AH-WR-1406

Gracie M. Parker

Schooner · Canada · Lost 1893 · The Gulf of St Lawrence

A Prince Edward Island lumber schooner lost with all hands near St Pierre in December 1893, remembered still in a local ballad.

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Artistic recreation based on recorded historical documents. See the documented evidence.

Interpretive Reconstruction, drawn to convey the vessel's era, type and general form. See the documented evidence.

The Vessel and Her Loss

The Gracie M. Parker, a 91-ton schooner built at Essex, Massachusetts in 1869, worked the coasting trade out of Tignish, PEI. In December 1893 she left Northport heavily laden with lumber, bound for St-Pierre. Caught in a violent gale, she struck a sunken rock near St Pierre Harbour and was lost with all six crew, all from the Alberton area. The tragedy became the subject of a widely sung Island folk ballad.

Vessel

Built: 1869
Builder: Not established
Yard: Essex, Massachusetts
Material: Wood
Length: Not established
Beam: Not established
Tonnage: 91
Propulsion: Sail
Owners: J. H. Myrick & Co., Tignish, PEI

Loss

Date: December 16, 1893
Cause: Storm
Location: St Pierre Harbour, St-Pierre and Miquelon
Water: Gulf of St Lawrence
Voyage: Northport, Prince Edward Island → St-Pierre and Miquelon (some accounts: Newfoundland)
Cargo: Lumber
Aboard: 6
Lives lost: 6
Master: Terrence Farrell