Hunger at sea
An extract from Memorials of Scarborough entitled 'An authentic narrative'.
In the year 1808, the ship "Bon Accord," of Aberdeen, 131 tons, Alexander Morrison, master, sailed from Aberdeen to Paoicton, in Nova Scotia, and one man was drowned during the passage. At Poicton the vessel was loaded with a cargo of fire timber, and sailed for the port of Aberdeen on the 14th of December, 1808. While on her return passage another seaman was washed overboard and drowned. The ship's crew was then six in number, and having dismal hard gales of wind to contend with, their sails split to pieces, and being out of all kinds of provisions hunger compelled them to kill the dog, which they ate, it serving them two days; the skin of the dog they made use of to bait their fishing hooks, so as to catch fish, but they failed in doing so. The ship was much infested with mice which came to the dog's skin, and one day the mate, William Thompson, caught two, which he roasted, and ate one himself and gave the other to the captain. They were obliged to drink salt water for nine days, and on the 27th of February,1809, the carpenter died of hunger. On that day the ship was picked up by a Filey fishing coble and was brought to anchor in Filey bay, where the corpse of the carpenter and the surviving crew were taken on shore to Filey, and the carpenter buried there; two days after, another of the crew died. The ship was brought to Scarborough, from Filey, and when the captain and the rest of the crew had got revived they also came to Scarborough to rejoin their vessel. One of the crew had his foot so frost-bitten during the hard passage that it had to be cut off. The fishermen, for taking charge of the ship, were recompensed with two hundred guineas. After refitting at this port, she again sailed on the 16th of March, the cargo being previously being sold to Mr Gideon Smales, of Whitby. The Custom House officers who remained on board this vessel during her stay in Scarborough harbour, were Mr Thomas Buck and Mr William Dowson.
OTHER ARTICLES
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• Charles Dickens account of Filey and Scarborough graveyards
• Trawling and overfishing - Filey fishing
• The fishermen and fisheries of Robin Hood's Bay in 1838
• Sea shanties and the filey Fishermen's choir
• A sea shanty about a storm on the Scarborough coast
• Filey fishermen in 1862 - yawls and cobles
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• Primitive Methodism amongst the Scarborough Filey and Flamborough fishing communities
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• A great storm off Filey Bridge and a famous rescue in 1799
• The Allen and Truman Scarborough fishing families
• Watching for ships by the harbour walls in Scarborough
• Losses amongst Filey fishing cobles
• Suzanne Pollard and her Filey Fishing relatives
• The Harwood and Bullamore fishing family history in Scarborough
• Harwood Brierleys description of Scarborough harbour at the opening of the 20th century
• Scarborough sailors rescued in the Baltic - Thomas Hinderwell
• Tommy Rowley - stories about loss of life at sea
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