Creative Publishers: St. John's, 2002 $19.95

Memories of Success: Taken from Chapter 4 from Between Sea And Sky

When kinfolk in Fortune Harbour, Notre Dame Bay, waved good-bye to their men on the schooner Success in October of 1880, little did they know it would be forever. But the ship sailed for St. John's, reached there safely and left for home on November 5. Success, with five Fortune Harbour men in her crew, disappeared sometime after that; today not much remains to prove the vessel ever existed, a brief newspaper clipping and a few memories passed on through family.

By 1875 the enterprising young men of Fortune Harbour -- located at the tip of the New Bay Peninsula -- were shipbuilding as well as fishing and sealing. Several schooners were constructed there. About 1910, with the decline of the Labrador fishery, shipbuilding phased out.

One of the larger schooners built at Fortune Harbour -- in a cove called "Southeast" -- was the fifty-four ton Success, with an overall length of sixty-four feet. The Carrolls built a number of schooners in Fortune Harbour today it is generally thought they built Success for the Smith McKay business of St. John's. Smith McKay co-jointly owned and managed the mining ventures at Tilt Cove and that may account for the belief Success was carrying iron to or from the Tilt Cove mines when it disappeared.

Over a month passed before island newspapers first commented that Success was missing. "Two schooners", the reporter said, "Success of Fortune Harbour and Maggie of Fogo, the latter with a general cargo for J.B. Tobin of this town [Twillingate], left St. John's previous to the recent storms and have not been heard from."

From that date, December 15, 1880, the papers are mysteriously silent on the disappearance of Success. The seas between St. John's and Notre Dame Bay were equally silent on her whereabouts as well. No wreckage was ever found; nor was she sighted by other ships.

Sailing on the ship were five Fortune Harbour men: Skipper John, Patrick, Michael, and James Power who were brothers, and Thomas Kiley. Kiley, known as a "winterman" and who worked for the Powers, replaced another Power brother for the voyage. Two or three of the crew were married including Michael Power, age forty-one. His wife, Sarah (Brien), was left with two small children, James and Sarah. Another son, Michael, was born the following April, 1881.

The sea is never far from the providence of towns like Fortune Harbour. On September 15, 1900, a violent wind storm nearly claimed another Fortune Harbour schooner when Ocean Traveller was wrecked while sailing home from the Labrador fishery. Her crew of Captain John Quirk, Dennis Dunn, Joseph Cook, Thomas Croke, Patrick Croke, Morris Quirk, William Quirk, Michael Burn, William Burn and Ellen Dunn returned to sail again. On June 23, 1915, the town was involved in another sea drama. On that date the Department of Fishery and Marine in St. John's received a message from Fortune Harbour. It said that the schooner Samoa while sailing off Fortune Harbour, struck a pan of ice at two A.M. and sank in three minutes. A Captain J.H. Young saved five men, but Nath Mason, age sixty-five, of Catalina went down with the vessel. Captain Young landed the survivors at Fortune Harbour.

Photo in book and caption

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Memory done by Sarah (Power) Glavine, Fortune Harbour, after her father Michael Power was lost in 1880. It is now in possession of Maggie Croke, whose grandfather, Michael Power, was lost on Success.

A "Memory" is done by cross stitch much like a "sampler" on which young girls perfect various types of stitches. Unlike a sampler which usually gives birth dates and genealogical information, memories perpetuate the loss of loved ones particularly by sea.

This one reads, in part, "In memory of our dear father Michael Power who was lost at sea in the ill-fated ship "Success" in November 1880...Also our beloved uncles Patrick, John and James Power and Thomas Kiley who met the same fate..." Photo Courtesy of Beverley Warford and Maggie Croke, Buchans.

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Success was not the only Newfoundland ship to disappear that winter; on December 31, 1880, the brig Cora, Captain Richard Lynch and crew, left St. John's for Europe, but never reported.