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LOSS OF THE LION AND THE NEWHOOK FAMILY Mr. Tilly’s “Memories” December 1958, page 18 mentions the S.S. LION. Is there in print a statement, which seems undoubtedly true, that recently came to my notice? It is material to the oft considered question of what caused her loss; namely, that instead of being built a steamer, like most old wooden but engined Newfoundland ice-hunters, the LION was built a square rigger, and had an engine put in later. Captain Frank Ash had been an earlier master; there is a water-colour painting of her in his day, which shows the narrow, clean deck of a sailing vessel. Obviously, such a wooden hull was never originally as strong as a steamer’s hull needed to be – nor could it ever be made as strong – in the parts to be subjected to the weight and vibration of steam engines; and after years as a steamer a peak of accumulated strain might have reached this essential weakness on the fatal trip, her engine could have torn through her bottom, and she went down. One of the passengers lost on the LION was a first cousin of Mr. Ernest Tilly’s father, Louisa, daughter of shipbuilder John Newhook of Trinity – and of course the sad event was then a subject in household talk but was probably overlooked when he composed these reminiscences. She was returning home after a visit to an older sister, Mrs. Elizabeth (George Rex) Cook, in the city, and decided to change to the LION from another steamer or vessel on which passage had been intended. The LION was due in Trinity harbour after night, and about four in the morning Mr. Newhook got up, looked out the window and went back to bed, saying he had seen the lights of the LION at anchor, and so Louisa would be ashore soon. Did shipbuilder John have second sight? Years before, while he was out to the ice, his first wife was drowned, with her infant in her arms, crossing the ice at Chapel Arm. His brothers walked from their Norman’s Cove home to Harbour Grace to break the news on arrival of his vessel. But he met them saying “You need not tell me – I know what you’ve come for – I saw it in a dream this spring…” The Newfoundland Quarterly, March 1959 |