Nova Scotia (30 page)

   
Fielding and his son were desperate to find
passage back home to Nova Scotia. Captain Sandy Mackenzie of the
barque
Saladin
agreed to take both of them on and
not charge a cent. Mackenzie’s vessel had a load of legal guano but
it was also carrying twenty tons of copper, thirteen 150-pound bars
of silver, a money chest and some “money letters” that included
cash. On February 8 of 1844, the
Saladin
left
Valparaiso but it would never arrive at its destined
port.

   
Mackenzie and Fielding were both captains but one of them had
lost his ship. Fielding was desperately jealous of Mackenzie and
craving to work out his frustration, even if it meant taking it out
on the benevolent captain. He began to plot to take over the ship.
Fielding convinced shipmates George Jones, William Trevaskiss, John
Hazelton and Charles Anderson – all men in their early twenties –
to join him in his mutiny. Why did they go along with it? Good
old-fashioned greed is the most likely answer.

   
They planned to kill the captain, his first mate
and anyone left who didn’t go along with them. They would sail
the
Saladin
to some isolated spot in
Newfoundland or the Gaspé where they would abandon the ship and
carry off the valuables. They wanted the money in the letters, the
cash box and the silver. There is no mention in the court records
as to anyone wanting possession of the guano.

   
Using an axe, Hazelton first murdered a sailor aboard named
Byerly who had just finished his watch. Next, the carpenter was
attacked with a hammer and tossed over the side, the conspirators
ignoring his pleas for help as he sank beneath the waves. While his
son watched, Fielding himself chopped twice into Captain Mackenzie,
the very man who had offered a free ride home during his time of
desperation. Then Fielding declared himsearlf captain. Jem Allen, a
sailor at the wheel of the ship, was the next to go, struck from
behind with an axe and heaved to the depths. Three more men were
struck down viciously, leaving only two others on board who were
not part of the conspiracy – the cabin boy Galloway and an
Englishman named William Carr. When these two learned of the dirty
deeds, they agreed to throw in their lot with the blood-spattered
pirates.

   
It was around this time that the men took advantage of the
ship’s liquor supply, but they also prudently agreed to throw most
of the weapons overboard to insure against killing each other. As
Sunday rolled around, in the* spirit of Christian fellowship, they
brought out a Bible, swore an oath “to be brotherly together,” and
then kissed the Good Book. The oath did little good because a
sub-conspiracy was already being hatched so that fewer men would be
involved in the splitting of the wealth. A fight broke out and a
general reign of terror persisted aboard. Fielding, the man the
others feared most, was bound and gagged. It was decided that the
two men who had not shared in the killings, Galloway and Carr,
should be required to share guilt with the rest by killing the evil
captain. Galloway refused, so Carr and Jones heaved Fielding into
the sea where it took him four minutes to drown. George Junior,
despite his own appeals for compassion, soon joined his father to a
watery grave.

   
The
Saladin
was still
headed north with Galloway as navigator, although he was poorly
equipped for the job. The men tossed some of the copper overboard
and nailed boards over the ship’s name. The plan was to sink the
ship and leave in a boat, along with all the money they could
carry. Unfortunately for them, on May 22, the
Saladin
grounded on an island just outside Country Harbour, Nova
Scotia. When Captain Cunningham of the schooner
Billow
came to assist, he found everything aboard the
Saladin
just a little too weird for his liking. The men’s
stories didn’t mesh and Cunningham began to suspect piracy. He had
the sailors arrested and they were brought to Halifax. The ship
itself, left stranded in shallow water, broke up at what is today
known as Saladin Point.

   
It was a big story in Halifax with a special court created to
deal with this heinous crime on the high seas. While in prison on
the Northwest Arm, Carr and Galloway confessed to their part in the
affair. Jones, Hazelton, Anderson and Trevaskiss admitted to their
crimes as well. The charges of piracy, which called for death by
hanging in chains, was “reduced” to murder – which meant simply
death by public hanging. Some critics thought the court too
lenient. While four of them would swing for their crimes, Carr and
Galloway were acquitted, having convinced the court they had been
forced into their actions under threat of death.

   
The hanging was a grand affair on the South
Common that brought out thousands of the city’s population.
Haligonians were big fans of a good hanging, as were others from
around the province. Crime historian Dean Jobb not es that one man
from Lunenburg County walked fifty miles to be there. On July 30,
four nooses were readied and, when the trap doors opened,
the
Saladin
pirates got what was coming to them.
Galloway disappeared after that, but Carr settled in Digby County,
where it was noted that he rarely walked but instead “trotted”
everywhere he went.

Murder on the Zero

In
1865, a ship with the unlucky name
Zero
had loaded with
coal in Cow Bay, Cape Breton, and was cruising toward the South
Shore of Nova Scotia. The captain was Colin Benson and his cabin
boy, aged fifteen, was Frank Stockwell. Also on board were the
first mate John Douglas, the cook Henry Dowcey and two German
crewmen named Marlbey and Lambruert. Somebody murdered the captain
on this voyage and it was most likely the cook or the mate. The
story most accepted is the one told by the young Stockwell, who
later testified so convincingly that, according to the
Halifax
Evening
Express
, people were
“impressed with the conviction that he was telling the
truth.”

   
According to Stockwell, he first became aware of the violence
on board when he saw the captain himself wrapped in a sheet and
hauled on deck with one side of his head bludgeoned. He believed
that Dowcey had attacked the captain with an iron bar as the poor
man slept. The captain was about to be dumped over the side, but he
was still alive enough to plead with his men to spare him.
Stockwell saw his captain tossed into the calm sea, where he
floundered and struggled and ever so slowly
disappeared.

   
What were the intentions here? Apparently the crew had
thoughts of sailing the vessel someplace, the Caribbean perhaps,
and selling the cargo, and then selling the ship itself. But if so,
they must have changed their plan, realizing that they’d likely get
caught. Douglas ordered Stockwell to burn the ship’s papers and
they divided up the captain’s clothes. Dowcey kept the captain’s
gold watch. This was all they could muster in reward for having
murdered an innocent man.

   
It was then decided they would try to sink
the
Zero
. A lifeboat was lowered and the men began to
drill holes in the hull with an augur until the tool broke or they
lost the augur bit to the sea. Next they tried to chop iholes into
the ship with an axe only to have the axe head fly off and sink in
the deep. The ship was still afloat when they gave up and rowed
ashore.

   
James Baker was a LaHave Island fisherman who was out to sea
on the morning of September 11 when he spied the brigantine under
full sail. But something looked very odd. He boarded the ship and
discovered that the only crew left was a dog. The wheel was tied
with rope and there were obvious signs that someone had tried to
sink the ship. ,

   
Salvage laws allowed for anyone who found such a
gift at sea to rightfully claim it as his own. Baker knew nothing
about a crime but he sure knew that he had lucked onto a good
thing. He sailed the
Zero
into LaHave
Harbour and claimed his salvage rights to the ship and her cargo of
coal. Other fishermen went out in search of the missing crew. They
located Douglas, Dowcey and Stockwell. The other two crewmen had
run away in the night. Douglas did most of the talking, with a
concocted story about a captain who had been accidentally knocked
into the sea by the boom and a leaking ship that had to be
abandoned.

   
Everything looked too suspicious and the trio ended up in
jail. Marlbey and Lambruert were tracked down as well. The mystery
prompted yet another murder trial in Halifax that November. The
cabin boy’s story seemed credible and it was backed up by Marlbey,
who claimed that he had heard Douglas and Dowcey plotting to kill
the captain in order to take the ship. Marlbey claimed to have
informed the captain but the captain turned a deaf ear to the
news.

   
Dowcey claimed Douglas had murdered the captain
and Douglas claimed Dowcey had performed the deed. The judges in
the case had a hard time sorting out the truth. In the end, they
allowed Douglas to live but committed him to a life in prison.
Dowcey, however, would face the famous Halifax hangman.
The Halifax Colonist
reported it this way: “The hand that
committed this cruel murder will soon be cold in death.”
e

   
Strangely, Haligonians, usually anxious for the great
entertainment value of a good hanging, were not convinced that
justice was being served. Because of the publicity of the trial,
many were convinced that Douglas was the true murderer or that both
were equally guilty. Four thousand people signed a petition asking
for leniency for Dowcey. The law blundered forth anyhow and in
January of 1866, Halifax had its final public hanging. A mere 200
people showed up for the event.

Message in a Bottle

Another ill-fated Nova Scotian ship was the
Lennie
, built in Belliveau Cove and captained by Stanley Hatfield
of Yarmouth. On October 31 of 1875 the ship was in the English
Channel when Captain Hatfield told the 4 a.m. watch to tack the
ship. The men must have done a poor job of it and the captain gave
them a chewing out. A Greek sailor couldn’t handle the insult and
he pulled a knife and stabbed Hatfield in the stomach, while
another man stabbed him in the head. The second mate tried to help,
but he too was murdered, as was the first mate, who was killed by
the cook.

   
This unhappy lot of seafarers may not have
pre-planned this mutiny, but now they had to get rid of the
evidence and figure out where to sail. The bodies were weighted and
pitched into the sea. The steward, Constant Van Hoydonck, refused
to take part in the mutiny and he was locked in his cabin until the
rest of the men realized he was the only one who could handle the
ship. When Van Hoydonck was allowed above, he was ordered to steer
the
Lennie
to Greece. He agreed to the request,
but instead steered her toward Bristol. The crew caught on to the
trick and Van Hoydonck was forced to change course for the coast of
France. Periodically the steward was dismissed to his cabin as the
men tried to sail the ship on their own, each time giving up and
calling the poor man back to the helm. Eventually, they anchored
off the French Île de Ré. The steward and the cabin boy sealed
messages for help in bottles and tossed them to the tides, hoping
for salvation.

   
Somehow, the steward figured a way to hoist a distress flag
as well. That signal was seen from shore. A French gunboat arrived
and the mutineers and murderers were rounded up to be put in jail.
Tried in London, four of the conspirators received the death
penalty. Van Hoydonck received salvage money from the ship’s owner,
gave up a life at sea and opened up a tavern in London with the
cash received for his loyalty.

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The American Threat

Up into the middle of the
nineteenth century, most Maritimers felt no great desire to be
absorbed into a larger country. In 1838, when the British high
commissioner had suggested a new kind of union for all of British
North America, he was soundly chastised by most Nova Scotians. The
province of Canada may have thought it a prudent move, but
Maritimers had become staunchly independent folk and they were
feeling good about themselves, thanks to the world links forged by
the sailing ships that brought commerce to and from their
shores.

   
In 1861, Nova Scotia had a population of 339,000 made up of a
diverse ethnic mix of English, Scots, Acadians, Irish, Germans,
Blacks and Mi’kmaq. Most still lived in rural areas. Halifax had a
population of only 25,000. The economy was a diverse one based on
fishing and the lumber trade, coal mining, farming and all the jobs
related to ships and shipping. The trading links were strongest
with England, New England and the Caribbean. There was simply no
pressing need or desire to forge stronger ties with those people
living further west on the continent.