The magnificent steamer Newport, of the
Pacific Mail Steamship line, running be-
tween New York and Aspinwall, was struck
by a cyclone when only one day out from
New York on her last trip, and for the first
three or our days was compelled to keep
her head to the gale and fight for life. The
passengers, upon their arrival at Colon,
joined in a testimonial card, in which the
skillful seamanship of Captain William G.
Shackford was highly extolled. Captain
Shackford is a veteran in the service of the
company, and though somewhat of a mar-
tinet in maintaining discipline, is a as pleasant
a skipper to make a voyage with as ever
trod a deck as commander.
DESCRIPTION OF THE SAME EVENT IN Panama A Personal Record of Forty-six Years 1864-1907
In contrast with this peaceful sunset, at a
later time, on board the Newport with Captain
W. G. Shackford (who has just died, Novem-
ber, 1907), at the same place, a cyclone of the
first magnitude was encountered. Navassa was
passed about the same hour in the evening as
before, and we steamed away into the blackness
of darkness that covered the Caribbean in the
southwest as with a funeral pall. The sea
had begun to show its rage before night closed
in. There was a feeling of awe on board that
might easily have been heightened to one of
alarm and panic. Among the passengers was
Mr. Michael Grace, of W. R. Grace & Com-
pany, on his way to Peru. He had only recently
recovered sufficiently from a terrible accident to
walk with the aid of crutches. He and I were
sitting in the captain's room, after the black night
had shut down, sharing as far as landsmen could
the anxiety of the able commander of our ship.
The latter showed us his cyclone chart, and ex-
plained the wonderful circular action of those
terrors of the deep cooly saying: "Now I will
poke her nose into this thing up to eight bells"
(eight o'clock P.M.") "and if it gets any worse I
will try and get her out of it the best I can. And
if she don't turn over in the attempt we will then
head her for home, and give her all the steam
the boilers can supply for a few hours, and see
if we can run away from what appears to me to
be a terrible kickup down here."
At that moment a sea struck the ship with such
violence that Mr. Grace, who was on the wind-
ward side of the spacious cabin, was hurled clear
across against the other side. Yet he excaped
with only a big scare, and seemed none the worse
for the tremendous shock.
Before eight bells Captain Shackford saw that
he must get out, as he had said, "the best he
could." The Newport was turned around at the
risk of being turned over by the wild force of
wind and wave. It was the first and only time
that I have seen frightened passengers at their
prayers. But the fleet vessel outran the storm,
and by morning the cyclone had passed onward
to Jamaica, the western end of Cuba, and across
the Mexican Gulf, to ravage the Texan coast.
SOURCES
"PANAMA ADVICES News from the Republics of Central and South America," San Francisco Call (San Francisco, California), 10 November 1891; digital images, California Digital Newspaper Collection (http://cdnc.ucr.edu : accessed 25 August 2013
Robinson Tracy, Panama A Personal Record of Forty-six Years 1864-1907 (New York and Panama: The Star and Herald Company, 1907), page 98; digital image, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 29 December 2014