The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-07-16
TALES TOLD OF THE SEA
Every Year Fully Sixty Ships Set
Sail That Are Never
Heard of Again.
Boston Herald.

When the northeasterners sweep out
from the depths of the Atlantic and
roar up and down the Massachusetts
coast the sailors In port, sitting over
their grog, tell stories of the good ships
which hace gone to sea and have Meth
er come back nor left even a trace of
their fate.
OF all these stories there is none more
CHASTITY than that of the Pioneer, which
sailed from San Francisco In 1899 for
the Boring Sea. From the time she
sailed she was never sighted, nor was
a word heard from her for two years.
Finally a whaler, frozen in for the
winter in the Arctic, one day sent out
a hunting party for game. The men,
after wandering about all day, came
upon the hulk of ship frozen into an
iceberg. There was nothing about her
to indicate what might be her name, for
the grinding of the ice had worn her
side smooth and destroyed any cleW
to her identity.
Some of the men ventured aboard,
though the ship had been so racked that
the timbers trembled under their feet.
They pried open the hatchway and
peered into the dark depths They
shouted down the ladder, but a feeble
echo was the only answer.
Mastering up courage, they descend
ed and, making their way into the
hold, stood aghast at what they saw
in one of the cabins Seated about a
table their cheeks wan and sunken,
their eyes CLASSY, were eight men, some
with heads on arms, some with hands
thrust deep into their clothes, as though
shrinking from the cold; one with a
PRAYER book before him. There they
| sat. those men who had been two years
dead. and were waiting for the sea. tC
| give them burial.
Who they were, what the good ship
was, from what port she had sailed
| the Mortified men had no time TO deter
mine. for even as they looked the shlI
began to quake. 1t was as though SHE
resented this prying into her secret, anc
| the strangers, fearing she might turn
over, hurried from the cabin and
| scrambled outside.
| From q safe distance they watched
| her. A mass of ice crashed down to-
ward her, the iceberg settled upon Its
| side TIE 1erelict tottered, and, after an
other small avalanche OF ice ana snow
sank sideways into the cold water. The
/ eight had at last received their burial
| carrying with them all traces OF tnell
| identity.
|
| and the men told of their weird adven-
| ture il was decided from the scant de-
scription that this had been. in al
probability, the Pioneer. 1t will never
be known to certainty, and for thai
reason the Pioneer is registered with
so many others as missing; fate I'M
| known"
| The fate of many a good ship defies
even conjecture. There was the New
rach, which sailed for the Arctic IN
| 1897 and was caught in an iceberg and
abandoned by some of her crew A few
of the men preferred to take their
chances with the ship. Those who
abandoned her were finally picked up
but all search failed to find trace Of
| the Nevrach or of the men who had
stayed by her.
| One Of the most famous disappear
ances at sea was that OF the City OF
Glasgow, a 1,600-tOn ship which left port
March /. 1854, with 4S0 passengers. She
| has never been heard from since. Not
/ a bit of wreckage from her has ever
| been identified Not a soul of the hun
dreds she carried is known to have sur
/