The Wreck of the Ellen Munn

The Ellen Munn was a Newfoundland schooner lost in a December storm. According to History of King’s Cove, the ship was to be repaired over the winter of 1866. They set sail on Christmas day amid inclement weather and promptly set to wait it out. Two days later, the hull was breached by ice. The crew of five men worked frantically in waist-deep water to save the ship but she succumbed to the icy vortex. The wreck happened near land and all survived, but the loss of vital supplies was worrying. Twenty-three men, women, and children abandoned the ship and were taken into the local log huts by several families where they were sheltered until spring. Jimmy Flynn, the skipper, recounted the tale in The Wreck of the Ellen Munn with cautionary conclusion: “And when a sea voyage you begin, don’t sail on Christmas Day”. His son, M. T. Flynn, was on the Ellen Munn at age 14 and never forgot the generosity and communal spirit of that Christmas season.