The San Francisco call., 1898-03-23

i in the slightest danger of turning over
 until she was half full of water"
 The bark Kate Davenport got in
 from Puget Sound yesterday Captain
 Masters reports that on Sunday night | it blew gale from the northwest and
 that the wind was accompanied by a
 heavy cross-sea. The storm continued i all day Monday and stayed with the | bark from Eureka to Point Reyes. The
 Davenport was sixty miles off shore during the storm and saw nothing of the Amy.
 A feeling of indignation is very gen
 eral in shipping circles over the fact that the Amy was ever allowed to go to sea. The insurance people would have nothing to do with her, and an offer of 10 per cent to insure her for sixty days was refused by J. McCallan of the Home Mutual Insurance Com pany. The owners themselves were not at all sure of their vessel, and the tickets issued to the twenty seven men who went away on her read flor pas
 sage to Copper City Gf possible)." The twelve men from Colgate, Indian Ter ritory, got scared at the last minute, and on Saturday night last tried to get
 their passage money back, but failed. Sunday morning they went aboard and started on the i'll fated voyage.
 The Helen w. Amy was built in Fairhaven, Mass, in 1859, and was 29S.59 tons net burden. She was 116
 feet inches long, 29 feet broad and 12 feet , inches deep. Many years ago she was purchased by Captains Freeman and Robinson, who brought her to San Francisco and put her into the Homo lulu trade. She carried sugar for many day and was then sold to the Me Collam Fishing and Trading Company. During the season she was sent north after codfish, and between seasons she carried lumber from Puget Sound. On one occasion she sailed from Tacoma
 for Levuka, Fiji, with a load of lum- Der, but was dismasted in a gale and
 put in here leaking badly, and with her back almost broken. The Amy
 never recovered from that buffeting, and she has always been considered a risky vessel to have anything to do with after that.
 After being fixed up as well as pos sib1e the bark was sold to Wightman Bros, who sent her to the southern
 seas on a trading cruise. She brought back a cargo of copra, but owing to the fact that the vessel could not be kept free from water a considerable portion
 of it was spoiled. Captain Jim" Lut- trell made a couple of voyages in her and finally refused to go to sea in her again, as he was afraid she would founder. The waters of the southern seas had not been very tender with the OlO DdTh, as lHe HUH Haul OeCOlHC W Ol H. eaten, and in order to hold the vessel together it had to be sheathed below
 the water line. She was then laid up in Oakland Creek.
 When the Amy came out of retire
 ment again it was to take cargo of 'blackbirdS' she had brought up on a
 previous occasion back to the Caroline
 group. Captain Pedersen, now of the ship Centennial, was chosen to com
 mand her. In talking about that voy- age yesterday the captain said: I
 never had such an experience in my life
 would strike the old craft I was afraid that we would lose our rudder and
 sternpost We left San Francisco for l Ocos- in January, 1896. When we got
 outside 1t was blowing too hard so I
 put back. The next day we made an- | other attempt and got her off shore.
 It was blowing nor'wester, and think l ing the bark might be leaking some I
 ordered the well sounded. She was | leaking and that badly. The pumps
 were started, and after three hours
 work I found that we were only holding our own.
 1.-The mate had been In the vessel when
 she was laid up in Oakland Creek,
 so turned to him and asked MT. Mate,
 is there any bottom to this ship. His i answer was oh, yes, sir; keep on
 pumping. you'll find it. Well, we kept
 the pumps going all the way to Ocos,
 and all the way from Ocos to the Caro- | lines, and all the way from the Caro- l lines back to San Francisco, and I'll be
 - if I ever found the bottom of that
 craft.
 When she came out of Oakland | Creek this last time I looked her over and found that the nails that held the
 sheathing on had rusted away in many | places, and that all over the hull there 1 were crevices into which I could stick l a knife up to the hilt. I told Captain 1 Hogan what kind of vessel she was, | and he only pooh-poohed the matter | and said I know where all the leaks l are and I am going to have them 1 calked up. Well. he did have them l calked up, but there was many and
 many leak in that hull that neither
 he nor his calkers ever found.''
 When the question of putting the | Amy in the Copper River trade was l first preached the Wightmans offered
 to sell the vessel to MohnS & Kalten- ] bach for $3000. The deal was not con- summated. however, but finally Cap i tain W. J. Hogan purchased a third l interest in her, Henry Mohns a third
 and John Wightman retained a third
 interest.
 day Mir. Mohns said: 1T am sorry of course, for the loss of my ship, but
 when I think of the passengers and l crew 1t makes me sick at heart The
 vessel was old. but was perfectly sea
 worthy, and we spent large amount | in fixing her up. She was on the dry
 dock and recalked, so she could not
 have leaked great deal. A temporary l deck house had been built to accommo-