3-016-823 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The wreck of The Bohemian, Montreal Ocean Company's steam-packet, off the coast of Maine, 1864. Engraving from a sketch by Mr. Bateman Smith, one of the cabin passengers '...of that vessel upon the rocks near Portland Harbour...where she got aground...The steamer, carrying nineteen cabin passengers and 199 steerage, besides the mails and cargo...was just rounding Cape Elizabeth...when she struck upon a ledge called St. Alden's Rock...the night was foggy...It appears that the master, Captain Borland, had misjudged the distance of the lights visible on Cape Elizabeth. The vessel, having...a large hole in her bottom, and began to fill rapidly...she sunk in four fathoms of water, in an almost upright position...Most of the passengers, however, had already left the ship, the first boat taking eighty of them in one trip and seventy in the next trip all safe to land. The second boat was, unfortunately, swamped, and nineteen or twenty lives were thus lost, all Irish steerage passengers, including five or six women and one or two children...The citizens of Portland...are much commended for their humane efforts to relieve and provide for the destitute passengers and to help them to their destinations'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.