The Disappearance of the SS Pacific (1856)

[Music] some ships are lost in wrecks so dramatic that their story becomes a legend other ships disappear without a clue as to what happened to the vessel or the souls on board this story is one of the latter [Music] now before we get into it a little bit of the ship's background the pacific was launched on february 1st 1849 the second ship in the collins line fleet she stole away the blue ribbon from the company's rival cunard breaking the trans-atlantic speed record in both directions she was a paddle steamer made of wood 281 feet long and 2707 gross registered tons throughout her career she'd been modified a few times second class was also expanded significantly after her first voyages one significant event during her career occurred in march 1853 when under the command of captain nye the pacific came upon the swamped and wrecked bark jesse stevens with 16 of her crew clinging to it pacific's third officer tompkins heroically took three of his sailors off into a boat and then the four of them rode over to the wrecked bark and rescued all 16 of the crew and brought them back to the pacific the passengers of the pacific were so struck by the heroism of tompkins that they banded together and did a fundraiser and they raised around in 1853 money for tompkins and his sailors that's around 16 and a half thousand dollars today captain ezra nye would eventually have a new jersey pilot boat named after him for his command during the rescue and his overall career after some time a new captain a captain asa eldridge was put in command of the pacific now asa eldridge was actually a famous sea captain of the time even then he was a famous sea captain of the time and prior to the pacific he had commanded four steamships as well as several sailing vessels including the white starliner red jacket on her record-breaking transatlantic voyage he had sailed with the collins line longer than the collins line really existed as a formal company having commanded the rocius under the ig collins and sun company an earlier version of the collins line which edward collins had with his father eldridge was a formidable captain who knew exactly how to get the most out of his vessels on january 23 1856 with 45 passengers and 141 crew the pacific departed liverpool bound for new york she sailed down the river mersey out into the sea and was never seen again that's it seriously that's it she just disappeared there is nothing more known about this disaster with one small exception in the summer of 1861 a full five and a half years after her disappearance a small bottle washed up on the shores of one of heberty's islands in northern scotland the man who found it noticed a small rolled-up note inside it and opened it up it read on board the pacific from liverpool to new york ship going down great confusion on board icebergs all around us on every side i know i cannot escape i right the cause of our loss that friends may not live in suspense the finder of this will please get it published signed william graham the authenticity of this message in a bottle was initially doubted there were actually several other instances of messages and bottles being faked from other shipwrecks of the time but the name william graham was actually matched up to a w h gram on the pacific's passenger list and graham was a british sea captain sailing to the united states aboard the pacific as a passenger once he arrived in the united states he was to take command of his own ship now could a forger have known about his name on the passenger list yes he could have the names of those on board the pacific were indeed published in new york and london and other locations immediately after the ship's sinking now those lists would have been published with just the name they would not have given a description as to who each of those individuals were so what would the odds be of this rural scotsman having picked out of that list the one person who would have been able to keep something of a cool head in this situation and have had the forethought to write down what was going on so that his friends and family and and the friends and family of anyone else on board would have some knowledge as to the fate of this ship this message was eventually accepted as real regardless of the authenticity it is all we have to go by nothing else was ever found of the pacific there was actually one other message in a bottle found in the saint lawrence river in 1862 that claimed to be from the pacific and gave greater detail including coordinates placing her pretty much dead center on her atlantic roots and mentioned that they were sinking after having sprung a leak in a gale three days prior to the writing of the letter oddly the authenticity of this message was not doubted as much as the bottle in scotland but looking back on it it is an obvious hoax for one it mentioned the ship's sinking on april 12 1856 a full two and a half months after departing liverpool at which point they would have been long out of coal and starving which i still think would have been worth mentioning in a brief note even if you were going down just to explain the agony that passengers and crew have been through presumably for the last several weeks it was also signed by an r johnston a name that does not appear in the passenger or crew list and there is no record of another ship named the pacific going down in that area around the same time so this message is an obvious hoax the most likely theory is that she was lost as a direct result of the ice mentioned in the scotland note either having struck an iceberg or having been damaged by an ice field one thing is for certain though she sank somewhat slowly with enough time for the initial damage to occur be surveyed and it to be concluded that she was indeed going down and then for a passenger to collect himself write the message seal it securely and cast it overboard her near-identical sister after all the arctic sank in roughly four hours now was the pacific traveling at a reckless speed it was the standard operating procedure for all ships of the collins line to travel at full speed at all times now this wasn't due to greed or irresponsibility on behalf of the company but instead by an unrealistic government regulation imposed by the u.s postal service i talk about this in more detail in another video now many captains of the line were wary of this regulation however captain eldridge of the pacific had already made a name for himself for being a competitively swift sea captain having set the record for fastest transatlantic crossing by sale when he was at the command of the white star liner red jacket a record that still stands to this day he pushed that ship beyond its limit and tended to push his luck now supposedly he was even given the command of the pacific because of his record-setting red jacket voyage the sworn rival of the collins line was the british company cunard line the biggest thing that the collins line had over the cunard line was its speed and now the cunard line had launched a new ship the persia which was supposedly faster than anything that the collins line had and she had departed on her maiden voyage from liverpool a few days after the pacific it's possible that captain eldridge daredevil that he was was pushing the pacific at all costs to beat the persia on her maiden voyage i don't wish to cast suspicion on captain eldritch he was a talented sea captain who proved himself time and time again and there's nothing more than his reputation aboard the red jacket and the circumstances around the competitiveness between the collins line and cunard's new persia to suggest that he might have been pushing the pacific more than usual did the pacific speed have anything to do with her loss maybe but that month saw heavy losses for shipping even ships going at a responsible pace there was a deadly ice field in the north atlantic first reported a week after pacific's departure and this ice field claimed several other ships as its victims most of these ships were significantly slower than the pacific but also simply disappeared in fact the persia herself now on her maiden voyage was in the same part of the ocean as the ss pacific at around the same time and she rammed an iceberg crushing in her bow and she slowly limped into new york a scottish steamer the city of edinburgh sailing along a similar route almost two months later spotted what they described as saloon class furniture floating in an ice field there's absolutely no indication as to which ship this debris belonged to and with so many other ships disappearing at the same time in that area it's not necessarily likely to be the pacific but it could be 1856 was a disastrous year for ice and the pacific might simply have been its most prominent victim if you've already seen my documentary on the loss of pacific sistership the arctic i cannot help but wonder if a similar hell unfolded aboard the pacific as did on the arctic but this time simply every attempt at survival failed miserably the loss of the pacific was simply one of the last nails in the coffin for the collins line shortly after the united states government scaled back its subsidy for the collins line but still required them to continue traveling at full speed all the time and consuming all of that coal and that government intervention bankrupted the company her wreckage has never been found now in 1991 a wreck was found about 50 miles from the mouth of the river mersey and it made world news when it was purported that this was the wreck of the lost pacific however further work on the wreck dated this mystery wreck to be about 10 years after the loss of the pacific we know that she was lost but in 1856 her operators those with loved ones on board and indeed the whole western world waited with baited breath for the closure of this mystery hoping that at some point the ship would arrive in port late but safe her older sister the atlantic had been missing for two weeks when she finally came into cork ireland under sale because her engines had broken they wondered was the pacific lost or was she late i'll close with a poem written that year by charles hedges expressing the anxiety that the world felt waiting on shore without answers oh how long will this mystery last how long will the dreadful suspense which has shrouded our minds for weak past be suffered its gloom to dispense each morning we ask is there yet any news from the long missing ship and our hearts fill with bitter regret as no comes from every lip where is she oh where can she be deep down with the waves does she lie or does she yet float on the sea the pride of the mariner's eye have fierce gail swept her on to her doom till helpless she sank neath the surge of the billows in the ocean's vast tomb and its waves chants her funeral dirge perhaps from the north's frozen sea an iceberg has hastened her fate and shattered and shorn perchance she lies low with her thrice precious freight perhaps in the ice firmly bound she yet floats on ocean's domain the thoughts with a fond hope is crowned for then we may see her again where were those who in vigor and life a few weeks ago trod her deck do they yet by god's mercy survive or sleep in the gloom of her wreck oh we earnestly hope that their forms again we may see and their voice be not hushed mid-oceans fear storms then millions of hearts will rejoice have the hundreds who found her a home when from britain she trusted the wave amid oceans fury and foam have they also found her grave kind father forbid it we cry great god grant it not is our prayer we hope at the same time we sigh but our hope is allied with despair a huge thank you to all of my supporters on patreon for helping cover the cost of these rather large collins line documentaries especially kaiserville helm the second air wicker zack sterosu tom shavada rob m amos mayhew corey andrews dakota charbonne zolt bognar and nicholas 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Channel: Part-Time Explorer

Views: 466,849

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Id: ypUSzCuNCa4

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Sat May 28 2022