FtV - The Wreck of the Royal Tar
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But you won't get the added bonus of an After the Legends segment featuring new commentary about that episode from your old pals Jeff and Ray. So let's open up the New England Legends vault and revisit another legendary episode.

Hey kids, welcome to the vault. Welcome to the vault. We're glad you're here with us. We're going back to the wreck of the Royal Tar, and you're going to want to listen to After the Legend on this one because we'll be speaking with Jane Parks Gardner. She's the author of the brand new book, The Wreck of the Circus Ship Royal Tar, Tragedy in Penobscot Bay. This episode first aired May 28th, 2020. Enjoy.

Jeff, the weather's getting warmer. Summer is almost here. Yeah. And that makes me think about... I bet you're thinking about the circus. Whoa, that's spooky. How did you know? I heard the music, Ray. It's kind of a dead giveaway. Got it, yeah. I loved the circus as a kid, except the clowns, of course. Of course, yeah. I'm not sure there will be any traveling circuses in New England this summer because of the coronavirus. But I'm sure there will be.

That's a real shame. I know, it is. So what brings us out here to the island of Vinyl Haven in Penobscot Bay, Maine, Jeff? The ocean is no place for a circus. Ray, truer words have never been spoken. We're looking for the site of a horrible tragedy, one that not only took many human lives, but this event killed an entire circus. We're on the hunt for the wreck of the Royal Tar. ♪

Hi, I'm Jeff Belanger. And I'm Ray Ogier. Welcome to episode 145 of the New England Legends podcast. If you give us about 10 minutes, we'll give you something strange to talk about today. Thank you for joining us on our quest to document every single legend in New England, one story at a time. And we can't do it without the help of our Patreon patrons, who kick in just three bucks per month to get early access to new episodes, plus bonus episodes that nobody else gets to hear.

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Ray, did you know there's a clinical name for the fear of clowns? I did, actually. It's called coulrophobia. Ah, you're wicked smart. You know, summer doesn't just mean the circus. It also means beach weather. Very true. Do you ever get freaked out standing by the ocean like this? Well, like how? What do you mean? I mean the enormity of it. I mean, it's huge, right? Now, right now it's calm, but when you look back through history...

the ocean can swallow you whole if it wants to. And that's pretty much what happened to the Burgess and Dexter Zoological Institute aboard the Royal Tar. That sounds like a pretty tragic story, Jeff. It really is. All right, let's head back to October of 1836 and set this up.

Our story begins October 21st, 1836 at Peter's Wharf in Eastport, Maine, right on the Canadian border. The Burgess and Dexter Zoological Institute is a traveling circus that features an elephant, a tiger, two camels, snakes, birds, a traveling wax museum, a brass band, show wagons, and horses to pull the wagons. The journey began just up the coast at St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.

But rough seas forced the ship to make port here to give the animals and passengers a chance to stretch their legs before continuing the journey to Portland, Maine. The circus is sailing aboard a steamer ship called the Royal Tar. It's 164 feet long, 400 tons.

with a wooden side wheel. It looks like the paddle wheel you see on the back of one of those Mississippi river boats, except this one is on the side of the ship. You know, the Mississippi river boat is a pretty good comparison because like those floating hotels, the Royal Tar is one of the finest ships on the ocean right now. In addition for room for all those animals and cargo, there's elegant cabin quarters for upscale passengers that could rival many of the fine hotels on land.

Now, the ship is also brand new. She launched earlier this year in St. John, New Brunswick, and she's named after King William IV. The Royal Tar was the king's nickname because from age 14, he served 10 years in the Royal Navy. The Royal Tar, the ship, not the king, was built to make the journey between St. John in New Brunswick, Canada and Portland, Maine.

Back on June 5th of this year, the ship broke the speed record by sailing from Eastport, Maine to St. John in less than five hours. That's about 60 miles away if you're keeping score. And we're always keeping score, right? The ship is only about six months old, and the owners have named her the safest ship on the sea. Sure. I mean, this ship is state-of-the-art. But this voyage is asking more of the boat than any other in her short life so far. Why is that? Well, for one, she's overloaded.

These wagons, animals, the brass band, it's a lot of weight for a ship this size. Add to that 21 crew and 70 passengers, plus, you know, the supplies needed to keep people and animals fed, and the Royal Tar is riding pretty low in the water. And to make room for some of the animal cages on the deck, the crew had to remove two of the lifeboats and leave them behind in St. John. ♪

On Friday evening, October 21st, the ship steams out of Eastport to continue south along Maine's coast. But the passengers are a little nervous. I mean, the weather's bad. The seas are rough. Still, that's okay. Captain Thomas Reid and his crew know what they're doing. They're not trying to break any speed records on this trip. Just a few hours into the voyage, the storm intensifies. The wind is blowing hard from the west, and it's creating choppy seas and difficult navigation.

Captain Reed orders the ship to sail into Little River right near Cutler, Maine and wait out the storm. Now by the following day, the wind shows no sign of letting up. So they wait. And wait. And wait. After three days of sitting idle in Little River, the weather calms just enough that Captain Reed orders the Royal Tar to resume her voyage. It's now the afternoon of October 24th.

Once out on the ocean, Captain Reed can see the winds are still blowing hard from the west. Conditions, they've hardly improved. Still, he's determined to steam for the port of Machias Bay, which is just about 10 miles away.

A few hours later, the Royal Tar drops anchor in the protected waters of Machias Bay to continue waiting out this horrible storm. The good news is the ship doesn't have to wait that long this time. By midnight, the storm shifts to the northwest, and the Royal Tar is finally making a decent pace south towards Portland.

Finally, it looks like smooth sailing. But there is one nagging problem. What's that? Well, there's talk of a leak in the Royal Tars boiler. It's nothing serious, but still, the ship's engineer is up most of the night working on it. And by morning, he's satisfied enough to get some sleep and allow another crewman to tend to the engines. Besides, the problem doesn't slow the ship down. By noon the following day, they've made it 90 miles down the coast to Penobscot Bay. It's about 1.30 in the afternoon when the ship's engineer runs to Captain Reed...

to tell him the water level has fallen too low in the boiler. Out of an abundance of caution, Captain Reed orders the engines to be shut down immediately. The emergency cooling valve opened on the boiler and the anchor dropped while they tend to everything. The engine will have to be completely cool before they can fill the tanks with water again and get back underway. The Royal Tar is now about one and a half miles from the Fox Islands in Penobscot Bay.

The engineer extinguishes the fires that heat the boilers, and they soon start the process of refilling the tanks. What the crew doesn't know is there's a big problem. Sure, the engines have stopped and the boiler is vented, but when the water fell too low, the area of the ship just above the boiler was superheated.

It's now 2 p.m. when the smoldering wood above the engine's boilers burst into flames. The smoke and fire is spotted immediately by the crew. Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

They run for the hoses as the crew pumps water toward the fire, but it's spreading too fast. They're overcome with smoke. And that fire, it's right under the deck below the animal cages. It's now clear to Captain Reed that this is a big emergency. He orders the ship's anchor line severed. With no boilers, his ship is left to the currents. His hope is that the ship will drift and beach on the nearby Fox Islands.

But there's no time to wait for the ocean to gently push this ship a mile and a half to shore. Reid needs to get the passengers off the ship right now. The crew sound the alarm and race through the ship ordering passengers and crew on the deck to the lifeboats.

Other crew members open the animal cages and push the horses, camels, and other animals into the ocean. The only hope for the animals is that they swim for sure. But the elephant can't be persuaded to jump into the water. The crew has no choice but to keep working on saving what and who they can. The fire is still spreading. It's now clear to all the passengers that the Royal Tar is doomed.

They drop the first lifeboat and load 16 passengers, completely filling the small boat. Immediately, they row for shore with the hope they can drop off passengers and maybe row back and save more, if possible. But at that great of a distance at sea in a large rowboat is slow going. Sure. Desperate, some passengers are now leaping into the ocean to avoid the fire. Given the water temperature, Captain Reed knows they're not going to last long.

The ship fire catches the attention of a nearby cutter ship called the Vito, which reaches the scene in about 30 minutes. Captain Reed and his crew are doing all they can to form makeshift rafts to keep as many passengers afloat as possible until more help arrives. Passenger Stinson Patton describes the scene. As soon as the steamer was discovered to be on fire, the cabin passengers rushed for the quarter boat and cut her away, which I perceived just in time to...

to jump off the quarter into her as I stood, which made up the number of sixteen. We succeeded in reaching land about nine miles from the steamer. We lost all our baggage and goods. The temporary raft was made of ladders and planks on which some of the suffering people took refuge, but it was of little avail, as most of those who trusted such a frail machine were

precipitated into the sea and sank to rise no more many who had been driven overboard by the fire sustained themselves on parts of the wreck which had fallen overboard but the violence of the sea and the cold soon terminated their earthly career the horrors of the scene were truly appalling the women threw their children overboard and jumped after them

The screams of these poor creatures at that time added to the roaring of the two vexed elements combined to produce a scene that beggars description and can only be conceived by those who have witnessed such scenes of horror.

when the fire first burst through the deck such was its rapidity that the caravans immediately ignited and so overpowering was the smoke and fire that the animals in their cages met an instantaneous death as not a sound was heard from any of them the horses and camels were backed overboard in hopes that they might reach the shore but neither force nor any other means could induce the elephant to follow

And he remained, poor fellow, viewing the devastation until the fire scorching him. He sprang over the side and was seen striking out lustily for the shore with his trunk high in the air. By the time it's over, 29 passengers and three crew perished of the 91 souls on the Royal Tar. It's awful. Of all the animals on board, only two horses managed to swim ashore.

All others were lost. And that brings us back to today. This is such a tragic story, Ray. It is. The Royal Tarr's flames were seen until about 10 o'clock that evening before she finally slipped under the water for good. In the aftermath, the remains of the elephant washed up on nearby Brimstone Island, where it was scavenged as much by people looking for souvenirs as other animals. And other zoo animals washed up on other islands. The circus was a total loss.

This was a huge maritime tragedy that the people talked about for years. You would have thought with the overloaded boat and the dangerous storm that a rogue wave or violent gale would have done her in, but no. In the end, it was human error.

Someone wasn't paying close enough attention to the water level in the boiler, and that set a deadly chain of events into motion. A chain of events that we're still talking about today. Right. Newspaper accounts claim the survivors believed Captain Reed was a hero who kept his cool and helped save more lives than were lost that day.

But still, the lack of enough lifeboats seems unthinkable to me by today's standards. Yeah. It seems, I mean, like horribly irresponsible. I know. And not only were there not enough, they unloaded two lifeboats to make room for animal cages. A mistake that definitely cost lives that October day in 1836. Standing here on the shore of Vinal Haven Island, I can only imagine what that burning ship must have looked like right out there in the water. Yeah. I mean, those on shore could only watch as the nightmare played itself out on the Royal Tar.

Maybe that's why we keep telling this story. It's a cautionary tale to mind our duties and to make sure there's enough lifeboats for any journey. It's kind of strange how that story can ring just as true for some of the problems we have on land as well. ♪

Man, it's just the second week back post-quarantine, and it's funny how we look at everything through the lens of COVID-19 now, huh? I know. Who knew, right? If you want to help us out, please do post a review of our show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us. And be sure to subscribe because it's free, and we don't want you to miss a thing. We'd like to thank Michael Legge for lending his voice acting talents this week. Thank you. And our theme music.

It's by John Judd. Hey, this is Valerie from somewhere in the South. Love listening to the stories about New England and all you people up there with your funny accents. And remember, the bizarre is closer than you think. All right, we'll break it down and talk to Jane right after a word from our sponsor.

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You know what's really cool about this story, Ray? Wait a minute, wait a minute. What's cool about this story? There's nothing cool about this story. No, it's a tragic story. I know what you mean. Go ahead. But what's cool about what we're doing right now is way back in 2020, Jane Parks Gardner emailed me and said, hey, have you ever heard about this tragedy, the wreck of the circus ship Royal Tar?

and it might be a good podcast. And I started to look into it. I said, oh my gosh, yeah, it would. Absolutely. Meanwhile, we did a podcast. She wrote a whole book. Well, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. That's the cool thing I was talking about. And she's with us. Jane, how are you?

I'm great, Jeff. Thanks. And hello, Ray. Nice to talk to you guys. Hi, Jane. Thank you for calling in. This is awesome. This is a first for us. This is a first. Yeah. So that's great. So congratulations on the brand new book just published by History Press, The Wreck of the Circus Ship Royaltar, Tragedy in Penobscot Bay.

Um, tell us, you know, well, first of all, how'd you hear about the story? I know how we heard about it. How did you get it? Well, my, when my kids were little, they had this wonderful, uh, picture book called the circus ship by Chris Van Dusen. He's a author out of Maine that writes these beautiful books and illustrates them. And he had this wonderful story about a circus ship that wrecks and all of the animals, uh,

And so he's going to swim to an island and they integrate themselves into the community. And it's just kind of a happy tale. And, but at the end, he's got this little paragraph that says, yeah, this was based on a real story of a tragedy of the circus ship that sank in Penobscot Bay in 1836. And,

And, you know, he did the fun kids version. So that sort of piqued my interest. And I started to look around as well and found out that it's a really cool story. I got to imagine if you're reading that book to a child, you stop at that point. You don't read that paragraph at the end.

Oh, no. No, no, no. That's a really fine print. There's no pictures on the back, you know, where he says it. There's nothing to look at. Yes, exactly. It is an amazing story, though. It is. I can't believe this isn't a movie yet. Right? Yeah. Well, it'd be a sad movie. Well, give us a little while. Right, yeah. Jane's movie rights are available. Just contact Jane. Exactly. Yes, yes. Just contact me. So I have a big question. How did we do, Jane, on our episode?

You did pretty well. I listened to it again this morning. And, you know, your geography is a little iffy, but there were some... How dare you? I know, I know. It was...

In all, you got the story pretty close. But there were some main things that, you know, I can understand in the short period of time that you guys have, you weren't going to be able to get everything, all the details. Well, we wanted to save it all for you so you could write your book. And in our defense, time travel is very tricky. It's really not easy to do. Well, then talk to us. Tell us about, you know, why is this story so important?

The story is, the way I approached it, the way I looked at the story is it's more than a story of, you know, a ship. It is a story of a time period. It's a story of a circus. It's a story of people and immigrants coming over from Ireland looking for a new life. It's a story of heroes. It's a story of cowards.

And it's kind of a story of hope also. So I'm hoping that people will find themselves in the story and look to maybe take something away. Like, how would I react in this situation? Which category would I be? What can I learn from this about how I would react in a tragedy like this? Yeah. I mean, give us some context for it. Like, how big of a disaster was this back in 1836?

Well, so as I was going through the newspapers, you know, there were shipwrecks all the time in Penobscot Bay and up and down the East Coast.

at that time. So it wasn't uncommon for ship travel to be very hazardous at the time. But one of the things, of course, that made this so newsworthy was the fact that there was a circus on board, a traveling circus with animals. And as you mentioned in the podcast, there were choices made to accommodate those animals that later kind of got some of the people in trouble during the disaster. Right. Like...

foregoing a couple of lifeboats. Like the lifeboat issue? Yep. And you also mentioned the fact that, and this is what happened, the boiler got overheated and ended up causing a fire. But what happened is there was actually...

extra wood in the space above the boiler because that was exactly where the elephant, who's this amazing elephant named Mogul, Mogul was going to be placed right on top of the boiler. So they had to reinforce the deck above. So there was extra wood placed.

Extra fuel. Extra fuel. I was just going to say it helped fuel the flames. So it was that sort of thing. Go ahead. I have to imagine that there were some, you know, good stories that came out of this with animals making it to shore. Could you tell us a little bit about the survival stories? Of the animals? The animals, the people involved. I mean, we talked about a horrible tragedy here, which is what it is. But there must have been a good outcome for a few individuals and the animals.

The people, yes, there were people that made it to shore and were able to tell their stories. There was a group of survivors that men, they were primarily men at the time on the boat, but they would meet every year for lunch. In Canada, a lot of the people were from New Brunswick.

and they would meet at this one restaurant in St. John's and St. John's, sorry, it's not plural, in St. John's and meet for breakfast once a year to commemorate the disaster. And then they, one by one, you know, the group got smaller and smaller over time. So unfortunately, no animals made it back. No animals swam back.

They did not. There were rumors that Mogul the elephant was – his body was found washed up on Brimstone Island.

but it was never found. You know, like there was no hard evidence of that. There was a bone that washed ashore on Vinyl Haven that some people believe is a elephant femur. But again, the bone has disappeared. The only thing that exists now is a photograph of it. And experts have looked at it. Could be whale, could be elephant. They're not sure, but they, you know, people like to believe it was mogul.

Mogul was chained to the deck by one foot. And so, you know, cause you don't want elephants walking around your boat while you're sailing. And he, so one theory is that he did, he did jump overboard, but may have, you know, lost his leg in the process. So perhaps that, that lone bone that washed up on shore was his leg. And perhaps he swam off on his own and survived someplace, but there's,

There's been sightings of exotic snakes on different islands and stories of a lion walking around the woods and things like that, but none of that, that's all stories. That's never been corroborated with facts. - Did you find any surprises when you were doing your research and working on your book?

So as far as surprises go, I made a trip to New Brunswick. I drove all the way to Canada last summer, and I kind of traced the trip of the boat. One of the things that, so Peter's Wharf, where the boat took off from, where the animals loaded, was actually in St. John, New Brunswick, not in Eastport. And

When I went to St. John, I was struck by the fact that it's a very hilly city.

And when I thought about the circus wagons being dragged up and down these hills and the elephant going up and down these hills in this hilly city to get down to the port, that just made it real for me. That was one of the things that really captured me, being there and thinking about that elephant walking up and down these hills. So that was sort of a surprise for me, to be able to live and be there. I had read that...

Mogul had a very unique way of walking down hills apparently. I guess the big elephant would get down on his belly almost and drag his legs behind him. So as I was standing on top of this hill looking down at the wharf,

I could imagine the elephant dragging his butt down the hill, which is kind of cool. You're so involved when you do this research. Any author, and Jeff would know this, you're so heavily involved. When you're standing on top of that hill, do you feel it? Do you sense it? Are you there? Absolutely, I'm there, yes. And they gave a circus. They had toured...

all of New England and parts of Canada all summer long, all the summer of 1836. And they were beat by that time, by October. But they gave one last free show to the people of the city of St. John. And I was at the park where they gave that. And there's a photo of it in my book. And it's just, it was real. It made me feel real. I went to the cemetery where I found the captain's grave.

um, the people at the St. John's cemetery were so sweet and they, they showed me where it was and they were all excited, but, um, they're at his grave and know what he had done for the people on that boat. It was, it was very powerful and it made my book more personal, which I think is, I hope it comes out in the writing. Yeah, for sure. What do you think is the takeaway, the main takeaway of this, this tragic story? I mean, obviously we touched on a little bit of it, you know, there's tragedies within the tragedies, like,

too much wood above the boiler and an elephant chained up and can't get away and you know the lifeboats are gone but what what what is the takeaway you know i can't help but compare this to titanic because thank you james cameron right we've all seen the movie we know you know it was hubris and it was you know foolhardiness and it was human error but what's the takeaway from royal tar

There's all of that, but I think I would like to personalize it a little more for people. People made choices that day. We all make choices every day. You had a choice whether to hang on or to let go and let the water sweep you away or whether to commandeer a boat and disappear and not come back and help people or to stay and put your life in danger and help others.

So I hope it was sort of a, the takeaway is how are you going to react in a situation and how deep can you dig to save yourself and others in any sort of situation? So I just hope it makes people think about that sort of thing. Like where might they or their strength lie and how could they use that for themselves and others?

As we all know, there's been so many shipwrecks, as you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation. This was a big one. This one, I'm sure, made more newspapers than the others. Did this change nautical laws and safety in any way that you know of? Well, at the time, there were no regulations on the number of people that could be on a boat. Mm-hmm.

There were no regulations on having enough life jackets for people. And again, there's the whole life boat situation. But, you know, we didn't learn from that since the Titanic came after this and there wasn't enough boats on that. But I don't like there was no that I could find because I was looking for that boat.

There's no direct consequence, but I think it added to the bulk of knowledge of C-Rex and how to keep us safe in these situations. I'm sure there were conversations after this. Yes, absolutely. Like, oh my gosh, another lifeboat would have been good or life jackets would have been awesome. Yeah. So things like that.

Such a tragic tale, so powerful, not just the loss of human life, but the loss of animal life and circus life and intertwined with immigrants and so many other stories. Congratulations on the new book. Yes. Thank you. It's called The Wreck of the Circus Ship, Royal Tar, Tragedy in Penobscot Bay by Jane Parks Gardner. Get it wherever books are sold. I got mine on Amazon, but you can get it at local bookstores, Barnes & Noble, any old place that sells books. Ask for it by History Press.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. Fantastic talking to you. Thanks, Jane. All right. Thanks. Okay. Bye.