The Phoenix
Captain Hubert Grenfell, equipped with 23 years of naval experience, decided to take a route through the Strait of Canso, instead of sailing around Cape Breton. The only area of this passage which could give the sailing vessel any problems would be around East Point, Prince Edward Island.
The storm began to increase on the night of September 12, 1882, and Captain Grenfell decided to check and double check his route. He ordered the helmsman, as a safety precaution, to use the lighthouse as a navigational tool. The captain went to rest.
Then it happened, the Phoenix’s quick route would come to a halting end. “A few hours later he awoke to the worst sound he could have imagined: 1,100 tons of metal hitting a rock reef at close to full speed” (PEI: An Unauthorized History 1996, 100).
The captain thought that he and the crew could save the vessel but their tireless effort failed. “As she was bumping heavily on the reef steam was got up, when suddenly the sternpost was smashed, and the screw propeller dropped into the sea. Thereupon the captain ordered some of the men to construct a raft, the remainder being engaged in pumping, as the sea had by this time forced its way through the bottom, and flooded the engine-room and cabins” (Island Magazine Fall/Winter 1986, 9).
Even the watertight compartments could not stand the toll of sea and were torn open.
It was not until two days later that the captain and crew of the Phoenix could be brought to shore by lifeboats.
Nothing could save the Phoenix, not even the countless efforts of the vessels HMS Northampton, the Foam and the Charger, sent from Halifax to salvage her. They removed the Phoenix’s heavy equipment, gatling gun and six heavy guns weighing over four tons each. Even after the guns were removed, the Phoenix remained caught on the reef and could not be refloated. “After a month as the winter weather began to set in, the Navy conceded that Phoenix was a write-off” (PEI: An Unauthorized History 1996, 128).
Not only did the captain have to go through this horrible ordeal, but he also was blamed and reprimanded for the wreck of the Phoenix. The finding effectively ended his naval career. Captain Grenfell resigned from the Navy six years later at 43 years of age, although the people of Prince Edward Island would agree that the disaster was caused by the location of the lighthouse. Captain Grenfell’s charts placed the light house at the very tip of East Point. It had actually been built a half-mile further down the coast. For navigators relying on the light at night, it was just enough to turn a close but safe course around the reef into a trip right onto the rocks. The Phoenix was not the first vessel to discover this, but it was the most famous. And possibly the last. A year later, the East Point lighthouse was lifted up and dragged to where the charts said it was.
