Voyage of the Abeline

On St. Patrick’s Day in 1865, the brig Abeline set sail from New York, bound for Newfoundland. The Abeline was registered to Maitland, a small village on the Shubenacadie River in Hants County, Nova Scotia, that had become one of the province’s most prolific shipbuilding centers during the 1860s. Dozens of brigs and barques were launched from its tidal yards during the decade, deploying in the lumber, coal, and West Indies trades.

The Abeline’s captain was Stafford Nelson, barely sixteen years of age. Two days out of New York, Nelson fell gravely ill with fever and was soon unable to come on deck. The crew, all strangers to these waters and without their captain’s guidance, missed their landfall and were forced to put back to sea. They made for Cape Canso and eventually anchored at Arichat, a port on Isle Madame in Cape Breton, where they sought medical aid. Eight days after arriving, young Captain Nelson died.

The tragic voyage is remembered in the forecastle ballad Bound Down to Newfoundland, collected by Doerflinger from Professor M. M. MacOdrum in Nova Scotia. The tune comes from Helen Creighton’s Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia (1932). Like many ballads of the sea, it opens by fixing its story to a precise date — “Saint Patrick’s day in ‘sixty-five / From New York we set sail” — and closes with a prayer for the safety of all sailors.