By David Tyler
Images from the Kenneth Thompson Collection

SIDEBAR: Recountings and Recollections of the Steamship Portland

The headlines from the Portland Evening Express convey the anguish at the sinking of the steamship Portland, with the death of all 192 aboard, that still resonates over 100 years later.

"SACRIFICED TO THE FURY OF THE STORM," was the first in a series of headlines across three columns of the Wed., Nov. 30, 1898 Express. "More Than 200 People Perished. Bodies From Wrecked Portland Coming Ashore Along Cape Cod Coast. An Awful Surf Is Running."

Portland Steamship Company Pamphlet offers fares for a dollar Boston to Portland -Kenneth Thompson Collection

When the 281-foot-long Portland left Boston’s India Wharf a little past 7 p.m. on Sat., Nov. 26, 1898 on her regular trip to Portland winds were light and visibility was good. It was Thanksgiving weekend so many people were traveling. A northeast gale was predicted that evening, but forecasters failed to gauge the severity of the storm, and the Portland’s captain, Hollis H. Blanchard, apparently thought he could outrun it.

What Blanchard didn’t know was that he was sailing right into the Storm of the Century.

Although it took a while to develop, by about 10 p.m. the gale quickly intensified. Soon after mariners still at sea were fighting for their lives.

Two low pressure systems, one centered over Ohio, and the second centered over the Georgia coast, had combined to create a single, huge storm, according to the book by Peter Dow Bachelder and Mason Philip Smith, "Four Short Blasts: The Gale of 1898 And the Loss of the Steamer Portland" (The Provincial Press, $17.50). The combination of near-hurricane force winds and blizzard conditions devastated the New England coast. Since the gale struck at high tide it also caused massive flooding. The storm generated 30-to-40-foot seas south and east of Cape Cod and wind speeds almost 90 miles-an-hour, according to Bachelder and Smith.

During the storm, at least 500 people were killed, 155 vessels were sunk or destroyed and tens of millions of dollars in damage was inflicted on homes and businesses, according to Bachelder and Smith. The New England and Long Island, N.Y. coastline was littered with the wrecks of ships, driven aground in the gale. The wind and the snow also knocked out telegraph lines and train tracks, preventing any news of the steamship’s fate from reaching Portland for days. Relatives of those on board went to the company’s Portland and Boston offices, starting Sunday, but there was no concrete information.

Inside the same pamphlet the intended route of the Steamer Portland is shown

"It has been a day of suspense such as Portland has rarely if ever known before," reported the Express on Tues., Nov. 29, when information that ship was lost finally reached the city. "The anxiety which developed yesterday over the missing steamer has intensified with every moment! Hope, which clung to every possibility that was presented has been gradually giving way to despair."

By Sunday evening, bodies and wreckage from the Portland began washing up between the Race Point and Peaked Hill Bars lifesaving stations on Cape Cod, according to Bachelder and Smith. Since the only passenger list was on the ship, newspapers printed lists of those thought to be on board and descriptions of bodies that had washed ashore. "Body of a woman between 45 and 50 years of age, wearing ring inscribed ‘Forget me not.’ This ring also bore the mark ‘E.H.W.’ The body was practically nude," reported the Express on Wed., Nov. 30. "Body of a man between 25 and 30. Was apparently a deckhand: in the clothing was a black pocketbook. Had on a life preserver marked ‘Portland,’" was another description. Ultimately only 38 bodies were ever recovered, according to Bachelder and Smith.

Over 100 years after the Portland sank, two major mysteries remain. Why did Capt. Blanchard decide to sail that night? And where is the steamship’s final resting ground?

The actions of Capt. Blanchard have challenged historians ever since the gale. The captain of the steamship company’s other vessel, the Bay State, remained in Portland. A Rockland captain, C.H. Leighton, said he told Capt. Blanchard before the storm not to sail, but was rebuffed. He took the train to Portland.

In the popular mind, Capt. Blanchard became the villain of this drama, "one of the most notorious figures in New England history -- a Yankee ogre right up there with Lizzie Borden and the witch hangers of Salem," wrote John Rousmaniere in his new book about the consequences of sea disasters, "After the Storm: True Stories of Disaster and Recovery at Sea" (International Marine/McGraw Hill, $24.95).

The first headlines in a Boston Herald Extra

But this extreme vilification made Rousmaniere suspicious. "In my experience, whenever someone is demonized, there’s something going on there -- nothing is that simple." Rousmaniere concluded there were three factors at play that led to the disaster: an incomplete weather forecast, the top management of the Portland Steamship Co. in chaos on the night of Nov. 26, and the aggressive nature of Capt. Blanchard.

According to Rousmaniere, Capt. Blanchard was an unusual seaman for his day because he always consulted the forecasts from the new United States Weather Bureau before he sailed, and did so on the night of Sat., Nov. 26. The Weather Bureau issued a gale warnings at 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning for the coast from New Jersey to Maine. But Rousmaniere claims that the head of the Weather Bureau, Willis Moore, covered up his agency’s failure to track the second low pressure system, off the coast of Georgia, that moved rapidly up the coast that afternoon. Without that information, Rousmainere claims that the bureau likely did not predict that the two low pressures would combine Saturday night, creating a killer storm.

On Saturday evening, many steamship company officials in Portland were rushing off to catch a train to Boston to attend the funeral of the former captain of the Bay State. Rousmaniere writes that the focus on the funeral kept the company from paying attention to the imminent storm. After communicating back-and-forth with Boston, General Manager John F. Liscomb advised Capt. Blanchard to remain in Boston until 9 p.m. and stay there, if conditions worsened, according to Rousmaniere. At 9 p.m., Liscomb left his office and got on a train to Boston. Although Liscomb first claimed he ordered Capt. Blanchard to stay in port that night, then said he hadn’t given the captain any orders, a court decision later determined that Portland Steamship Company left the decision to sail up to the captain.

Despite what he sees as mitigating factors against demonizing Blanchard, Rousmaniere said the captain is not blameless. "He was by nature a storm-racer," he said. "He was not a super-cautious man. He bears some responsibility."

The other mystery about the Portland is where the steamer sunk. To add to the confusion, there are as many as eight sightings of the steamer between 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and 10:30 a.m. Sunday, according to Batchelder and Smith. The final sighting was by the captain of a fishing schooner who claimed to spot a sidewheel steamer, still under power, off Highland Light on Cape Cod, between 8:45 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. The Portland was seen off Eastern Point, near Gloucester, around midnight on Saturday; it is thought that the steamer either changed course, or was blown towards Cape Cod, where it sunk.

A search effort led by a team hired by the Boston Globe tried, without success, to find the sunken ship in December, 1898, according to Bachelder and Smith. For years, fishing vessels brought up objects thought to be from the Portland. In 1945, a diver hired by historian Edward Rowe Snow claimed to find the steamer in 144 feet of water, about nine miles north of Highland Light on Cape Cod. But the diver did not bring up any objects from this wreck. In the 1970s, a non-profit shipwreck team from Bourne, Mass. claimed to have found the wreck in 300-to-400-foot deep waters about 20 miles north of Provincetown, according to Bachelder and Smith. Again, the dive team did not bring up any wreckage with the ship’s name that could prove it was, in fact, the Portland.

So the mysteries remain. "Regardless of what else may come to light, the unfortunate loss of the steamer Portland and the lives of the nearly 200 men, women and children with it were a shocking occurrence," wrote Bachelder and Smith. "It will remain one of the greatest maritime disasters -- and mysteries -- in New England history."

For the complete story of the sinking of the Portland, see Peter Dow Bachelder and Mason Philip Smith’s book, "Four Short Blasts: The Gale of 1898 and the Loss of the Steamship Portland," published by the Provincial Press, Portland (The Provincial Press, $17.50). It is available in local bookstores, or call The Provincial Press, 772-8900