The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-06
VOICE FROM
ONE LONG DEAD
Bottle Message Foundt Afer
Floating About for Four
teen Years.

Fourteen years after the steam collier
Montserrat foundered off the entrance
to the straits, bottle message has just
been given to the United States hydro
graphic office by the hfesavers at Yam
quina Bay, Ore, purporting to be from
Captain Blackburn of the Montserrat
All that the message states is that the
Montserrat went down December o,
1894. at 4:30 p. M That bottle, which
was covered with barnacles, was found
bv Frederick ButterfeId, a settler, IN a
cove two miles from Yanquina Bay and
was referred by him to the hfesavers,
who IN turn sent it TO the hydrographlc
Office at Washington, d. G..
The Montserrat and a sister collier,
the Keweena, and the ship Ivanhoe were
all lost in the closing days of 1894, with
eighty people. Wreckage of the three
vessels was found on the Vancouver Is
land coast. The Montserrat, to which
the bottle message refers, left Nanalmo
on December 6, in the evening, and II
the message is genuine the writer must
have erred a day in the date. The he-
weena left Comox the following morn
ing, and there was theory that the
two golfers might have collided in the
storm encountered soon after leaving
the straits The steamer was command
ed by Captain David o. Blackburn,
Nova Scotian, who was in command or
the Umatilla, Walla Walla and other
coast steamers. He made two trips to
the Gilbert Islands on 'black- birding
expeditions and was known on the
waterfront as Lucky Blackburn, owing |
TO his good fortune in earning several |
large salvage fees for towing disabled |
vessels into North Pacific ports.
The last seen of either the Montserrat
or Keweena was on the afternoon OF
December Z, 1894, when the observer
at Tatoosh sighted the vessels, the for
mer leading by about half a mile, buck
ing into heavy head sea. A heavy
storm was prevailing and the Keweena
was seen shipping some heavy seas. The
storm lasted a week and, following the
abatement of the heavy weather, the
Montserrat and Keweena were overdue.
Hope was maintained for over a month,
and soon after it was abandoned the
medicine chest of the Montserrat was
found on February % on the beach at
the south end of Etalin island. In May,
1895, when the late Captain MeKiel,
who died "a few weeks ago, took the
sealing schooner Maud s. into Rose
Harbor, Queen Charlotte islands, he
found that the Indians had recovered
wreckage from both the Montserrat
and Keweena which the currents had
drifted north. On the walls of one of
the huts were the nameboards of both
vessels.
Many theories were held concerning
the loss of the two steamers. One the
DRY was that the Keweena, not so well
adapted to stand rough weather as the
Montserrat, broke down, and in at
tempting to give the same company 3
steamer line the Montserrat had col,
lided with her and both vessels found
cred If the bottle message is genuine
it would dispose of this theory and
prove that more generally held that the ]
heavily loaded collier had foundered. | ,
Both vessels were known to be too much
loaded to withstand such weather as
prevailed at the time.
The keweena and Montserrat belong
ed to the same feet as the i'll fatea
Leelanaw, lost in collision with the
British warship Condor off the cape one
winter few years ago.