Wreck of a Seattle Liner.

Manawatu Herald, 13 February 1904, Page 3

Wreck of a Seattle Liner.

FIFTY-TWO PERSONS DROWNED.

1 The steamer Clallam, one of the I Seattle (Victoria) fleet, went down on January 9th in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Out of the eighty souls on board fifty two were drowned within three miles of the shore. When it appeared certain that the Clallam could not be saved a desperate effort was made to take off the women and children in lifeboats.. The first boat, which Captain Lawrence, a Yukon pilot, volunteered to command, was manned by deck hands. It went down within sight of the Clallam. The second lifeboat, filled with male passengers, in command of the second officer, Currin. was lost a few minutes later. Those aboard the Clallam saw the waves sweep the passengers from their hold on the seats and hurl them into the water. More passengers and members of the crew were lost when the third lifeboat was swamped in the attempt to launch it. Passengers who had fastened life preservers about their persons were picked up by the steamer Bahata. They had died from exposure within sight of their destination. A huge sea overwhelmed the Clallam, smashing in her Head lights, flooding the hold, and extinguishing the fires beneath her boilers, placing her at the mercy of the howling gale Bravely the officers and the crew of the helpless hulk worked to save the boat and the eighty souls aboard her, but in vain. The Clallam could not stand the terrific onslaught of seas that raged in mountain high from the ocean. At 12.80 she went on her beam ends and began to sink rapidly. A few minutes later she lurched and disappeared beneath the waves, only her topmast and the floating wreckage remaining to show where she went down.