Thurston Terris was a merchant and a tinsmith when he built the schooner Enterprise up the Aboiteau at a place then called Board Landing. Her size, only about 30 tons, was not limited by the span of the pivoting Aboiteau bridge since the 150-ton B. Crosby was built there almost a decade later. It was in the fall of 1881 that the little ship was completed and, just as the tide began to ebb, Mr. Frank OMullin, the gatekeeper, had his charge wide open. The Enterprise, one of the smaller ships to be built upriver, slipped through above the spillway with plenty of room to spare.

One report had her under the command of the owners twenty-one-year-old son. He was young for a captain. At any rate, for her maiden voyage, her captain took the schooner up and across the Basin to the shipbuilding town of Maitland. He took a man named Jarrick as a deckhand.

While in Maitland, Captain Terris was contacted by some Parrsboro men who had been employed at a shipyard there: John Hawes, one of the Hawes family of Riverside, Albert Jeffers of Lakelands and young Dave Trahey, son of Captain Thomas, all of whom were looking for a way back home.

They left Maitland November 29^th, after midday, in a freshening wind, and by the time they were off Two Islands it was blowing a gale, the poorly ballasted schooner was soon in trouble and went over on her beam ends.

Night was coming on but the crew of the much larger Parrsboro-Windsor steam packet, the Earl Dufferin, was approaching Parrsboro and could see the men of the Enterprise. They could see the men launching a lifeboat, which was immediately overwhelmed by the huge waves.

Disregarding the time-honored tradition that ships are obligated to offer help whenever possible, the Dufferins captain continued on his course and eventually the overturned ship was lost from the view of the Dufferins men.

The next morning, the schooner was found lying on her side near Clarke's Head. The only one of her crew that was ever found was young Trahey, whose body was found frozen on the beach west of Clarkes Head. He probably drowned, but some claimed he died of exposure.

The reasoning for this conclusion was that the body of any person drowned offshore is carried down the Bay by the powerful Fundy tides. This leads one to believe that the young man must have reached shore or very near it before he died.

Some old-timers speculated that the Enterprise was driven by the strong sou-west wind onto the rocks off Gull Island, the smaller of the Two Islands, but no mention is made of this in the records. The little ship was righted and taken into Parrsboro, where she was later sold by Uriah Weatherbee, one of her shareholders.

A court of inquiry was held on the loss of the Enterprise and her crew. The Captain and crew of the Earl Dufferin were brought into the Court of inquiry for considerable criticism for their lack of effort in attempting to aid the men of the stricken ship. Their captain protested that the rough seas and lack of daylight would have made any effort too dangerous. He was severely reprimanded, but in the end the loss was attributed to other causes.

The salvaged Enterprise soon came under the ownership of John Kerwin of Ross Creek, Kings County. Her new owners used her for local trade, and one evening she was laying off Blomidon, loaded with cordwood. Details on her crew and destination are sketchy, but very early the next morning, Captain Silas Davison in the W. H. Wutherspoon was coming up the Bay. He found the little schooner lying on her side, her foresail set and her main dropped and apparently no one aboard. She was boarded and one of the crew, later identified as a Mr. Brewster, was found in her cabin lying dead in his bunk. He was fully clothed even to his mittens. The other crew members were never found, likely their bodies were swept away by the Fundy tide.

The owners wanted nothing more to do with the vessel and she was given to Captain Davison for the towing. No explanation for the capsizing was made public and perhaps it will never be known. At any rate, the new owners wanted no more to do with what they considered a jinxed ship and she ended her days under Captain Ansel Gow, fitted with water tanks and used as a waterboat. She supplied the lumber ships loading at West Bay, where she was eventually driven ashore in a gale and wrecked on the beach there.

Ed Gilbert

Sources:

Writings of Conrad Byers

Excerpts from old newspaper clippings

Narratives as dictated to me by old seamen