Lost and Pound: The Search for the Portland by Matthew Lawrence
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n the nineteenth century, the ocean often swallowed ships with on ly a single newspaper notice marking their non-arrival. These tragedies were felt acutely within the victims' communities but soon forgotten by the rest of the world. The story of SS Portland's loss and what transpired after is different. Certainly, the number of victims set it apart in the minds of New Englanders, but, more importantly, the epic nature in which it sank,
BESIEGED FOR NEWS. Men and Women Gowd the Office to lnquirdor Those Who Went Down With the Portia.rid.
Boston Globe, 1 December 1898 disappearing without giving up most of its passengers and crew, kept it reverberating in the region's cultural history. These factors made rhe event fruitful fodder for storytelling and created a need to find out: What happened to Portland? The search for Portland's wreck began within rwo weeks of its sinking when the Boston Globe sponsored an expedition to determine if the steamer's remains rested on Peaked Hill Bar, a sandbar running just offshore of the northernmost end of Cape Cod. Using rwo tugboats to tow a length of chain across the bar, Lieurenant N icholas Halpine of the US Navy made a thorough sweep of the bottom without snagging an underwater obstruction. This exercise provided a media co up for the Globe, allowing it to prove what it had editorialized all along-that Portland sank in deeper water north of the cape. Exactly how far north was still up for speculation. Within months of the steamer's loss, further clues abo ut its final resting place began appearing in fishermen's nets in the waters north of Cape Cod. While not every relic hauled up from the sea bed
proved to be from Portland, several frag- by Snow and George in 1945. HMGNE, ments of electric lighting and cabin items founded by avid shipwreck hunters John P. were clearly identified as belonging to the Fish, H. Arnold Carr, and Pere Sachs, and steamer. These finds were located approxi- associates Wi lli am McElroy, John Ryther, mately rwenry miles north of Cape Cod in and Richard Jones, located Edward Rowe deep water. As pieces of the ship snagged Snow's purporred Portland and found it fishing lines over the years, speculation to have no structural features that would continued to swirl regarding the location identify it as a large side-wheel steamship. of the wreck. Determined to find Portland's remains, In 1924, Captain Charles Carver of the group began searching the inshore waMaine pulled up pottery, bottles, silver- ters around the northern tip of Cape Cod. ware, and an iron pot attributed to Port- During an eight year period, the group land in his nets roughly nine miles north used side scan sonar to survey the sea floor of Cape Cod. No one followed up on Cap- with in a rwelve-mile radius of Cape Cod, tain Carver's finds until historian Edward turning up several shipwrecks, but not Rowe Snow, author of several co lo rful Portland. Convinced that the vessel lay books on New England's shipwrecks and outside of their previous search areas, John maritime disasters, set out to discover the Fish decided to look in a new direction truth. Snow, confident that Portland rested by plotting where Portland's debris had where Carver had dragged up the galley washed up on Cape Cod. After consulting items, mounted an expedition to settle the Richard Limeburner, a physical oceanogissue. In July 1945, Snow hired Al George, rapher from Woods Hole Oceanographic a hard-hat diver, to descend to the sea bed Institution, who conducted a simulated in 144 feet of water off Highland Light. drift analysis of the debris, HMGNE George crawled around a wreck, encoun- researchers moved their search areas fartering boulders, masts, and buried pieces of ther north. This new area coincided more a ship's hull. Snow unequivocally claimed closely with the location of Portland's last that this shipwreck was the steamer's re- sighting on 26 November 1898, as well as mains. He and m embers of the Portland where fishermen first reported recovering Associates, a group composed of relatives Portland debris snagging their lines. of Portland's victims, erected a plaque After three more years of searching, comm emorating the vessel's loss. Even to- HMGNE's side scan sonar finally returned day it tells visitors at Highland Light on the first aco ustic images of Portland in the Cape Cod that Portland lies seven miles fall of 1988. Upon returning to the site the out to sea from their position. following spring and summer, they again Three decades after Snow made his used side scan sonar to identify construcdeclaration of Portland's location, the tion features that clearly indicated that the Historical Maritime Group of New Eng- shipwreck was a large side-wheel steamland (HMGNE) rook up Portland's case. ship. Ultimately, the team photographed HMGNE had located and identified doz- portions of the ship's outer hull planking ens of shipwrecks along the john Fish(!) and Arnold Carr (r) ofHMGNE. eastern seaboard from New York to Canada, compiling one of the most complete databases on the northeast's shipwrecks. The group's success stemmed from its use of the historical record to predict shipwreck locations and its access to sophisticated marine remote sensing technology to survey the sea Aoor. In 1978, HMGNE set out to investigate the shipwreck explored
SEA HISTORY 107, SPRING/SUMMER 2004
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