❖ STAR OF Bengal 1898--1908 ❖

STAR OF BENGAL 
Courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.

"The ship tragedy that shook the world was the loss of the Star of Bengal. This vessel was originally built of iron at the Harland & Wolff yard at Belfast, Ireland in 1873. She measured 262 feet in length and was 1,877 tons. After trading worldwide for several years she was transferred to the flag of Hawaii and from 1898 to 1900 traded the islands and California under the J. J. Smith house flag. In 1900 the Bengal received U.S. registry and six years later was purchased by the Alaska Packers Assoc. Her awful demise came on 20 September 1908.
      Though the details surrounding the tragedy have never been made clear, it appears from the facts that there was a gross miscarriage of justice as an outcome of the hearing into the matter.
      

Captain Nicholas Wagner
and his author/daughter Joan Lowell.
He was master of the Star of Bengal
when she was lost in 1908.
Original photo from the archives of
the Saltwater People Log©.
Click image to enlarge.

In Joan (Wagner) Lowell’s best-selling but controversial book, The Cradle of the Deep (1929,) Captain Nicholas Wagner who was master of the Star of Bengal, is believed by some to have used his daughter’s book as a sounding board for his account of what actually happened. Though he took the full brunt of the blame and had his papers removed, a portion of justice was restored when he received amnesty several months later and returned to sea.

           His cause, however, was not necessarily aided by the book; it was the story of the captain's daughter who was reputedly raised aboard her father's schooner from the time she was a baby until the full bloom of youth at age 17. So authentically was it written that no sailor could have initially denied that there could have been a possibility of deceit. But as it turned out, Joan Lowell like any other young lady had spent most of her childhood in her hometown (Berkeley,) receiving the usual education through high school. She must have sat at her dad's side for endless hours hearing of his experiences as master of the schooner Minnie A. Caine and the ship Star of Bengal. Based on fact but mixed with a generous seasoning of fiction, salty cuss words and sex, the book was released by the publishers as purely non-fiction and was sold with that understanding. When the author was exposed by local residents a few months later, the whole thing blew up like a firecracker, the book had already gone through several printings, the cry of "foul play" forced the publishers to offer the money back to any disillusioned purchaser. The added publicity only tended to promote the book more and it was the year's best seller. 

      The generally accepted true account of the wreck as told at the hearing follows:

      The Alaska Packers Association bark Star of Bengal was en route back to San Francisco from Wrangell when the tragedy occurred on Coronation Island on 20 September 1908. She was commanded by Captain Nicholas Wagner with Gus A. Johnson as mate. The iron-hulled vessel departed from Wrangell with about 50,000 cases of salmon in her holds and carried scores of cannery workers being brought home from the company canneries in Alaska. They were mostly Orientals.

      The steam tenders Hattie Gage, Captain Dan Farrer, and the Kayak under a Captain Hamilton, handled the towing hawsers as the vessel was led through the dangerous Alexander Archipelago toward the open sea where she was to drop her lines and spread her canvas.

      Captian Farrer was in overall charge of the two tugs, which were actually cannery tenders owned by the APA. As long as calm weather prevailed they encountered no difficulty with the Bengal but at midnight when a brisk wind arose and turned into a gale two hours later, the trouble began with a capital T. The Kayak which had little draft aft caused most of the strain to be placed on the other tender. The Kayak soon became completely unmanageable and the tugs were working against each other instead of together. Convinced that to keep up the strain would have meant outright disaster for all three vessels, the tug skippers ordered the lines cut and made a run for it, leaving the laboring Bengal at the mercy of the storm.

      Before the tenders abandoned the scene, Captain Wagner, in desperation, had let the anchors go to thwart the drift toward the desolate island. The bark brought up in about ten fathoms, 50 feet from the beach. The tugs had sought shelter at Warren Island some 12 miles away, where temporary repairs were made, after which the Hattie Gage steamed back to Wrangell seeking assistance from the government cable ship Burnside.

      In the terrible blow, the Star of Bengal and her terrified company waited in miserable solitude. Straining on her cable the ship was fully open to the storm off exposed Helm Point of a lee shore with precipitous cliffs.

      Four courageous men, Henry Lewald, Olaf Hansen, and Fred Matson, able seamen, and Frank Muir, a cannery cook, volunteered to get a line ashore. Their boat was smashed to bits in the surf but they succeeded in gaining the beach and making the line fast. In the interim, the straining Star of Bengal parted her cables and struck the rocks. Within the hour the vessel broke up, only her mizzen topmast marking the spot of the grave. As the hull split open the steady flow of salmon cases and heavy steel drums were swept into the voted interspersed with the b bodies of struggling humans. The giant walls of water combed the devastating scene of man's losing b battle against the sea. It was mayhem.

      Later Captain Wagner who was among the handful of survivors gave this official account:

      "When the final shock came, the Star of Bengal appeared to heave up her entrails in three sections. As I was thrown into the water I saw the amidships beams of solid iron come out in a tangled mass. The force necessary to produce this is scarcely conceivable. So strong had been preceding gusts that a five-inch iron davit was snapped short off. After I was thrown into the water, any attempt to swim appeared ridiculous. As I struggle only to keep afloat, I was hurled toward shore among a thousand cases of salmon and hundreds of metal drums that constituted our cargo. I was practically unconscious when I reached the  beach."

      Though there has been some controversy as to how many were actually aboard the Star of Bengal most accounts placed the total at 132. Only 22 survived and they were picked up many hours later by the errant Kayak after the storm abated. There were reputedly 74 or 75 Orientals aboard and all but two perished. The Caucasians that drowned were mostly the ship's crew.

      Captain Wagner was extremely bitter, charging criminal cowardice on the part of the tug skippers, who insisted that they would have accomplished nothing but the destruction of their own vessels and crews by hanging on longer. The inspectors of the Alaska district agreed with them apparently, for they were not censured, while Captain Wagner who was in no way responsible for the tragic episode had his license suspended, as an unjustifiable act which was later rescinded by chief inspector Bermingham at San Francisco."

 Jim Gibbs. Pacific Square-Riggers.