Milford chronicle., 1912-04-12
BURNING SHIP
RUN ON ROCKS
Steamer Ontario Wins Thrilling
Race For Land.
CREW STAYS ON VESSEL
The Passengers Were Taken of at
Montauk Point, While Fire RACES
IN Vessels Hold.

The steamship Ontario, of the Mer-
chants and Mariners line, bound from
Baltimore to Boston, was beached a
mile and half west of the Montauk
Point light at Montauk, L. l., with Ler
forward hold crammed with burning
bales of cotton.
Her thirty passengers were taken
o ffand carried in a tug to New Lon
don. Her crew and Captain W. j. Bond
are still aboard, throwing smouldering
cotton and kegs of rOsin into the sea
and lowering the rest of her cargo
into lighters. They think the fire is
under control and that the ship will
be saved and fioated.
An episode that had the elements of
a real catastrophe turned out to be
mostly picturesque The passengers /
had time to dress and depart with al |
their baggage. A breeches buoy rigged |
by the life savers of the Dutch Plain |
station, was not needed for them. They |
were lowered without fuss in two of
the ships boats and transferred with
out mishap to the tug TascO, which
took them to New London to continue
their way to Boston.
The only person hurt was a life
saver, David H. Miller, while he was
holding a stake that was to make fast
the land end of the breeches buoy
cable. He was hit by an axehead that
few off its handle. The axe blade
gashed his forehead over the right
eye.
The Ontario captain, steering his
ship straight for shore, with his eyes
smarting from the smoke that swept
up through the forward hatch and
back into the pilot house, could not
have picked a more desOlate spot for
Bleaching. The vessel lies on an even
keel about 300 feet from the only
stretch of beach % this region that is
not clean sand ara shore there is
cluttered with rocl 1anging from peb-
bIes to boulders. Back of this rock,
forbidding collection, rises bluff 100
feet high, in whose soft soil great
riffs have been made by the waves
and tide.
When the Ontario was beached
there was only one landsman wit
ness to the event. This lone witness
of the ships distress was David Mil
Ter. the life saver who was later hurt.
He was patrolling the beach in the
rain when he saw a faint glow on the
ocean off to the southeast. Squirting
through the drizzle, he saw a rocket
rise brightly and fade and that was
enough for Miller. He rushed to lit
lie hut that shelters a government
telephone and called up his mates al
he Dutch Plain station.
From the telephone he ran to the
brink of the cliff and shot up a rocket,
which meant: Your signal is seen
md aid will come as soon as possi-
,le."
The Ontario drew nearer, the smoke
pouting from her forward hatch, with
low and then a gleam Of red from the
lanes in the cotton below. She was
eaded for the nearest land, Dead ;
fans Bend +
The steamship struck gently and I
ested easily. The Ontario's passen- :
ers were standing beside the ships
oats, surrounded by their belongings, :
eady to be rescued. +
When the fire was first discovered
ley had been summoned to the main
aloon and locked in. There the cap y
an had told them that there was no
IMMEDIATE danger and that the ship :
as sure to be beached before the
ames could possibly burst through
le compartment filed with cotton. So
hen the Ontario was beached the 1
lirty passengers stod there on the S
pper deck. Inc tug Tasco had ar 4
we'd and the passengers were trans I
,rred.