–34 Blanchard estimated death toll.*

–37 Gibbs, James A. Shipwrecks off Juan de Fuca. Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1968, p191
–34 McCurdy. “Ocean Tragedies…Northwest Coast.” Overland Monthly, 34/202, 10-1899, 299
–34 McElwaine. The Truth About Alaska, the Golden Land on the Midnight Sun. 1901, p. 60
–34 New York Times. “Alaska Schooner Lost…Jane Grey Founders…” June 2, 1898.
–34 San Francisco Call. “Schooner Jane Gray Goes Down…Near Cape Flattery.” 6-2-1898, p1.

* Blanchard estimated death toll. We have seen accounts that note that the number of people on board, especially crew, was not known with absolute certainty. Most accounts we have seen have it as sixty-one. Gibbs has it has sixty-four, and also shows three more deaths. We cite four accounts which note 34 deaths. Two were written at the time and two within three years. We could show a range of 34-37 deaths, but given that only Gibbs, (or those who cite him) notes thirty-seven deaths, we choose to show thirty-four fatalities.

Narrative Information

Gibbs: “The Jane Gray Ordeal….On a may morning in 1898, the Jane Gray, Captain Crockett, left the bustling port [Seattle] for sea. She carried a total of sixty-four persons, thirty-two of whom were members of [Major E. S.] Ingraham’s party….

“As night came on off Cape Flattery, the winds gained in velocity and the schooner had rough going as she headed north. The skipper ordered her hove to [a stationary position], headed into the wind, and had all sails except the foresail taken in. After giving the order, he retired. At midnight the mate also turned in, leaving only two seamen on deck. The weather appeared to be moderating when suddenly a flash squall struck, rolling the schooner almost onto her beam ends. Seawater rushed along her decks on the starboard side and down the hatch into the cabin….Seas boarded in rapid succession. The pumps were useless….The schooner settled lower and lower until the waves were making a clean sweep of the deck….Only the cabin top and masts were above the sloshing water. The frantic passengers, along with some of the crew, fought for a place in the ship’s boat. In a desperate to get it cleared, a huge wave upended it, dumping all inside into the sea. A few minutes later the Jane Gray sank in a convulsive upheaval of water. She quickly disappeared into the vortex, leaving only struggling humanity and bits of wreckage.

“The steam launch floated free and with it the last hope of survival. It was so dark and stormy that even the sounds of voices were carried away with the wind. Several victims were sucked down into the watery vacuum; others clung to anything that floated in an effort to reach the launch. Those who managed to get aboard aided others until twenty-seven survivors were packed in the craft. The survivors searched further, but as near as they could tell thirty-four passengers and three crew members were missing.

“Except for the foresight of Major Ingraham in cutting the launch free, all hands would have perished. The boat’s propelling machinery was inoperative and no oars were available. Out of boards picked up from the wreckage, paddles were fashioned, and an old piece of canvas proved of some use as a sail. By hard and painful toil, the frail little craft moved ever so slowly toward land for five days and five nights. From sheer fortitude, the survivors pushed on in utter misery, clothes soaked and without food. The voyage finally ended when the boat caught up in the surf, was dashed rudely ashore in the desolate Kyuquot area of Vancouver Island.

“The wretched company found little succor and suffered endless hardship before being found by the crew of the trading schooner Favourite, who cared for them and took them to Victoria….” (p. 191.)

McCurdy: “Thirty-four persons out of sixty lost their lives by the foundering of the schooner Jane Gray, off Vancouver Island in May, 1899 [sic., 1898]. A violent storm sent the schooner to the bottom, and there not being enough boats, a large portion of those aboard perished.” (McCurdy 1899, 299.)

McElwaine: “Visiting the bark Alaska in the afternoon as she lay half a league to leeward we were told by her passengers of the story of the awful wreck of the schooner Jane Grey, which had sailed from Seattle only a few days before we left San Francisco, bound for the same port.

“Jane Grey was comparatively a new ship. She was built at Bath, Maine, in 1887, and her gross tonnage was 112 tons. She was owned by a local steamship company of Seattle, and at the time of the accident was in command of Captain Crockett of that place.

“Before leaving the harbor at Seattle, the ship was inspected by the marine authorities and pronounced seaworthy. She had sixty-one passengers and many tons of supplies on board. Adventurers in quest of gold, missionaries carrying the gospel to the heathen and the officers and crew, sailed up and through Puget Sound that beautiful May morning, little dreaming of the fate that was soon to be theirs.

“In the early hours of Sunday morning. May 22, the Jane Grey was about 90 miles northwest of Cape Flattery. She was sailing fast before the wind and the seas were running high. Suddenly a squall struck the vessel, throwing her on her beam ends, from which position she never righted. The sailor on watch instantly gave the alarm. The excited passengers rolled out of their bunks, and some, sensible of their danger, scrambled out upon the deck, while others, panic stricken, huddled together in the cabin, apparently resigned to their fate, as if willing to die without a struggle.

“Missionary Gamble was among the latter. Mr. Gamble was in charge of the government school and mission at St. Lawrence Island, and was returning to his work, with his wife and little girl, from a brief vacation in the States. The survivors say he became temporarily insane; he at all events refused all offers of assistance, and embracing his wife and child, forced them into the after cabin, exclaiming, “Never mind, boys; we will all die together.”

“When the first note of warning was sounded, the “Kernorma,” a small steam launch owned by one of the prospecting parties, was cut loose and lowered into the sea. The waves were now breaking one after another over the wrecked schooner, and those who were making a life and death struggle to get over the starboard rail into the launch were submerged in water at rapid intervals. Twenty-nine of the passengers and crew succeeded in safely boarding the launch, which floundered again soon afterwards, and two Italians in the party were drowned. The twenty-seven passengers and sailors who had taken refuge in the launch “Kernorma,” now at a distance sufficiently removed to be beyond the range of the suction which would follow the sinking of the ship, watched, with tearful eyes and heavy hearts, the tall masts of the schooner Jane Grey slowly sink beneath the waves of the ocean carrying thirty-two of their companions down to death….” (McElwaine. The Truth About Alaska. 1901, pp. 58-60.)

Newspaper

June 1: “Seattle, Washington, June 1.—The schooner Jane Grey, which sailed from Seattle for Kotzebue Sound [Alaska] on the 19th of May with sixty-one persons on board, foundered Sunday, May 22, about ninety miles west of Cape Flattery, at 2 o’clock in the morning while lying to, in a moderate gale, under foresail. Ten minutes after the alarm was given she lay at the bottom of the ocean with thirty-four of her passengers. The remainder succeeded in embarking in a launch, and reached this city this afternoon….

“Those lost are
Signor Gaia and Signor Besseta, Italy;
“Jack” Lindsay, Everett;
W. H. Gleason, W. A. Johnson, W. J. Smith, C. G. Smith, P. C. Little, C. W. Young, and W. D. Millan, Seattle;
Horace Palmer, Lebanon, Ohio;
F. G. Saulsbury, Minnesota;
A. B. Dunlap, Dwight, Ill.;
B. D. Ranney, Mexico City;
B. E. Snipe, Jr., Seattle;
John M. Stutzman, Westfield, N. J.;
E. M. Taylor, F. S. Taylor, and B. S. Spencer, California;
W. B. Doxey, Edward Ritter, F. W. Ginther, B. S. Frost, W. F. Levering, William Otter, O. F. McKelvey, C. Brown, C.C. Aikins, N. Hedelund, Charles Williams, and V.C. Gambel, wife and child, missionary on St. Lawrence Island, in Bering Sea.
One other, name unknown.

“E. M. and F. S. Taylor of California are sons of S. P. Taylor, a wealthy paper manufacturer of San Francisco.

“It is possible that there may be four of five more survivors whose names cannot be ascertained.

A Family Dies Together.

“The Jane Grey’s passengers were prospectors, with the exception of the Rev. V. C. Gambel, a missionary who, with his wife and child, was on his way to St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. He refused to place his wife and child on board the launch, saying: “The vessel is doomed, and we will die together.”

“Among the prospectors was a party of sixteen, headed by Major Ingraham, who were outfitted by Prince Luigi of Italy for a two years’ prospecting trip in Alaska. Of this party the only survivors are Major Ingraham, L. M. Lessey, C. H. Packard, and G. H. Pennington.

“The survivors of the passengers suffered a great deal of privation, and for thirty hours their only food was a sack of prunes and a sack of turnips from the ship’s stores. Sufficient water was caught by spreading a tarpaulin during a rainstorm.

“The news of the disaster and the expected arrival of the survivors from Victoria caused a large crowd to gather at the dock in this city. Carriages were waiting, and when the City of Kingston landed the survivors they were all carried to their rooms, or to the residences of friends. The few that could be seen had not recovered from the shock, and consequently could not give a good account of the disaster. They were unable to account for the vessel’s springing a leak and sinking so suddenly. They were warm in their praise of the work done by Capt. Crockett at the time of the foundering of the vessel.
Capt. Crockett’s Story.

“Capt. Crockett gives the following account of the wreck:

“We were lying to, to mend our foresail. A moderate gale was blowing and the seas were running high. I had gone to bed and was sound asleep when the watchman awakened me with the announcement that something was wrong. I arose at once and found the vessel leaking. A hurried investigation showed that she would soon sink, and I at once notified the passengers of the situation. Most of them were asleep underneath the deck. A scene of confusion then took place, and it is impossible to give any detailed account of the events that followed. The darkness added to the confusion. The Jane Grey carried two lifeboats and two launches. I at once ordered the boats lowered. The first lifeboat was swamped. The launch Kennoma, belonging to the Ingraham party, was successfully lowered.

“At this time the Jane Grey was almost under water. A heavy sea struck her, throwing her on her beams. There was no time to launch other boats. The water was over her hatches and every one below was certainly drowned. Those on deck, however, got in the launch. A sack of prunes and one of turnips was hurriedly taken from the ship’s stores, and this was the only food we had till we reached Vancouver Island.

“As the launch drifted away from the almost submerged schooner we saw eight or ten men standing on the lee rail clinging to the rigging. Soon they disappeared from sight. Two of them, John Johnson and C. Reilly kept afloat by clinging to bundles of boat lumber. Two hours after they were picked up by our launch, making twenty-seven in all, we had with us. It is just barely possible that there will be four more survivors.

“Before the Jane Grey disappeared under the waves we thought we saw the second launch that was on board, with four forms near it. They were so indistinct that we were not sure. They seemed to be getting into the launch. We improvised a sail and paddles after drifting thirty hours in the launch, finally landed inside of Rugged Point, Kyuquot Sound, on Vancouver Island, eighty miles from the scene of the wreck. A fire was built on the beach, and we made a meal on roasted muscles. We had eaten nothing since the night before and the disaster, excepting the sack of prunes and turnips which we threw into the launch. We got our drinking water by spreading out a tarpaulin in the driving rain.

“An Indian who chanced to come along informed us that the village of Kyuquot was but six miles away. We went there and found the sealing schooner Favorite becalmed, and arrangements were made to carry our party to Victoria. We reached there just in time to catch the steamer for Seattle.”

“The Jane Grey was a schooner of 1.000 tons burden. She was built in Bath, Me., in 1887. She was owned and operated by McDougall & Southwick of this city [Seattle]. Outside of the miners’ outfits she carried no cargo.” (NYT. “Alaska Schooner Lost…Jane Grey Founders…” 6-2- 1898)

Sources

Gibbs, James A. Shipwrecks off Juan de Fuca. Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1968.

McCurdy, James G. “Ocean Tragedies on the Northwest Coast.” Overland Monthly, Vol. 34, No. 202, Oct. 1899. Pp. 291-300. Digitized by Google. Accessed 6-22-2022 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=otNUAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

McElwaine, Eugene. The Truth About Alaska, the Golden Land on the Midnight Sun. Self-published, 1901. Digitized by Google. Accessed 6-22-2022 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Q4MUAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

New York Times. “Alaska Schooner Lost. The Jane Grey Founders Ninety Miles West of Cape Flattery.” 6-2-1898. Accessed 6-22-2022 at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0812FD3A5D11738DDDAB0894DE405B8885F0D3&scp=1&sq=alaska%20schooner%20lost&st=cse

San Francisco Call. “Schooner Jane Gray Goes Down. Thirty-Four Lives Lost in a Disaster Near Cape Flattery.” 6-2-1898, p.1. Accessed 6-22-2022 from the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research California Digital Newspaper Collection at: https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC18980602.2.3&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1

1898 — May 22, squall, Seattle schooner Jane Gray takes on water/sinks W of Cape Flattery, WA–34