. Some of the gold was for the Canadian banks. The crew of the Colborne consisted of seventeen men, and besided the crew, there were thirty-eight passengers. Among the passengers were a number of British officers going out to join the forces in Canada, and their wives and children. Captain James Elliott Hudson, his wife, five daughters and four sons; Mr. William Walker, of the Royal Navy, brother-in-law to Captain Hudson; Captain Bucket and wife, and others of like rank. A number of Candians were also on board; Mr. W. Scobell, of Hamilton, Ontario; Mrs. Wilson of the same place; Mr. Keast, of Toronto; Mr. George Manley, Deputy Sheriff of Quebec and others. The passengers were, with few exceptions, persons of means such as today are to be found in the first class cabins of an ocean liner. On August 30th, the Colborne sailed from London." "Just as the vessel was swinging out from her dock, a young Englishman jumped on board. He proved to be a sailor, and as two boys had deserted from the crew a short time before sailing, he was at once engaged to do the work to which the boys had been assigned. The wind was now favourable; the Colborne passed quickly down the Thames and was soon at sea, buffeting with the waves of the Atlantic, with her bows turned towards the distant shores of Canada. The Colborne never again entered port. She reached Canada but only to be stranded on the rock-bound coast of the Gaspésian Peninsula. Of the fifty-five souls who sailed on the Colborne out of London harbour, only twelve ever set foot on land again, and the greater part of her cargo of gold and silver plate and valuable merchantise went with the forty-three victims of the wreck to the bottom of the Bay of Chaleur." "The loss of the Colborne was one of the saddest tragedies of the Gulf. On the night of October 15th, forty five days after sailing from London, the Colborne was well in the Bay of Chaleur and close to the Gaspé coast. Her destination was Quebec, and therefore, instead of being in the Bay of Chaleur, she should have been passing up the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That she was so far out of her course shows that a fatal and inexcusable error had been made in the reckonings. As night came on, the Captain sighted a light which he said was on Anticosti Island in the Gulf." "'I strongly maintained to him' said one of the survivors, in relating the tragic story of that awful night, 'that at that time no such light was kept up. The light seen was probably on Mount Anne in Percé. Therein lay our trouble.'" "This survivor was Joseph Jones Acteson, who for many years after the wreck, resided at l'Anse aux Gascons, a small Gaspé coast village not far from Port Daniel and near the scene of the loss of the Colborne. Thirty-three years after the wreck, Mr. Acteson was visited by Sir James LeMoine and to that well-known Littérateur he gave an account of the disaster. 'Close to twelve o'clock at midnight on October 15th,' said Mr. Acteson, 'whilst Captain Kent and Captain Hudson were taking a glass of wine together in the cabin, the watch was called; while aloft, reefing topsails, one of the hands sang out 'Breakers ahead'. Before the ship could be put about, she struck heavily, starting stern-post and unshipping rudder.'" "'In an instant the ship was a scene of wild confusion and distracting terror, the women and children fleeing from their berths to the cabin and some to the deck, sobbing and overcome with fright. The pumps were tried and eight feet of water was found in the hold. The first mate asked permission to cut away the masts and get the boats ready for launching, but Captain Kent refused. 'There is no danger' he said, 'I am the master and the masts must not be cut'........ The rudder had been carried away, but by shifting the sails, the vessel was swung into deep water. Finding that she was filling rapidly, an attempt was made to get her in near the rocky shore, which was not more than a stone's throw distant when she first struck. Being without a helm, the effort to work the vessel shoreward failed. In the meantime, the wind freshened, and half an hour after the ship first struck, she went on the rocks again, this time falling on her side, throwing passengers and crew into the sea. Many of the struggling wretches were soon swallowed up by the waves." "Acteson and five seamen managed to get into a jolly-boat, but almost the next moment the boat was strick by a hugh wave and the men hurled into the water. Coming to the surface, Acteson found himself near the ship's yard, which now reached into the sea as the vessel was floating on her beam ends. Here he was joined by three of the men, who had been with him in the jolly-boat and they succeeded in reaching the long-boat, which lay between the masts in the water. After clearing the long-boat from the rigging, they tried to reach the wreck to pick up such of the passengers and crew who might still be alive, but having lost their oars, they had to drift at the mercy of the waves. They managed, however, to take from the rigging, hanging down into the water, two sons of Captain Hudson. With some boards found in the boat, they rigged up a kind of sail, which enabled them to keep their boat headed to the sea, and thereby saved it from being capsized, and thus they drifted about through the remeainder of the cold and dismal October night." "'Several of the crew and passengers clung to the rigging for some time, until exhausted and benumbed by cold, they slipped into the sea, or were carried away by a wave of unusual height that reached the spot ot which they had managed to climb."' "'We were in the neighbourhood of the ship', said Mr. Acteson, 'and could hear all night particularly loud and melancholy cries on board; this was a powerful young sailor who never ceased moaning until he sank exhausted about dawn, uttering even from under the waves a scream for help. None was ever to come to him. The 'powerful young sailor' was the man who had jumped aboard the Colborne just as she was leaving her dock in London. A moment more and he would have been too late - he would not have perished on the Gaspé shore.'" "'At five o'clock next morning', continued Mr Acteson, 'our longboat was towed by the natives into Anse-aux-Gascons. Some of us were quite insensible, but by the unremitting attention shown us by the French and English fishermen, they after some hours brought us round. The Colborne drifted about, water-logged, from Monday night until the following Saturday, when the numerous boats which the news of the ship-wreck had attracted, succeeded in towing her ashore in Harrington Cove, a mile and three-quarters distant from Port Daniel.'" "'Some of the crew were found in the rigging, dead. The body of Captain Hudson was fished up from the wreck with a boat-hook, also those of two children and Mr. Walker. From the tangled rigging were taken other bodies, among them being those of Captain Kent and of a couple of other sailors. Those bodies were taken ashore at Port Daniel to the store of Mr. William Carter, where an inquest was held. For several days after the wreck, the bodies of the victims were found along the shore, or picked up floating in the bay. It was some time before the body of Mrs. Hudson was secured, as it had been carried some distance across the bay. In her clothing were found £600 in banks notes. On the morning following the disaster, the beach of the little bay was strewn with wreckage, among it being much of the valuable cargo that had already been washed ashore. As the days passed, more was fished up from the sea - the trunks of the travellers containing fine clothing of all kinds, cases of wine, spirits and spices, other goods from the general merchantise and furniture and fittings from the ship.'" "'There was one attempt to collect the wreckage on behalf of those interested, either as owners or insurers, and some of it was sold at auction on the stop, articles worth many pounds being knocked down at a few shillings. Scattered along the shore, much of the wreckage was never accounted for, although it was put to good use by those who found it.'" "'In some of the little homes along the Port Daniel and Anse-aux-Gascons shores can to-day be found furniture and sea chests that were saved from the Colborne seventy two years ago,' said a former resident of that Gaspé shore, when speaking of the wreck a few days ago. 'I have often seen pieces of the furniture in use in fishermen's homes, and one piece I specially remember, it was a huge oak sideboard, massive and handsomely carved and what do you think the owner had done to it? He had painted it - actually covered that rich old English oak with coats of cheap paint.'" "'Not all the goods that was on the the Colborne was recovered. Some of the boxes containing the sovereigns, were however, fished up. Some of them were accounted for. Others, it is said along that shore, were appropriated by the finder. Long after the wreck, certain lucky and persistant treasure hunters found boxes of sovereigns, about which the government and the banks heard nothing." "'Immediately after the disaster, five boxes, each containing a thousand sovereigns, were secured. It was thought that the gold should be counted before forwarding it to Quebec, but every time the sovereigns were counted, their numbers grew less, until orders were given to stop the counting and send the gold on to Quebec.'" "The tragic story of the Colborne may be closed with the outlines of a chapter of romance. The long-boat in which Acteson, three other sailors and a few of the passengers drifted about throughout the night, was brought to shore in the early morning by a party of natives of Anse-aux-Gascons who gallantly put out to their rescue as soon as daylight dawned. Among the rescuers was a man named Chedore. He had a daughter named Isabella, and not long after the wreck, she became the wife of Acteson, the man whom her father had rescued. At Anse-aux-Gascons and in the adjoining parish, the descendants of this pair are living to this day." But we aren't quite finished with the Colborne, probably not by a long shot. I will continue to upload further details in the coming months. Any additional information or comments you are willing to share with us on the wreck of the *Colborne* would be greatly appreciated. You can reach me at: Credit where credits are due, I can never thank everyone who helped me put up this page, it being my very first. With boundless room for improvement, come back in a month or two when I'm a bit more knowledgeable in HTML, stlye sheets and JavaScript languages.

"The Wreck of the Colborne",
a short story by
Margaret Grant MacWhirter,
from her volume
"Treasure Trove in Gaspé and the Baie des Chaleur",
published by Quebec Telegraph Print Co,
1919.

     "Throughout the two old Provinces of Canada, there was in the year 1838 no name better known or more frequently mentioned than that of Sir John Colborne. The uprising against the Government that had broken out in 1837 flared up again in the following year, and Sir John, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Canada, was the man of the hour. Under his military operations, the flame of insurrection was soon stamped out, although it has been charged that on some occasions he was unneccessarily severe. However, this is not under consideraton here."
     "In order that he might have a table service in keeping with his high position and style of living, he caused to be sent out from England a valuable collection of silver plate, and by a rather remarkable co-incidence, the plate was shipped on a vessel that bore Sir John's name, the Colborne of Hull, England. The Colborne was a barque of 350 tons, commanded by Captain Kent, an experienced seaman. During August, 1838, she took on her cargo at London, and considering the smallness of the vessel, it was one of the most valuable cargoes ever shipped out of the Thames, consisting of general merchandise, wines, spirits, sperm oil and spices...... Besides Sir John Colborne's valuable plate, there was a large collection of costly ornaments for churches in Lower Canada and £40,000 in specie in boxes, each box containing one thousand sovereigns. A large portion of the money belonged to the government, and much of it was intended to be used in paying the troops in Canada. Some of the gold was for the Canadian banks. The crew of the Colborne consisted of seventeen men, and besided the crew, there were thirty-eight passengers. Among the passengers were a number of British officers going out to join the forces in Canada, and their wives and children. Captain James Elliott Hudson, his wife, five daughters and four sons; Mr. William Walker, of the Royal Navy, brother-in-law to Captain Hudson; Captain Bucket and wife, and others of like rank. A number of Candians were also on board; Mr. W. Scobell, of Hamilton, Ontario; Mrs. Wilson of the same place; Mr. Keast, of Toronto; Mr. George Manley, Deputy Sheriff of Quebec and others. The passengers were, with few exceptions, persons of means such as today are to be found in the first class cabins of an ocean liner. On August 30th, the Colborne sailed from London."
     "Just as the vessel was swinging out from her dock, a young Englishman jumped on board. He proved to be a sailor, and as two boys had deserted from the crew a short time before sailing, he was at once engaged to do the work to which the boys had been assigned. The wind was now favourable; the Colborne passed quickly down the Thames and was soon at sea, buffeting with the waves of the Atlantic, with her bows turned towards the distant shores of Canada. The Colborne never again entered port. She reached Canada but only to be stranded on the rock-bound coast of the Gaspésian Peninsula. Of the fifty-five souls who sailed on the Colborne out of London harbour, only twelve ever set foot on land again, and the greater part of her cargo of gold and silver plate and valuable merchantise went with the forty-three victims of the wreck to the bottom of the Bay of Chaleur."
     "The loss of the Colborne was one of the saddest tragedies of the Gulf. On the night of October 15th, forty five days after sailing from London, the Colborne was well in the Bay of Chaleur and close to the Gaspé coast. Her destination was Quebec, and therefore, instead of being in the Bay of Chaleur, she should have been passing up the Gulf of St. Lawrence. That she was so far out of her course shows that a fatal and inexcusable error had been made in the reckonings. As night came on, the Captain sighted a light which he said was on Anticosti Island in the Gulf."
     "'I strongly maintained to him' said one of the survivors, in relating the tragic story of that awful night, 'that at that time no such light was kept up. The light seen was probably on Mount Anne in Percé. Therein lay our trouble.'"
     "This survivor was Joseph Jones Acteson, who for many years after the wreck, resided at l'Anse aux Gascons, a small Gaspé coast village not far from Port Daniel and near the scene of the loss of the Colborne. Thirty-three years after the wreck, Mr. Acteson was visited by Sir James LeMoine and to that well-known Littérateur he gave an account of the disaster. 'Close to twelve o'clock at midnight on October 15th,' said Mr. Acteson, 'whilst Captain Kent and Captain Hudson were taking a glass of wine together in the cabin, the watch was called; while aloft, reefing topsails, one of the hands sang out 'Breakers ahead'. Before the ship could be put about, she struck heavily, starting stern-post and unshipping rudder.'"
     "'In an instant the ship was a scene of wild confusion and distracting terror, the women and children fleeing from their berths to the cabin and some to the deck, sobbing and overcome with fright. The pumps were tried and eight feet of water was found in the hold. The first mate asked permission to cut away the masts and get the boats ready for launching, but Captain Kent refused. 'There is no danger' he said, 'I am the master and the masts must not be cut'........ The rudder had been carried away, but by shifting the sails, the vessel was swung into deep water. Finding that she was filling rapidly, an attempt was made to get her in near the rocky shore, which was not more than a stone's throw distant when she first struck. Being without a helm, the effort to work the vessel shoreward failed. In the meantime, the wind freshened, and half an hour after the ship first struck, she went on the rocks again, this time falling on her side, throwing passengers and crew into the sea. Many of the struggling wretches were soon swallowed up by the waves."
     "Acteson and five seamen managed to get into a jolly-boat, but almost the next moment the boat was strick by a hugh wave and the men hurled into the water. Coming to the surface, Acteson found himself near the ship's yard, which now reached into the sea as the vessel was floating on her beam ends. Here he was joined by three of the men, who had been with him in the jolly-boat and they succeeded in reaching the long-boat, which lay between the masts in the water. After clearing the long-boat from the rigging, they tried to reach the wreck to pick up such of the passengers and crew who might still be alive, but having lost their oars, they had to drift at the mercy of the waves. They managed, however, to take from the rigging, hanging down into the water, two sons of Captain Hudson. With some boards found in the boat, they rigged up a kind of sail, which enabled them to keep their boat headed to the sea, and thereby saved it from being capsized, and thus they drifted about through the remeainder of the cold and dismal October night."
     "'Several of the crew and passengers clung to the rigging for some time, until exhausted and benumbed by cold, they slipped into the sea, or were carried away by a wave of unusual height that reached the spot ot which they had managed to climb."'
     "'We were in the neighbourhood of the ship', said Mr. Acteson, 'and could hear all night particularly loud and melancholy cries on board; this was a powerful young sailor who never ceased moaning until he sank exhausted about dawn, uttering even from under the waves a scream for help. None was ever to come to him. The 'powerful young sailor' was the man who had jumped aboard the Colborne just as she was leaving her dock in London. A moment more and he would have been too late - he would not have perished on the Gaspé shore.'"
     "'At five o'clock next morning', continued Mr Acteson, 'our longboat was towed by the natives into Anse-aux-Gascons. Some of us were quite insensible, but by the unremitting attention shown us by the French and English fishermen, they after some hours brought us round. The Colborne drifted about, water-logged, from Monday night until the following Saturday, when the numerous boats which the news of the ship-wreck had attracted, succeeded in towing her ashore in Harrington Cove, a mile and three-quarters distant from Port Daniel.'"
     "'Some of the crew were found in the rigging, dead. The body of Captain Hudson was fished up from the wreck with a boat-hook, also those of two children and Mr. Walker. From the tangled rigging were taken other bodies, among them being those of Captain Kent and of a couple of other sailors. Those bodies were taken ashore at Port Daniel to the store of Mr. William Carter, where an inquest was held. For several days after the wreck, the bodies of the victims were found along the shore, or picked up floating in the bay. It was some time before the body of Mrs. Hudson was secured, as it had been carried some distance across the bay. In her clothing were found £600 in banks notes. On the morning following the disaster, the beach of the little bay was strewn with wreckage, among it being much of the valuable cargo that had already been washed ashore. As the days passed, more was fished up from the sea - the trunks of the travellers containing fine clothing of all kinds, cases of wine, spirits and spices, other goods from the general merchantise and furniture and fittings from the ship.'"
     "'There was one attempt to collect the wreckage on behalf of those interested, either as owners or insurers, and some of it was sold at auction on the stop, articles worth many pounds being knocked down at a few shillings. Scattered along the shore, much of the wreckage was never accounted for, although it was put to good use by those who found it.'"
     "'In some of the little homes along the Port Daniel and Anse-aux-Gascons shores can to-day be found furniture and sea chests that were saved from the Colborne seventy two years ago,' said a former resident of that Gaspé shore, when speaking of the wreck a few days ago. 'I have often seen pieces of the furniture in use in fishermen's homes, and one piece I specially remember, it was a huge oak sideboard, massive and handsomely carved and what do you think the owner had done to it? He had painted it - actually covered that rich old English oak with coats of cheap paint.'"
     "'Not all the goods that was on the the Colborne was recovered. Some of the boxes containing the sovereigns, were however, fished up. Some of them were accounted for. Others, it is said along that shore, were appropriated by the finder. Long after the wreck, certain lucky and persistant treasure hunters found boxes of sovereigns, about which the government and the banks heard nothing."
     "'Immediately after the disaster, five boxes, each containing a thousand sovereigns, were secured. It was thought that the gold should be counted before forwarding it to Quebec, but every time the sovereigns were counted, their numbers grew less, until orders were given to stop the counting and send the gold on to Quebec.'"
     "The tragic story of the Colborne may be closed with the outlines of a chapter of romance. The long-boat in which Acteson, three other sailors and a few of the passengers drifted about throughout the night, was brought to shore in the early morning by a party of natives of Anse-aux-Gascons who gallantly put out to their rescue as soon as daylight dawned. Among the rescuers was a man named Chedore. He had a daughter named Isabella, and not long after the wreck, she became the wife of Acteson, the man whom her father had rescued. At Anse-aux-Gascons and in the adjoining parish, the descendants of this pair are living to this day."
     But we aren't quite finished with the Colborne, probably not by a long shot. I will continue to upload further details in the coming months.
     Any additional information or comments you are willing to share with us on the wreck of the Colborne would be greatly appreciated. You can reach me at:

Credit where credits are due, I can never thank everyone who helped me put up this page, it being my very first. With boundless room for improvement, come back in a month or two when I'm a bit more knowledgeable in HTML, stlye sheets and JavaScript languages.

Posted:
Nov. 1, 1998.

Updated:
July 15, 2003.