The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-15
Rescue Ships Arriving at Dawn
Find No LifebOats.
Steamer Bear Is Abandoned by
Passengers and Crew.
RECOVER FIVE BODIES AFLOAT
Battleship Oregon. First on the
Scene, Finds No Survivors.
Hope Prevails Boats May Have
Reached Rocky Shore.

Eureka, Cal, June 15.-I
Eighty-two survivors of the PIG
persons aboard the coasting
steamer Bear, wrecked last
night near Cape Mendocino, have
been accounted for and five per-
sons were known to have per-
ished.
Indications were that one boat
load was lost, with good chances
that every one else had been or
would be rescued.
One boat, carrying twenty
persons, was reported to have
landed at Point Mendocino.
Steamship officials said two
boats were missing, one from
which the five bodies were lost,
and another which was seen try
ing to make land.
Eureka, june 15.-Five bodies have
been recovered from the coastwise
steamer Bear wrecked last night on
Sugar Loaf Rock and one boat was
seen today trying for a landing on the
rocky coast according to a message
received here from the lightkeeper at
Cape Mendocino.
i Eureka, Cal. June 15.-None of the
lifeboats carrying the 119 passengers
and a crew of ninety-seven men who
abandoned the steamer Bear of the
San Francisco & Portland Steamship
company when she went aground in
the fog on Sugar Loaf Rock, near Cape
Mendocino, late last night had been
picked up at daybreak today.
j Had Terrible Experience.
The count of passengers stood as fol-
| lows:
Aboard the Bear leaving Portland:
First class passengers, 90; steerage,
25; crew 80. Total, 216.
Accounted for: Drowned, 5; rescued
by steamer Grace Dollar, 81; ashore
(estimated), 20. Total, 81.
Four survivors, including Captain
Nopander, were still aboard the Bear.
OF eight life boats, which got away
from the Bear, two made shore, one
probably upset and an unknown num-
ber was picked up by the Grace Dollar.
All the dead were washed ashore at
Capetown.
Among the survivors two were re-
ported to be fatally injured. Many
had sustained minor injuries and all
were suffering from exposure. The
two boats landed at the mouth of Bear
river during the night. Men and wo-
men, numbed with cold drenched and
in various stages of exhaustion drag
ged themselves from the boats and
sought shelter along the beach. Some
made wind breaks from driftwood.
Others found no refuge from the wind
and cold save the boulders that line
the shore. Others burrowed into the
cold sand and spent the night there
They were found at dawn this morn
ing and taken to Capetown. Rescue
steamers continued to roam about in
the fog with scarcely a chance of see
ing a boat a hundred fet away. The
searchlights of the batt1eship Oregon
barely cut the fog.
Awakened in Night by Crash.
The survivors told how they had
been awakened by the shock and
rushed on deck in their night clothes,
the women screa ming in terror Great
holes had been torn in the steamers :
bow plates but the captain after an
examination assured the passengers
there was no danger. They We're di-
rected. however. to get ready to leave
the vessel. The women gathered in
tn vessels captain praying and weep
ing.
that there was no hope of saving the
steamer, the passengers and crew took
to the boats in good order. There
was little difficulty in launching the
) beats. The two boats that landed at
Bear river were separated from the
, others in the fog and made for the
, shore five miles away. They con-
| tanned twenty men and women.
First Boat Upset.
The first boat away from the wreck
upset and most of the thirty persons
in it were drowned. according to Miss
Vera Adams of Seattle, a survivor
+ Miss Adams was in the third boat,
which also upset. Most of the thirty
occupants of her boat were rescued
Battleship Uses Searchlights.
: The battleship Oregon and the
steamer Grace Dollar, which answered
the S. o. S. calls of the stranded liner,
5 have been patroling the vicinity of the
wreck since early morning and are at
a loss to know what became of the
survivors. A tug and life saving
Y crew from this port are also at the
t scene. A thick fog lay low over the
5 water at daybreak and although a
IContiuued on PAGE TWol