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The Wreck of the Julia Ann BYU Studies Vol. 29, No. 2, Spring 1989 by John Devitry-Smith
Part Two
John Penfold, Sr, was appointed by Australian Mission President Augustus Farnham to take charge of the company of Saints leaving on the Julia Ann. He and his family had been baptized by Elder William Hyde on 15 August 1853 in Clarence Town. Three months later the Clarence Town Branch was officially organized, and in accordance with the wishes of the Saints, John Penfold, Sr., was appointed to preside.23 Charles Logie and family were members of the Sydney Branch. He was an experienced seaman, and signed on in Sydney as one of the crew of the Julia Ann and helped load her with coal.24 American Elders John Eldredge and James Graham had arrived in Sydney on 9 April 1853 and were appointed to travel together in the districts of Camden and Penrith in New South Wales. They were returning to Utah after completing successful missions.25
After a final farewell from the Saints in Sydney, the Julia Ann with fifty-six souls and a 350-ton load of coal left Sydney Heads at 2:00 P.M., 7 September 1855, bound for San Francisco.26 As the voyage began, the passengers gathered between the poop and steerage house to sing "The Gallant Ship Is Under Weigh," but the thought of leaving friends and familiar surroundings for an uncertain future made the departure a more solemn occasion than joyous for many. Most of the adults had traveled from the British Isles to Australia and knew from prior experience the perils of the sea. Cramped quarters, poor food, and months of boredom awaited them, and the cool sea breeze rekindled these memories and created a chill of apprehension and anxiety. Andrew Anderson, upon leaving, commented that the song sounded "more like a funeral hymn than on the occasion it was."27 Captain Pond expressed the same sentiments in his retrospective account: "The day seemed very unpropitious and gloomy and before our anchor was weighed it commenced blowing and raining, and in getting out of the harbor we met with very many annoying accidents."28
Nonetheless the converts on board felt God's church had once again been restored to the earth and were determined to gather and contribute in its restoration. This conviction overshadowed all their fears, as expressed in a letter Martha Humphries wrote to her mother before leaving on the Julia Ann:
and now my dear mother, I will answer that question you put me, of when, are we going . . . We leave Australia with all its woes, and bitterness, for the Land of Zion next April. . . . perhaps you will say, I am building on worldly hopes, that never will be realized, not so, Mother . . . knowing what I know, I tell you, if I knew for a positive certainty, that when we get there persecutions, such as have been the portion of the saints before, awaited us, I would still insist upon going, what are a few short years in this present State, compared with Life Eternal.29
Rough weather and strong head winds during the first two weeks caused considerable sickness and generally made the passage "altogether exceedingly unpleasant."30 Many were unable to keep their first few meals down. After they cleared the New Zealand coast and entered the south-east trades, the weather turned fine, and they began to expect a quick voyage. Meetings were held regularly, and at night there was singing and prayer. After twenty-six days at sea, the Julia Ann continued "getting on with good wind," and aside from seasickness the voyage was a complete success with talk of soon arriving in San Francisco.31
On the evening of 4 October 1855, Sydney time (3 October international time), Captain Pond had been on the lookout for low land all day and appeared anxious and apprehensive. The general area of the Scilly Isles was "a very dangerous locality for navigators."32 Many of the reefs were incorrectly recorded on the charts, and "an extra press of sail" had been carried with the hope of clearing certain dangerous reefs before nightfall. Knowing land was nearby and expecting to pass between Mopelia and the Scilly Isles, Pond had posted a watch in the foretop. The wind was blowing free, and according to John McCarthy's report the barque was making eleven and one-half knots per hour. At 7:30 P.M., the sea became broken. At sundown no land could be seen, and the Captain presumed he was at least sixteen miles past any land. At eight o'clock, after a nerve-racking day, Captain Pond decided to go below and get some rest. Before retiring he gave the order to chief officer Coffin to relieve Charles Logie, who had been at the helm since six o'clock. This was a customary precaution always taken by Pond "when in the vicinity of reefs or islands."33 Coffin was an experienced seaman and whaler who had commanded several vessels for himself and others. After giving Coffin the course he had been steering, Logie also went below to rest as he was off duty until midnight.34
By this time many of the children were asleep below while the majority of adults were out in the general area of the steerage house and poop deck. The night was dark with neither the moon nor stars visible. Soon after 8:30 P.M. an alarming cry of "Hard down the helm!" was heard, and the Julia Ann, with a tremendous crash that sounded like thunder, smashed head-on into a coral reef.35 The bottom of the vessel could be heard to "grate harshly on the rocks," leaving a gaping hole and lifting the bow of the ship high out of the water.36 The stern of the ship "immediately swung around with her broadside" pressed hard up against the reef, "the sea [making] a complete breach over her at every swell."37 Pond wrote, "I sprang to my feet, but my heart failed me, as I was nearly thrown upon the floor of the cabin by the violent striking of the ship, and before I could reach the deck, she was thumping hard."38 Peter Penfold and others were singing on top of the midship house at the time of impact and, finding it too dangerous where they were, headed for the cabin. According to Penfold, "[T]he sea [was] breaking over us every moment, so that it was a thing impossible to stand."39
Captain Pond remained below momentarily to pick up his nautical equipment and soon after was on deck, only to be met by the stark realization that there was no hope of saving the vessel. Esther Spangenberg, a young non-Mormon passenger, recollects that "his chief desire seemed to be to save the lives of the passengers and crew."40 All passengers were ordered to head for the after-cabin, and indescribable confusion immediately followed as the steerage passengers rushed into the cabin, "mothers holding their undressed children in their arms, as they snatched them from their slumbers, screaming and lamenting."41 When the women asked the officers what they should do, they were told to cling to whatever they could, but this in itself was no easy task. As Captain Pond recalled, "the vessel was laboring and thumping in a most fearful manner, and it was almost impossible to cling to the iron railing upon the quarter deck."42 Miss Spangenberg described her attempt to reach the cabin in these terms:
I managed to reach the deck, and wedged myself between the bittheads, clinging to the iron railing. I looked over ship's side, but could see nothing but the breakers, which struck the ship with tremendous force. The rudder was broken, and the spanker-boom swinging to and fro, struck me severely in the head, while at the same time I narrowly escaped being swept overboard by a huge wave. I looked on death as certain, but I resolved to meet it bravely, and I returned to my state-room to devote the remaining moments of my life in thinking of friends whom I loved, and that I should never see more.43
John McCarthy recalled, "I saw mothers nursing their babes in the midst of falling masts and broken spars, while the breakers were rolling twenty feet high over the wreck."44 Andrew Anderson, his wife, and Sisters Harris and Logie were below in the steerage at the time of impact. By the time the Andersons could get four of their younger children out of bed, water was knocking about the boxes. Anderson's leg was bruised badly by a large box that hit him. With considerable difficulty they made it to the after-cabin.45
Many passengers were still clinging to the poop deck. The bashing from the waves was too much for young Mary Humphries and ten-year-old Marion Anderson. Both were washed off the poop deck into the foaming surf shortly after the ship ran aground and seen no more. Elizabeth Anderson and her husband tried frantically to gather all their children together but in such conditions found it physically impossible to account for eight children.46
The Julia Ann was not sinking but breaking up on the rocks from the continual pounding of the waves. The vessel had precariously fallen over on its seaward side and was jammed hard up against the reef. Although fearful that the ship could break up at any instant, Captain Pond wisely delayed briefly before cutting away the masts and kept the sails up, trying to force the ship as high as possible onto the reef. There was no time to lower boats as the sea had torn them from the davits, and at any rate they were useless in the surf and rocks.47 As the last boat "broke adrift . . . and plunged headlong into the sea."48 Second Mate Owens and three or four other crewmembers courageously leaped in after it, only to be catapulted into the reef along with the boat by a large wave. Owens suffered serious injuries and for a time lay incapacitated but soon after continued in his efforts to help others from the wreck.
All were fully aware the ship was going to pieces and, as there was no land in sight, Pond called for a volunteer to attempt to swim to the reef and find a firm footing. Posthaste a crew member stripped and by the aid of the spanker boom and expert swimming managed to fasten a rope to a rock upon the reef, by which the captain hastily began sending the women and children to relative safety. "The process was an exceedingly arduous one, and attended with much peril,"49 but with no other options available the struggle continued. During this time the passengers were forced to remain collected in the after-cabin, a chaotic haven at best, considering the description given by Esther Spangenberg:
When I reached the cabin, the scene that presented itself to my view, can never be erased from my memory. Mothers screaming, and children clinging to them in terror and dread; the furniture was torn from its lashings and all upturned; the ship was lying on her beam ends; the starboard side of her was opening, and the waves were washing in and out of the cabin.50
The passengers were forced to remain in the cabin until their names were called. Then each attempted to make it to the reef by the rope. The rocks proved to be a poor sanctuary, for not a dry spot was to be found as the sea broke over the reef continually. Captain Pond had given his quadrant, nautical almanac, and epitome to the first man to go to the reef, making it clear that if anyone did survive the night their continued existence depended upon the preservation of these articles. Pond recollects that upon reaching the reef "the man was required to do nothing, but to watch over the safety of those precious articles, to us far more valuable than gold."51 The captain's presence of mind in saving this equipment later proved crucial.
Esther Spangenberg remembered her ordeal in getting to the rocks: The Captain and officers had great difficulty in persuading the greater number of the ladies to [try to escape on the rope]; as for myself, I considered to remain on the ship was sure death, and I might save my life by trying to reach the reef by means of the rope. I therefore bade my fellow passengers farewell, and reached the deck by swaying myself there with a rope, the steps being gone. . . . I was assisted over the side of the ship, by some of the crew, and directed how to haul on by the rope; when, after considerable difficulty, I reached the reef, my clothes torn in shreds, and my person bruised and mangled. But I was fortunate in escaping, even in that plight.52
A number of women and children still remained below and were being helped up onto the poop deck by a few men. Two of the women, Eliza Harris and Martha Humphries, were without their husbands, who had intended to follow them in the next company. Eliza Harris had two children to fend for, her six-month-old son Lister and her two-year-old daughter Maria. She was no match for the conditions. She bravely strapped her son to her breast in readiness to go to the rocks. But before she could begin, a cry was heard, "hold on all!" and "an awful sea struck the ship, tearing up the bulwarks, threatening death and destruction to every thing within reach. A fearful shriek arose from the cabin."53 The Julia Ann had broken in two across the main hatch. The forward part of the cabin had been smashed in, and the starboard stateroom completely washed away. Eliza Harris, with her boy in her arms, hardly knew what hit her and was engulfed amid the waves and debris of the wreck. Both were drowned. Also in the cabin was forty-three-year-old Martha Humphries, who just before drowning requested of her friends to "protect her children and convey them to Great Salt Lake City, for her earthly career was run."54 Peter Penfold recalled that after helping the remaining women and children out of the cabin, he climbed up from below and "found the vessel all broken up into fragments except the cabin, and into that the water was rushing at a furious rate, sweeping out all the partitions."55
One man abandoned his wife and six children and went alone to the rocks. The Captain, feeling there was "no hope [that] the children" could make it across the hauling line alone, implored the mother to save her own life, but she could not bring herself to let her children face death alone, and remained. When her husband reached the rocks, the crew realized that he had deserted his family, and "they threw him back into the sea; the next wave, however, washed him up, and they permitted him to crawl to a place of safety."56 A seventeen-year-old mother and her husband courageously strapped their baby to his back and struggled together to the reef with the aid of the rope.57 Captain Pond displayed his true colors and high moral character throughout the ordeal by ordering Second Mate Owens, who was about to carry eight thousand dollars belonging to the captain to the rocks, to carry a small girl to safety first. This was done, and "the child was saved, but the money was lost."58 The rope soon parted, leaving the captain on board "to what appeared inevitable destruction." He recounts: There was no confusion: up to the last all were subservient to my orders. But the scene rapidly drew to a crisis.
The vessel had fallen off the reef to more than double her former distance; the rope attached to the rocks was stretched to its utmost tension, the hauling line had parted for the third time; the crew were all on the reef, and after repeated efforts to join us, the attempt was abandoned. At every surge of the sea, I expected the vessel would turn bottom up. . . . I urged those remaining to try to get to the reef, on the rope, before it parted--it was a desperate, but only chance for life. The women and children could not, and the men shrunk from the yawning gulf as from certain death.59
As no more passengers would leave the ship, Pond and Coffin in a last ditch effort to save their own lives threw themselves upon the rope. Nineteen passengers still remained on what was left of the ship, unable to make it safely to the reef: "parents and children, who preferred death sooner than separation from each other."60
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When John Devitry-Smith was a senior at Brigham Young University, he wrote this article. John was from Molong, New South Wales, Australia.
Related to the article, John expressed his gratitude “to Steve Ngatai, Harvey Guy, Margaret Pratt, and his parent for their inspiration that made this article a reality.”
The article is well documented and represents excellent study and research.
Obtain a copy of the original article for the footnotes.
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