Ten names, one schooner: remembering the Joseph F. Allen, 150 years on

On several pages of the City of Gloucester's Lost at Sea register, the same date appears beside 10 names: Oct. 16, 1876. The entries read almost alike. Each man is listed as single, born in Nova Scotia and a mariner. Each was aboard the schooner Joseph F. Allen. Each entry says the entire crew of 10 was lost with the vessel on Western Bank.

This month marks 150 years since that recorded date. No photograph of these men is known, and no letter or diary of theirs has turned up in the sources reviewed for this story. What survives is a short paragraph in a memorial book printed in Gloucester in 1882, a few words in a newspaper dispatch from January 1877 and the register entries kept by the city. Together they preserve the one thing that matters most: who they were.

The schooner

The Fishermen's Own Book, published by Procter Brothers in 1882 as a record of the men and vessels lost from the port of Gloucester, lists her as the "J. F. Allen," a schooner of 62.63 tons "owned by B. Maddocks & Co." The book says she was "lost on Western Bank in October." It values her at $4,625 and records $5,025 in insurance on the vessel and outfits. Western Bank is a fishing ground off Nova Scotia. In its summary of 1876, the book counts one Gloucester vessel lost that year in the Western Bank fishery.

The book does not say what happened. The city register describes the loss as "foundered or sunk at anchor." Dates in a compiled register like this one can mark the day a vessel sailed, the day it was last seen or the day of a storm. None of the sources found for this story explains what Oct. 16 represents for the Joseph F. Allen, and none describes anyone seeing her go down. The plainest truth is that she sailed and did not come home.

By midwinter, Gloucester was counting its missing. A dispatch datelined Gloucester, Jan. 18, 1877, and printed the next day in the Portland Daily Press listed the "J. F. Allen" among nine schooners "now long over due," feared lost with crews totaling 88 men. That dispatch tied the missing vessels to the December gales, while the 1882 book places the Joseph F. Allen's loss in October. What the two sources agree on is that she never returned.

The men

The Fishermen's Own Book gives the crew list this way: John Campbell, master; William McNare, Joseph Brown, James Brown, Alpheus Campbell, Woodbury Lewis, Angus McDonald, Smith McDonald, William Rogers and Thomas Russell.

The city's register lists the same 10 men, with John Campbell as master. It indexes one of them as "Woodbury, Lewis," surname first, while the 1882 book prints "Woodbury Lewis." It is not clear from the records whether his family name was Lewis or Woodbury. The register describes every man aboard as single and born in Nova Scotia.

Several crew members share surnames: two Browns, two Campbells and two McDonalds. The sources do not say whether any of them were related, and this story does not assume it. The 1882 book points out brothers by name on other vessels in the same list, but it does not do so for this crew.

The schooner had already lost two men that year. The Fishermen's Own Book records that John McMillan and John McAuley were lost in a dory from the "J. F. Allen" on Grand Bank on April 18, 1876. The city register spells the first name "McMillen" and says he was 24, single and born in Port Hood, Cape Breton. It lists John McAuley as 45, single and born in London, England.

A hard year for the port

The Joseph F. Allen was one loss among many. The Fishermen's Own Book records that in 1876 Gloucester lost 27 vessels, one fishing boat and 212 men. It counts 54 widows and 112 children "made fatherless" that year. Twelve vessels and 90 men were lost in a series of gales from Dec. 9 to 16.

Behind those numbers was a working waterfront that depended on men like these. The 10 men of the Joseph F. Allen were born in Nova Scotia and sailed from Gloucester. The surviving records say nothing about the parents, brothers or sisters they may have left in Nova Scotia, or about anyone who waited for them on Cape Ann. Those people were real, even if their names were not written down.

The city's register is itself a work of remembrance, built on the research done for the memorial plaques at the Fisherman's Statue on the Boulevard and expanded since. The city says plainly that the list is incomplete and that the names of everyone lost from Gloucester may never be fully recovered. Additions and corrections go to the city's Archives Committee.

For the Joseph F. Allen, at least, the names were kept. One hundred fifty years later, they can be read again: John Campbell, William McNare, Joseph Brown, James Brown, Alpheus Campbell, Woodbury Lewis, Angus McDonald, Smith McDonald, William Rogers and Thomas Russell.

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What we still don't know

• What the register's date of Oct. 16, 1876, represents: a sailing date, the date of a gale or a date assigned later. A secondary website says the schooner sailed Oct. 2 and may have been lost in a gale on Oct. 16, citing the Cape Ann Advertiser of Jan. 12, 1877. We have not seen that newspaper and have not used those details as fact. The register's own source notes also point to that Jan. 12, 1877 issue.
• How she was lost. "Foundered or sunk at anchor" in the register reads as a possibility, not a witnessed event.
• Whether the crew member was named Woodbury Lewis or Lewis Woodbury.
• Whether the men who shared surnames were related.
• Where in Nova Scotia each man was born, and whether any lived in Gloucester.
• Where the schooner was built and when.
• Who "B. Maddocks & Co." was and who Joseph F. Allen, the vessel's namesake, was.

In our maritime archive: the record for this incident, with every source and the open questions.

See something we got wrong, or have a family record that adds to this account? Send a correction or addition.