SS Arctic

The side-wheeler SS "Arctic" sank September 27 1854, off Cape Race, Newfoundland, after colliding with the 250 ton French iron screw steamer SS "Vesta" in the fog. A sister-ship to the SS "Pacific" that went into service in 1852, the 3,000-ton SS "Arctic" was at the time the largest and most splendid of the Collins Line steamships and was in operation in the Liverpool packet. Casualties included 92 of her 153 officers and men, and all her women and children passengers, including the wife, the only daughter, and the youngest son of Collins Line manager Edward Knight Collins. The total lost was near 400 souls.

There is a large monument in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York, dedicated to all who lost their lives.

After the collision, the captain of the "Arctic" thought it would be safer to leave the site and steam toward land. The captain of the French vessel was upset that the "Arctic" had left and not helped them. The French vessel started to sink. The captain had to think fast. "Take anything you can and dump it into the water" the captain orderd. The crew done as told. The French vessel then started to float.

When the French vessel reached land, the captain wondered what had happened to the "Arctic". He was told that the "Arctic" did not make it back to land!

The tragedy hit the public quite hard in 1854 due to stories of cowardice by crew members, whotook over some of the life boats. The fact that no women or children survived did not sit well with the American public. In a search for heroes in the disaster the Americans noted the bravery of young Stewart Holland, who stood on the sinking ship's deck firing (at intervals) the distress cannon, until the ship went under water. Holland did not survive. The ship's Captain, James C. Luce, survived the disaster with another man clinging to one of the ship's paddlewheel boxes, but Luce had the misfortune of seeing his disabled son Willie die before his eyes, killed by some wreckage. At one point nearly 30 people were floating on a raft from the ship's deck, but due to waves and exhaustion only two were alive the following morning to be rescued. Yet one gentleman, from Mississippi, managed to make his own small raft, and was rescued the next day.

At the time of the disaster the U.S. merchant marine, with its fleets of clipper ships andthe Collins' Liners (then the fastest and most luxurious afloat) controlled the Atlantic trade.But Edward Collins depended on U.S. government subsidies based on carrying the mails to and from Europe. The "Arctic" was one of a fleet of ships, and had been one of the prides of the line, but its destruction was the first serious blow to Collins reputation. It would be followed in two years by the disappearance (most likely due to collision with an iceberg) of the "Pacific" in 1856. The ending of the Crimean War released the energies of Collins' English rival, Samuel Cunard, to fight for English predominance in the Atlantic Trade. Cunard won this by the end of the decade.

The best account of the disaster is THE SEA SHALL EMBRACE THEM: THE TRAGIC STORY OF THE STEAMSHIP ARCTIC by David W. Shaw (New York: Simon & Schuster, Free Press, c. 2002). An earlier account that is still useful is WOMEN AND CHILDREN LAST by Alexander Crosby Brown(New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1961).