The Wexford. Paul Carroll

This location, presumed to be south of Harbor Beach (also called Sand Beach), Michigan — immediately across the lake, opposite Goderich — does not seem like a plausible location for the Wexford to be seen.

      At that time, late Sunday morning on November 9, residents of the Point Clark area reported, according to old-timer Gordon Jamieson, that on their way to church that morning, “The lake was as calm as glass … by the time church was over, it was obvious that no boat could be safe in the water.”¹¹ William Ruffle, foreman at the Goderich Elevator, claims that he saw the Wexford off Goderich, where she “lay fighting the gale.”¹²

      William Niven made a startling statement that he saw “rockets shoot up three times on Sunday.”¹³ She was thought to be heard several times later that day. There were reports of her whistles and foghorns in the late afternoon. Ruffle again reported hearing what might have been distress signals close to 4:00 a.m. At the inquest there was considerable controversy about what may have been seen and heard.

      The ice-shrouded Wexford as photographed in Collingwood, December 1906. The peril of ice-covered decks is often understated. In this condition, vessels are topheavy and sometimes difficult to manoeuvre in heavy seas. This photograph, with its combination of ice in the rigging and steam from its boilers, has a mystical quality that is almost ghost-like.

      Courtesy of Hank Winsor.

      A newspaper article in The London Free Press, dated November 15, 1913, disputed earlier reports that the Wexford had fought the horrible gale off Goderich Harbour. It said “not a great deal of credence is placed in the report that the lost steamer Wexford lay fighting the gale off Goderich.” In spite of claims of her sighting by William Ruffle, other persons hearing whistles and distress calls, and the insistence of William Niven seeing rockets on three separate occasions on Sunday, the article cites, “There was no effort to launch the lifeboat normally used to conduct rescues at such times. The volunteer crew of the lifeboat is summoned by means of the foghorn. It was admitted that the foghorn did not sound all day Sunday. The fact that it did not call the lifeboat crew probably saved their lives. Captain Malcolm McDonald is in charge of the lifeboat. His son, Donald, was on the Wexford. Captain McDonald would have gone out, storm or no storm, if he had known the Wexford and his boy were out there.”¹⁴