• Captains Statement
• Rev. Ancient's Account
  
  

W.J. Ancient Hero of Shipwreck Atlantic

By Phillis R.Blakeley

The Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly ( Halifax, NS )
Volume. 3 NO. 3, September 1973
By permission Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management

Early in the morning on April 1st, 1873 -- April Fool's Day -- a messenger arrived at Terence Bay with the news that the White Star liner Atlantic was ashore at Mars Head near Lower Prospect and there were hundreds of passenger still on board. The fishermen of Terence Bay decided that it would be quicker to walk overland that to row or sail against the wind. With them walked the thirty-seven year old Rev. William J. Ancient, their Church of England clergyman, a wiry man, six feet tall, with a pleasant tanned face and bright eyes. They arrived at the wreck about 9 a.m.

The luxury liner S. S. Atlantic belonged to the White Star and Ocean Company and was on a regular voyage form Liverpool in England to New York with about 976 people on board. She was constructed of iron, 420 feet long, and had 4 masts and a funnel, and 6 water-tight bulkheads, and was valued at $500,00. Her captain, James A. Williams, had decided to call at Halifax because the coal on board had been rocky and had burned badly and there was not enough left to reach New York if the vessel ran into a gale. Because of poor navigation the Atlantic struck Mars Head at 3:10 a.m. on April 1st and in a few minutes heeled over and filled with water. Some of the passengers and crew climbed up the masts. Then three of the officers managed to rig a line to a slippery rock forty yards away and some of the passengers succeeded in reaching it. Fishermen from Lower Prospect were rescuing them by going out in their rowboats to the rock where the tide was rising.

When the Terence Bay contingent arrived many of the shipwrecked had been rescued either by jumping form the rigging into the sea near a fishing boat and being pulled on board the little craft, or hanging onto ropes and struggling through the seething, boiling waters from the wreck to the shore. Groups of rescued passengers were standing around shivering. Michael Clancy and his daughter Sarah Jane O'Reilly, Dennis, Kate and Agatha O'Brien, the Ryans and others were doing their best to care for the shocked passengers but there were not enough homes in Lower Prospect to shelter everyone. Mr. Ancient made arrangements for some of the younger and stronger men to start walking to Terence Bay where they could be cared for.

By afternoon all the living had been rescued or washed off except a boy, and a man and a woman still tied in the rigging on the mizzenmast high out of the water. The man was J. W. Firth, the First Officer of the Atlantic, who had fastened the woman to the mast and had promised to remain with her until they were saved. A young Englishman had succeeded in reaching the deck with his wife and child and helping them into the mizzen rigging, but a wave snatched the child. Immediately Captain Williams had ordered everyone to get into the fore rigging because that part of the vessel was higher and more sheltered. The young woman said she was to exhausted to attempt to move but entreated her husband to go and save himself. He did so, but Firth had promised to stay. The woman was dressed only in a thin night-gown, with jewels sparkling on her fingers. At first she had kept up her spirits by singing hymns by now she was dropping with exhaustion and cold. The sea had become so rough that the boasts could not venture near enough to the wreck to rescue them.

Mr. Ancient went over to Edward Ryan, the magistrate, and said: "The water is smooth enough. You can get alongside in a boat".

"But you cannot get at them when you get out there, Mr. Ancient" replied the magistrate.

"Give me a boat and some men: put me on board and I will get them" and Mr. Ancient walked over to where they were hauling up the boats. The crew of the boats which had rescued so many were Dennis and Frank Ryan, James Coolan, John and Benjamin Blackburn and James and Michael O'Brien, Patrick Lacy, Patrick Dollard and J.J. Tooley, assisted by others whose names were not reported in the newspapers of the time.

At first the fisherman refused to row Mr. Ancient to the wreck because they said it would be certain death for all, and they must have been very tired from their many trips to the rock and the wreck. The clergyman insisted that he knew exactly what to do because of his naval training and that he could rescue the three still out on the Atlantic. We do not know the names of the four men he persuaded to man a boat for him.

The bow of the Atlantic was high out of the water while her stern was submerged. Great seas were washing over the liner's hull and the little boat was in great danger of being swamped if they rowed too close. The crew refused to put Mr. Ancient on board. "John" entreated the clergyman, "if I am doomed I won't hold you responsible. Put me on board."

While they were arguing the boy jumped off into the waves. They picked him up and wrapped a coat around him. Mr. Ancient insisted that he could get aboard safely at the bow where there was some shelter, and he did. He cut a rope from the rigging and by fastening it around his waist and taking hitches around each davit to make a lifeline, he slowly made his way towards the man and woman. The man in the rigging shouted that the woman had perished form the cold and he was too weak to save himself. Ancient shouted back:

"You are an officer, are you not?"

"Yes"

"Then you know how to make a bowline?"

"Yes, sir."

Ancient then threw him an end of rope, first taking a turn around the davit. "Now put you confidence in men and the Lord and move when I tell you". Clumsily Firth tied the rope and started to climb down the stay. A tremendous wave broke on board and washed him off, but the rope lashed to a davit held them both. When the next sea came Ancient hauled the sailor back on board. Firth yelled:

"O Lord, I have broken my shins! I have broken my shins!"

"Never mind you shins, Man! It is your life we are after, " called Ancient as he dragged the officer along the life line he had made. Again and again both men were buried in the great seas that came sweeping over, and only his early training as a seaman in the British navy enable him to perform the return journey. Finally Ancient reached the sheltered bow and lowered Firth into the waiting boat.

The boy who was saved was 12 year old John Hindley, the only survivor of the of the hundreds of women and children who embarked on board the ill-fated Atlantic. He was emigrating from Lancashire with his parents and young brother to join two married sisters in New York. He had been awakened by great noise and got up to see what was happening. The ship suddenly tipped over but he followed some men into an upper berth in the upper steerage compartment. One of the men broke open a porthole and someone pushed the boy out and yelled at him to climb up and hang onto the ropes. When John was taken to Halifax, Alderman William H. Neal outfitted him from "top to toe" with clothing from Neal's dry goods store on Granville Street and he was photographed by William Chase. A reporter observed that the boy was too shocked to realize the dreadful tragedy.

Although there were at least 138 women on board the Atlantic not one woman was saved. Hardly any woman succeeded in reaching the deck and I wonder how many were drowned by the weight of their heavy long sodden skirts? Some women were in the lifeboats which capsized and others swept overboard with their children because they did not have the physical strength to hang onto the rails or the rigging. James Bateman of London had succeeded in getting his wife upon the rigging, where she died from exposure.

The Dominion Government steamer Lady Head with Customs' officials, the Cunard steamer Delta with newspaper reporters, and the steam tug Goliath were dispatched from Halifax to Prospect to bring the survivors to the capital. The steamers anchored safely offshore while the Goliath with lifeboats in tow went in to embark the shipwrecked men. Most of the passengers in the Atlantic had been emigrating to the United States and soon they were on board -- dressed in guernseys, old sweaters, overcoats, bits of blanket around their shoulders, many without shoes and stockings had their feet tied up with wisps of straw and old pieces of cloth. One man wore hand-knitted woolen mitts while another sported lavender kid gloves. They were so bruised and sore form being knocked against the rocks that they were scarcely able to stand. One man had both legs broken.

It was only when the survivors had boarded the steamers that Captain Williams of the Atlantic could make an estimate of the losses - he said that there were 33 cabin passengers, 800 steerage passengers and 143 crewmen - making a total of 976 so that 546 had been drowned. Freeman D. Markwald of New York, who had been saved, remained until he identified the bodies of the 19 cabin passengers who were lost and made arrangements for their burial.

On April 3rd the tug Hoover started from Halifax with the schooner Amateur in tow, freighted with 200 coffins and boards prepared for others. On the ship were some who had come to Halifax to identify dead relatives. Lying in rows on the rocks and peat were 152 bodies recovered from the sea - men in heavy seaman's cloths , women in dresses torn to rags in the waves, children covered with sailcloth. Those identified by Captain J. A. Williams or Third Officer Cornelius Brady were placed in coffins and taken to Halifax on the tug. The other bodies were examined by the magistrates, and those unidentified or unclaimed were placed in coffins in long trenches for burial. Cunard's Halifax office was acting as agent for the White Star Line and sent down extra picks and shovels and gravediggers to help the men of Prospect and Terence Bay. An ox-team slowly came up from the water with its heavy load of rough pine coffins.

There is a photograph of the burial service of the victims of the wreck of S. S. Atlantic showing Rev. W. J. Ancient reading the service before an open trench while the villagers and a few visitors from Halifax are gathered by. The Protestants were buried in the little cemetery at Terence Bay while the Roman Catholics were interred at Prospect. The Canadian Parliament voted $3,000 to pay expenses of burial of bodies form the Atlantic wreck and for rewarding the fishermen and Mr. Ancient.

William Johnson Ancient was a native of Lincolnshire, England, and had joined the British Navy, served on H. M. S. Mars from 1859 to 1863, and was posted to Halifax as a scripture reader. Later he studied for the Anglican ministry and was ordained deacon in 1867 by Bishop Hibbert Binney and sent as missionary by the Colonial and Continental Church Society to Harrietsfield and Terence Bay and Lower Prospect, then a poor and scattered parish. The Rev. Mr. Ancient was a seaman who understood the fishermen and sailors who largely composed his parish and was respected by them for his personal bravery and his sincerity. Undeterred by fog, sunken reefs and waves, he travelled along the rocky coast in a little boat to visit families in remote coves and walked miles inland along narrow muddy trails to bring God's word to those assembled in a log-hut in the woods.

In 1868 Bill Ancient had come to the "Terns Bay Mission" as it was called, where he found the Church building half-finished, just boarded in and shingled. his congregation gave twenty dollars and promised more in the fall if the fishery were successful. With forty dollars more donated by friends in Halifax, the clergyman bought a stove and pipe and lamps and boards to floor the nave and chancel and partition off a vestry. School was held in a "small place about fourteen feet by twelve, situated under a hayloft, with an average attendance of thirty to forty children". Mr. Ancient and Mr. J. R. Miller, the School Inspector for Halifax County, called a meeting of the parents who raised forty-two dollars and promised to donate their labour towards building a new school each evening from 6 to 7:30, followed by a short Bible class.

Mr. Ancient ministered to 212 church members scattered throughout five preaching stations - Terence Bay, Lower Prospect, Harrietsfield, Brookside, and Sambro. He reorganized his choir to induce more young people to join it and he subscribed to some magazines such as "Sunday At Home", and "Our Own Fireside" which he allowed the choir members to take home. He was ordained priest in 1872. He reported to the Colonial and Centinental Church Society: "Yesterday I had a wedding and a funeral at Sambro and did not get back until this morning, owing to the strong N.W. wind. I fear I took a bad cold at the grave as I feel very poorly today - cold chills, headache and blistered hands from rowing. I have been across the Bay three times this week and feel anything but in good condition for writing."

Ancient's bravery in rescuing Firth from the rigging caught the imagination of the world. The Chicago Relief Committee sent a magnificent watch to the clergyman and a sum of money to be distributed to the rescuers. They also remembered some of the young women who had been so kind to the ship-wrecked passengers for they sent a gold locket and chain and twenty pounds sterling to Mrs. Sarah Jane Clancy Reilly and a gold locket and chain and ten pounds sterling each to the Misses Agatha and Kate O'Brien. Funds were raised in Boston and eighty dollars sent to be distributed among deserving families of Prospect who had rendered service to shipwrecked passengers.

W. B. Christian of Prospect (who had recovered the body and property of W. H. Merritt ) was presented by the dead man's relatives with a silver medal made by J. B. Bennett of Halifax. Michael Clancy, of Lower Prospect, who was largely responsible in saving lives and property from the wreck of the Atlantic, never put in a claim for recompense of any kind. When J. B. Morrow, of the firm of S. Cunard and company, was in England in 1874 he obtained a sum of two hundred dollars for Mr. Clancy from the White Star Line.

The rector of St. Paul's Anglican Church in Halifax, the Rev. George W. Hill, offered Bill Ancient the position of assistant curate at Trinity Church in Halifax, then part of St Paul's, and he accepted. On leaving Terence Bay he gathered all the people at a Pic-Nic in the field near his house and after prayer and singing the hymns in which they had so often joined, he preached a farewell sermon.

On October 8th, 1873 when Lieutenant-Governor Sir Adams Archibald presented Mr. Ancient with a massive gold watch and a check for five hundred dollars for his "gallant and humane conduct...in rescuing at imminent peril to his own life, the life of the Chief Officer of the ill fated steamship Atlantic..." Mr. Ancient himself praised the bravery, endurance and humanity of the men of Prospect in their efforts to save life and said "all he had done, it was simply his duty to do."

From about 1880 to 1890 Mr. Ancient ministered in Hants County at Rawdon, Lakelands and Uniacke Mines. For about fifteen years before his death, Mr. Ancient was secretary - treasurer of the Anglican Diocese of Nova Scotia. This beloved clergyman died at his home on Smith Street in Halifax on July 20, 1908. He was seventy - four years old. He left a widow and three married daughters, one married to Rev. W. B. Sisam. One of his daughters has opened a school on Sable Island in May, 1901.

A ballad about the "Loss of the Atlantic" paid tribute to the men of Prospect --

Among the men of Prospect shore, Who risked a watery grave And spurred up those around, The shipwrecked men save Was their kind and loving clergyman, Mr. Ancient is his name, Whose deeds deserve to be engraved Upon the roll of fame.

He said: 'My friends, come take the boat, And try whom we can save", Then boldly took the foremost part, The bravest of the brave. The hardy men who gave such help, Deserve the highest praise Oh, ne'er forget their noble deeds.

Copyright © 2001 SS ATLANTIC HERITAGE PARK SOCIETY
Last modified: October 27, 2004

 

< back to top >