jcghosts10.doc/2,181 words/55”/Sea Oct 2000
HEAD: The Voyage of Lost Souls
SUBHEAD: Ghosts have haunted Star of India for over a century
By James Corns
Ships are like people: The older they get, the more stories they have to tell -- but sadly, those stories of the past aren’t always pleasant. Star of India has been sailing the oceans of the world for over a century, so the ship has seen its share of mirth and merriment, but it has also seen its share of tragedy and heartache.
As people grow older, their memories fade and they forget the stories -- but the ships don’t forget. Neither do the ghosts.
Imagine being on board Star of India in the 1800s. In those days, the ship wasn’t even called Star of India -- it was called Euterpe -- and it was a trading vessel that also served as a passenger ship.
Euterpe’s usual route was from England to New Zealand, carrying 400 people in search of a new life. The passengers were often men who had no money, no property and no job; and they were leaving their loved ones behind.
The men left their native land promising they would write or send for their families as soon as they could, but it often took years before even the luckiest families received tickets. Once they had the tickets, the families would then sell everything they owned and head to New Zealand on Euterpe.
Harsh Reality
Hundreds of people took the voyage over a 21-year period, and many of them wrote about the experience in their diaries. Joseph Ditler, development director of the San Diego Maritime Museum, has read many of the personal accounts and was touched by these words of the dead.
“It’s frightening to look back at the past with that much detail -- reading someone’s emotions spilled out on the page,” Ditler said. “People were miserable. It was a horrible trip. They were given up for lost several times.”
The voyage to New Zealand was a difficult one. Euterpe went around the Cape of Good Hope, which was a rough passage, and then came back around Cape Horn, which was also a challenge.
Ditler painted a bleak picture of life on board the ship in the 1800s. The hatches were covered, so there was no air ventilation belowdecks. Portholes were an experiment in boat building at the time, but the crew soon discovered that they couldn’t have the portholes open, because gallons of water poured in through them. Passengers who opened the portholes were severely punished.
If the thought of 400 sick people living in unventilated quarters for months at a time isn’t bad enough, consider this: One passenger wrote in his diary that he had awoken one morning to find that his few belongings were drifting back and forth in a concoction of seawater, bile and vomit.
“That was the reality of a voyage at sea in the 1800s,” Ditler said.
The Drunken Ghost
Given the awful conditions on board, it’s easy to see why some people wouldn’t be eager to make the voyage. First-class passenger Capt. F. McBarnet was one such man.
Capt. McBarnet was an Army captain, not the captain of a ship. The year was 1875, and he had most likely been given orders to go to New Zealand -- and he was unhappy about it. He had been drinking heavily before joining the ship, and witnesses claimed he was in a terrible fit of depression.
A few days into the journey, one of McBarnet’s fellow passengers noticed that he hadn’t come to dinner that night. When blood was found creeping from under the doorway of McBarnet’s cabin, Euterpe’s first mate took it upon himself to enter the room, and when he did so, he discovered that McBarnet had slashed his own neck, attempting suicide, but he was still alive. The doctor was summoned, but medical practices in 1875 were primitive in comparison to today’s treatments. His neck was stitched back up, and he was in stable condition, but there would be an awful scar.
After McBarnet’s neck had been stitched up, the crew moved him to the first mate’s cabin and left him to rest. His wound had made him delirious; so delirious, in fact, that when they came back to check on him a short while later, they discovered he had ripped out the stitches and completed the task. He was dead.
John Griffiths, a passenger on board, described the dismal event in his diary: “It has put a gloomy appearance on the ship. They brought him out of the bunk and put him on the main hatch to wait the inquest. The captain and passengers held the inquest, and it was brought in that he was insane when he attempted suicide.
“He was sewed up in a piece of sailcloth and buried about four hours after death had been pronounced. It was a fearful sight to see the blood all over the place after fetching him out.”
That was then, but it wasn’t until recently, about two years ago, that Capt. F. McBarnet was seen again -- as a ghost.
The San Diego Maritime Museum’s education director was sleeping in the first mate’s cabin, where McBarnet had died. She had brought a group of children on board for a “field trip,” and they had already been bunked down for the evening. She had locked herself in the cabin and fastened the portholes shut.
In the middle of the night, the director’s covers were ripped off her. When she awoke, she saw a bearded man looking down at her, right at her face. He had an angry countenance, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“It scared the hell out of her,” Ditler said. “She started screaming.” She was afraid to even mention it, but she eventually told Ditler and he convinced her to talk about it -- to the History Channel.
The Ghost of the ‘Chinyman’
In 1900, Euterpe was sold to the Alaska Packers Association. The association bought several of the ships, which were derelicts at the time, and renamed them, depending on the country that had served as destination for the ship’s maiden voyage. Euterpe’s maiden voyage was to India, so she was renamed Star of India. There was also a Star of Shetlands, a Star of Zealand and a Star of Chile, among others.
In an unostentatious notation from 1909, Star of India’s logbook simply read: “1 Chinyman died.” At that time, the ship was making annual trips from Oakland to Bristol Bay, Alaska, carrying Chinese, Italian, and European emigrants north to fish for salmon.
More than 300 anglers were sometimes packed belowdecks. Gambling and drinking were only two of the vices that ran rampant during the trips north, but they were the two heaviest contributors to the deadly knife fights that were used to resolve arguments. Ironically enough, even the fights that had resulted from gambling disputes were bet upon by the anglers.
If you had walked through the belowdecks quarters at the time, your nostrils would have had a feast of smells to choose from. The various ethnic groups had all settled in various corners, each with their own distinct customs and languages. For instance, the Chinese emigrants’ territory smelled of opium, which many of them were addicted to.
The Asian cannery workers sometimes outnumbered the anglers almost three-to-one. Many of these men had come to America to help build a railroad; others had come to search for gold. They made a poor living fishing and canning salmon.
In 1909, one of these men met with an untimely death. His name is unknown, but written accounts say that this Chinese angler was standing in the chain locker as the ship weighed anchor for the trip south to Oakland. As he guided the large links of chain into position, he reportedly lost his balance. The chain kept coming down, and the clanking pawls of the capstan drowned out his screams for help. He was buried under a ton of iron anchor chain in a matter of minutes.
Once the ship was under way, the crew recovered what was left of his body and buried him overboard in what the ship log described as, “mountainous seas.”
In recent years, several visitors to Star of India have reported feeling a cold chill in the area of the ship where the angler died. Even when there was no wind and no way for a draft to enter the room, some people have claimed they felt a presence when no one was around.
According to Ditler, they all ask the same question when they approach the ticket taker or volunteer tour guides: “Did someone die here?” The area in question is always the same: the bosun’s locker, just above the chain locker. That was the place where, in the year 1909, “1 Chinyman died.”
The Ghost of Young John Campbell
1884 was an ill-fated year for Euterpe. Faced with bad luck and bad weather, the passengers and crew did the best they could to persevere.
The first piece of bad luck was the death of a seaman. He fell into the River Thames and drowned while trying to touch up some paint on the side. Soon thereafter, a passenger died of dropsy. Hurricanes and gales were also plentiful that year.
On April 9, 1884, as it was leaving the Clyde, Euterpe collided with the steamship Canadian. Repairs were hastily made, and the ship again set out for New Zealand.
A short time after Euterpe had cast off its tow, three youths were discovered stowed away. One of the stowaways was a 14-year-old Scottish boy named John Campbell.
Campbell had no family in England. He was poor and miserable, and he had been stealing food to survive. There was no turning around, so the captain had no other option but to let Campbell and the other two boys work for their passage.
Campbell jumped at the opportunity. The young boy had never worked aboard a ship before, but he was willing to learn. He became popular with Euterpe’s crew and was soon known for being eager, strong and unafraid of heights. He learned to hand, reef and steer with the crew as their apprentice, and the passengers all loved him. According to the captain’s log, he became invaluable.
When weather was fair and his duties were complete, Campbell enjoyed playing games with the other emigrant children. Tag was a popular game on board.
On June 26, 1884, John Campbell was going about his regular work, overhauling the main t’gallant buntlines, when he somehow managed to lose his balance and fell 100 feet to the deck. Log entries report that his legs were horribly mangled as he struck various objects on the way down. He died three days later -- mercifully, without ever regaining consciousness. He was buried at sea.
John Campbell had left behind a life of misery in Scotland for the hope of a new start in an untamed land. Until his tragic death, things had been looking up for the boy. He had found a “family,” of sorts, on board the ship. Many believe that his time spent on board Euterpe was the happiest of his life. When he died, he didn’t want to leave.
Today, numerous reports have come in from the ship’s early caretakers and ticket takers, to modern night security officers and overnight educational directors. They all shared the experience of being alone on the ship, in the dark of her bowels, and feeling someone’s finger in their back, carving the letter S, only to turn and see no one there.
The letter S would seem to have no importance, but it does: When the English and Scottish children played tag on board, they drew an S on the person instead of just tagging them. In fact, Campbell had been playing a game of tag on the deck of the Euterpe shortly before he was sent aloft to work on the buntlines that fateful day.
Experience the Paranormal
After Ditler told the story of John Campbell, he looked up to the heavens and said, “So, John, if you’re listening, I hope we’re doing you justice.”
As director of the San Diego Maritime Museum, Ditler has done an excellent job of maintaining the dignity of both the ship and the people of its past. At the same time, he and his crew at the museum have been successful at balancing the serious historical aspects with the fun of learning about the past in new ways.
If you’re interested in hearing and seeing more about the ghosts of Star of India, visit the ship between October 20 and 31, when the museum will be having special “Haunted Star of India” tours.
During the tour, professional actors dress in period garb and portray the true-life stories of the ship’s colorful past. If you’re looking for a unique family Halloween experience, the tour is an educational and historical experience like no other.
For more information on times and prices, contact the San Diego Maritime Museum: (619) 234-9153; www.sdmaritime.com; info@sdmaritime.com.
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