Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-02-19
A PHANTOM SHIP.

From tho New York Evening Sun.
For ten months there has been fitting
up and downSthe high seas great ship
without navigator or crew. She has
been sped occasionally, like the phan-
tom ship of tradition, and her wander
ings have been the source of dread to the
men who go upon the sea in ships. Yes
terday she came to port, landed high and
dry in the harbor of Stornaway, in the
Island of Lewis, and the wonderful ro-
nance which William Black locates in
that place contains nothing stranger
than the story of the voyage of the W. l..
White without master.
1t is unprecedented. There must be a
j first time in the record of any series of
similar events, and the story which we
shall now tell IS the first narration of the
cruise of the great ship for nearly year,
here and there, ON the stormy Atlantic,
fitting in and out of the channels of
commerce like a bat among the branches
of tree at night, and at last making
port 5000 miles away from the city
whence she started.
The great lumber schooner, W. L..
White, was abandoned at sea on Tues
day, March 49, while the great blizzard
was still raging. The vessel had started
for New York on February 30, laden
with a valuable cargo of lumber, which
she had taken on at Bobby, Ga. She
was under the command of Capt. Whit
more, and had a crew Of eight or nine
men. The blizzard caught her off Alb
secom Light on Monday, March II, and
the elements gave her tussle that her
officers thought would send her to the
bottom. Very likely she would be at
the bottom now, but for the fact that
lumber will not sink.
But with the millions Of gallons of
water that swept over her she became
/ less. Capt. Whitmore could do nothing
with her, and he expected every moment
that she would be turned upside down
in the trough of the sea. So he gave the
command, ITO the boats" which could
not be executed fully, because there was
only one boat that had survived the bat
! terry of the storm.
| In this the captain and the crew took
refuge, and for four days, struggling
against wind and sea, they expected
every moment would be their last. The
cold was great. and they were scantily
clad. They were wet to the skin, and
! had neither food nor water. A drag
was put out behind the boat, and weak
and suffering as they were they were
able to keep the boats head to the sea.
On the morning OF the 18th, when
about seventy miles southeast OF Cape
May. the ship Record, Captain Forbes,
| from Calcutta, hove in sight and picked
up the captain and the crew, who were
so thoroughly exhausted and frostbitUen
that they had to be lifted to the deck of
the Record.
But what had become Of the schooner
which had been abandoned? She was a
big one, and with her load of lumber
and in her water-logged condition she
was as much of menace to vessels of
the sea as though her cargo was solid
rock
She started on her phantom-hke course
by drifting southerly some ninety miles
and she was first seen on the morning of
March 10.
Then she disappeared, and though cap
talns of vessels were warned to be on the
lookout for her she was drifting and
sailing about in phantom waters. so to
speak, for nearly two weeks. She had
really entered the Gulf Stream and on
the current of that mighty river of the
ocean she was carried $40 miles in a
northeasterly direction, and on March 81
the outlook of one of the ocean liners
-saw her black hulk in the distance, just
off the Newfoundland banks. With that
brief revelation of herself she disap-
peared again.
But now the captains of all the ocean
craft were aware that somewhere in the
channels of commerce there lurked the
possibility of danger like that described
in the traditions of the phantom ship.
But the vessel had struck a new cur
rent, and when tie eyes of sailor again
beheld her she was 4G0 miles east of the
point where she was last seen. That
last sight was made on April II.
After this revelation the vessel again
disappeared into the shades, and was not
seen until the morning of May 8, go
miles northeast of the point last seen. di-
rectly in mid-ocean, and about due east
from Newfoundland.
On May 80 she began to flirt with the
transatlantic steamships. Three of the
captains of these steamships saw her on
that day, but she was long ways off,
and they were reioiced thereat.
After this brief Irritation the headless
schooner, showed her sides to two
transatlantic steamships for an instant
and then disappeared. But in the latter
part of June and the early part of July
She made revelation of herself number
of times. The steamship Egyptsaw her,
as did the Adriatic. Chephalonia, the
Servia the Wisconsin and the Ohio,
besides number of the smaller craft.
There she was drifting along with her
dead weight set right in the track Of
ocean steamships, menace on foggy
dav. a terrier at night, for the possibility
of her low-set hull without lights and no
one to warn on board was ever present
in the minds of the navigators of the
steamships.
On October so she took another course.
and for thirty days was away in again
on phantom waters. but on the last day
of November away up TO the northerly.
in latitude 80 degrees and longitude -.
the captain of the British King sighted
her 600 miles in northeasterly direction
from the point where the steamship Ohio
had seen her.
Then she disappeared and from that
day till yesterday she was out of the
sight of land. But it seems that she was
making harbor, aiming to wind up her
erratic career either at some port in Ice
land or in the Hebrides.
But currents that led to the shore of
the Hebrides were those that captured
her. so that the inhabitants of the pic
turesque little town OF Stornoway, who
have seen many wreck. Were astonished
when this strange and solitary craft came
ashore.
Stornoway is 700 miles from the point
where the schooner was last seen. The
dispatches state that the probabilities are
that the greater pars of the cargo viii be