Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-03-14
RADLED AMONG ICE
BFRES

No vi 1
mountains and valleys, forests and
deserts, it is none the less the scene of
romance and mystery. A most remark
able story of a spectral frozen ship,
Graded among the icebergs of the Arc
tlc regions, and floating, deserted and
alone, throughout those frozen seas, has
been brought to New London by a
young whaleman who has recently re-
turned from a three years cruise in the |
Behring Sea.
One day in the early part of May,
1858, q 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 q mile in the
offlng, hemmed in by towering icebergs.
Leavitt had spent the winter in the
ice, and the appearance Of the ship
there at such an unusual time of the
year nearly scared him out of his wits.
Visions of that tabled ship, the Flvine
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 a charming picture
to his famished eyes, appearing as if
formed of frosted glass.
The mass continued to approach him,
and he finally made out the complete
outlines of the full-rigged ship Young
Phoenix, a vessel with which he was
familiar.
She was a whaler of three hundred
and thirty-five tons, from New Bedford.
and was lost in the ice pack in the Arc
tic over a year ago. She was crushed
and set to leaking by the ice, so that it
became necessary to abandon her hastily.
as she was thought to be sinking. This
occurred a long distance to the north of
Point Barrow.
When Leayitt sighted her she lay
Graded im%movably, with her deck just
above the level of the icy valley where
she reclined. Her three masts lowered
aloft with still perfect rake, and
shrouds, backstays, braces and stays
covered with icy coatings in fantastic
shapes, brought out in the sunlight in
bold and beautiful relief against the
blue mountains Of the 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 was heightened
ny heavy burdens of snow, which cum
bered the decks, the hawsers and the
sails Of the vessel. Two of the sails
We're shaking their stiffened tutters idly
in the breeze, while the rest had the
snug man-o'-war furl OF a year before,
and We're frozen tightly to the yards.
The vessel looked literally a ship Of ice
for all the world like the toy ship en-
shrouded 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 every
thing intact upon the decks as it had
been left. Not V the polar bear OF
the Arctic fox had paid her q visit, and
the ropes were coiled on the Delaying
pins as the GREY 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
.,,,1k ~ ,,@,- 49, H.
Young Phoenix from stem to stern re-
vealed the fguration of the matches and
paraphernalia, which showed that she
had at 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.
Leavitt 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 vessel, but the ice foe containing
her drifted off shore on the following
day. It remained in sight several days
a%fterward, and then vanished 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 surrounding
her will be built up by the addition of
floating masses, and in time she may
become a fixture somewhere around the
North Pole, dry-docked in the ice, for
it is said that in those remote fields the
ice may possess an age Of hundreds Of
years, and may be continually accumu-
lating in n quarter while breaking off
and dissipating in another.
The incident is said by old whalemen
to be without parallel in the annals of
whale fishery, and they also add that as