Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-02-10
GRABBED AMONG IcEBERes.
A Young Whaleman's Remarkable Sto
of Spectral Frozen Ship.

A Young Whaleman's Remarkable Story
of Spectral Frozen Ship.
Although the sea has not the diversity of
the land, being destitute of mountains and
valleys, forests and deserts, it is none the less
the scene of romance and mystery. A most
remarkable story of a spectral frozen ship,
Graded among the icebergs of the Arctic re-
gions, and floating, deserted and alone,
throughout those frozen seas, has been
brought to New London by yousg whale
man who has recently returned from a three
years cruise in Behring sea.
One day in the early part of May, 1856, a
man named Leavitt, who has charge of the
Pacific Steam Whaling company's station at
Cape Smith, nine miles to the southwest of
Point Barrow, was astonished to see a ship
standing toward the shore, about mile in the
of1ing, hemmed in by towering icebergs.
Leavitt had spent the winter in the ice, and
the appearance of a ship there, at such an
usual time of the year, nearly scared him out
of his wits. Visions of that tabled ship, the
Flying Dutchman, darted across his mind,
but he finally recovered himself, and walked
down toward the beach, As he did So the
fabric drew nearer to the land.
He says it made charming picture to his
famished eyes, appearing as If formed of
frosted glass.
The mass continued to approach him, and
the full rugged ship Young Phoenix, vessel
with which he was familiar.
She was a whaler of 335 tons, from New
Bedford, and was lost in the ice pack in the
Arctic over a year ago. She was crushed
and set to leaking by the ice, so that it be-
came necessary to abandon her hastily, as
she was thought to be sinking. This occurred
long distance to the north of Point Barrow.
When Leavitt sighted her she lay Graded
immovably, with her deck just above the
level of the icy valley where she reclined.
Her three masts lowered aloft with still per-
feet rake, and shrouds, backstays, braces
and stays covered with ice coatings in fan
tastic shapes, brought out in the sunlight
in bold and beautiful relief against the blue
mountains of ice behind
The silent ship lay stern to the sea, about
fifty yards from it, and slightly heeled to
port. The prismatic effects of the spectral
scene were heightened by heavy burdens of
snow, which numbered the decks, the hawser
and the sails of the vessel. Two of the sails
were shaking their stiffened tatters idly in
the breeze, while the rest had the snug man-o'-
war furl of year before, and were frozen
tightly to the yards. The vessel looked liter
ally ship of ice, for all the world like the
toy ship enshrouded in crystals by the glass
blowers art.
Plucking up his courage, Leavitt finally
went out to the ice pack and boarded the
ship. He found everything intact upon the
decks just as it had been left. Not even the
polar bear or the Arctic fox had paid her
visit, and the ropes were coiled on the Delaying
pins as the crew had placed them. There were
no traces of the boats, which had evidently
been torn from the ships davits by the ice;
but the great quilt of snow which enshrouded
the Young Phoenix from stem to stern reveal
ed the figuration of the matches and para
phernalia which showed that she had no time
since desertion been rolling in seas heavy
enough to disturb any of her fittings. 1t is
supposed, in fact, that she was picked up free
from the water by the same ice pack which
crushed her.
IIeavitt went down into the ships cabin and
found several articles, which he dragged over
the fields of ice to his boat, and conveyed to
the shore.
He would have continued stripping the YES
sci, but the ice foe containing her drifted off
shore on the following day. 1t remained in
sight several days afterwards, and then van
ished to the nOrthward.
Various theories are advanced as to the
probable course the Young Phoenix will now
take, and as to how long it will be before she
is seen again. 1t is very likely, old Arctic
whalemen say, that the island of ice now sur
rounding her will be built up by the addition
of floating masses, and in time she may be-
come q fixture somewhere around the north
pole, dry locked in the ice, for it is said that
in those remote regions ice may possess an
age of hundreds of years, and may be contin-
ually accommodating in one quarter while
breaking off and dissipating in another.
The incident is said by old whalemen to be
without parallel in the annals of whale fish
cry, and they also add that as the Young
Phoenix seems, from the accounts, to be liter
ally dry locked in icebergs, there is but lit
tie doubt that she will go swinging around
the Arctic in intense cold for years, perhaps
for centuries, for the very elements there
will constitute her protection.-Golden Days.