Her name, Wexford, was the same as the name taken by a town and a county in southern Ireland. The name Wexford had been carried proudly on many a seafaring transom since the early 1600s, when the British Navy ruled the seas.
Viking refugees from Denmark founded Wexford Town in Ireland around the year 850 AD. They were attracted by its handy location near the mouth of the River Slaney. The Viking name Waesfjord means “sandy harbour.” The Vikings fortified the harbour town with a defensive mound and a wall, and also allowed a Gaelic–Irish village to be established outside their own walled settlement. Wexford was a handy port for Vikings to break their journey when sailing along the east coast of Ireland between the several other Viking settlements, such as Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Arklow, Wicklow, and Dublin. The shallow Wexford harbour also facilitated salt farming, salt being a very important trading item to the Vikings.
The Normans captured the town just after their first landings in the year 1169 AD, and later improved on the Viking wall, extending it to include the Gaelic–Irish settlement, as well. Tragically, Oliver Cromwell also included Wexford in his “1649–1650 Irish Tour”9 and three-quarters of the two thousand inhabitants were put to the sword, including all the town’s Franciscan friars — the standard treatment for towns that refused to surrender to Cromwell. During the 1798 Rebellion, rebels made a determined stand in Wexford Town before they were defeated by the British Army. It is not clear why the name Wexford was used to name several British seafaring vessels over the centuries. It may have been to honour and to personify the courageous, daring, and defiant stand taken by the village inhabitants in the 1798 Irish Rebellion.
For five years the steamer Wexford plied the South American trade routes to and from Argentina, uneventfully, under her first master, William Richardson. A skipper with 10 solid years of experience as a ship’s master, Richardson hailed from Sunderland, and had most likely watched his vessel materialize in the Doxford ways before he applied to become her first captain. It is likely that he recommended the spar deck modifications made to her late in the season of 1884, as noted earlier. He remained as her skipper until 1888, at which time a 35-year-old Scot, Thomas Walker, a master since ’83, took over the helm.
It was clear that this “cabins amidships” steamer, a centre pilothouse packet freighter, sometimes also called a “centre-island” steamer, was well-suited to traverse the ocean routes from north to south Atlantic. She could conduct herself well in the constantly blowing trades, the gentle and erratic doldrums, and the occasional ocean gale. Her steam-driven engine, the single screw, and the benefit gained from carrying a schooner rig with gaff-rigged sails, worked well in tandem to carry her loads to southern climes and return. The twin-masted sailing rig gave added stability in the long, rolling ocean swells — and sometimes a good push with offshore trades on the quarter. The strong wooden booms, carried on each mast, doubled as deck cranes to help load and unload bales of cargo, packed below the four planked and canvas-covered hatchways.
As a package freighter, she probably carried manufactured goods, including textiles, porcelain, cutlery, and tableware from mills and foundries across the heavily industrialized districts of England. On her return voyages, she would be loaded with cane sugar, bananas, raw rubber, wool, mutton, citrus, tallow, tannin, tung oil, tea, and other exotic cargo to meet an enthusiastic demand back at home. The tween deck area would have contained packaged freight and lighter payloads, while her main holds would carry bulk cargo. No bills of lading have yet surfaced to confirm the exact details of her cargo at this time.
William Deal, crew member of the Wexford during her South American passages, shown at age 60.
Courtesy of descendant Keith Deal.
During her first 15 years as an ocean freighter, she also made passage to the Mediterranean Sea. No details have been discovered to confirm her destinations or her cargo under the direction of Master Knox Mogelstine, her skipper from 1891 to 1895.10 In spite of the fact that Mogelstine had been the master of several wrecked vessels prior to his role on the Wexford, this period of time was also uneventful for the British freighter.
Under Master James Sloggett, she made many trips to and from South America in 1896 and 1897. Sloggett was born in Plymouth in 1844, and became a ship’s master at age 30. The Wexford continued to ply the southerly routes until 1897, after which, in probable need of repair and in a time of falling freight rates, she was sold in 1898. She was renamed Elise by her new owner, a Monsieur Dubuisson of Dunkirk, France. Within a few years the new owner found her to be a business liability for the French firm. In 1901 she required the refit of her auxiliary donkey boiler.11 She returned to London, England, and, by 1903, was sold yet again to the Western Steamship Company from Toronto. She was relocated to the Great Lakes, continuing to be registered out of London under her original name, Wexford. It is an interesting side note that the Western Steamship purchased a second vessel,12 the J.A. McKee, a similar size vessel, built in England, at Newcastle-On-Tyne by Swan, Hunter and Richardson in 1908. The voyage of the McKee in the 1913 Great Storm is addressed, in part, later in this account.
The new owner of the Wexford, William J. Bassett, managing director for the company, travelled to England to take personal charge and provide supervision for Captain George Thomas on the long voyage home to Canada. The following account, from The Collingwood Bulletin of April 16, 1903, tells the story:
Particulars of the steamer Wexford which Capt. W.J. Bassett has purchased in the Old Country for the Western Steamship Company have come to hand. The steamer is a steel ship, 258 [feet] 6 [inches] in length, beam 40 feet and a depth of hole [sic] to upper deck 24 feet. The steamer is classed as “100 A1” by Lloyds. She is what is known as a flushed deck ship and has main and spar decks and is so arranged as to carry a large amount of water ballast when necessary. The steamer is also fitted with steam winches, steam steering gear and hand and steam windlasses. She has a carrying capacity of 3,000 tons of freight of 100,000 bushels of wheat which is greater than any canal size steamer at present on the lakes. Capt. Bassett will commence to load the steamer tomorrow on the Thames at London with a cargo for Hamilton, Montreal and Fort William and he expects to sail for Montreal on Wednesday next.
Bassett signed on as “Purser” — to be paid the nominal wage of £1 for the voyage — probably to meet the requirements of the British Board of Trade — to account for all crew on a foreign-going ship. He joined a crew of 22 plus the Captain, George Thomas, and her Mate, S. Colborne. The crew was a mixed collection of nationalities. Nine hailed from England, four from Sweden, three from Norway, two from Finland, two from France, two from Germany, one from Holland, one from Denmark, along with Bassett from Ontario, Canada.
During a stop at Dunkirk, France, a crewmember, H.G. Bentley, was discharged “… and left in hospital on account of sickness (scarletina) and that the balance of his wages £3 17.4 has been paid and his effects delivered to the hospital.” — signed John (undecipherable), British Vice Consul. The Vice Consul “sanctioned the engagement” of her new crew for overseas passage, and certified the Agreement and Account of Crew, April 6, 1903, which contained these details.13