The following 2 articles relate to Captain George Black, one of the more famous sons of the Parish of Buittle.
A Sea Captain Looks Back.
Adventure on the High Seas.
Maritime milestone for Captain & Mrs Black, Castle Douglas.
Galloway News - March 26, 1949.
Shipwrecked in the Gulf of St Lawrence in the �nineties�..
Shelled by a German submarine during the 1914 � 18 war�.
Presented with the Royal Humane medal and parchment for saving a seaman�s life in British Guiana�.
Eight years in sailing ships which ranged the seven seas�
Such are the highlights in the vivid store of memories laid up by Captain George Black,
Borderdale, Castle Douglas, the Palnackie boy who went off to sea when he was 15 years of age and who was given his first command when he was only 24.
The occasion for Captain Black�s reminiscing was the golden wedding anniversary, which his good lady and he celebrated on Monday. Both belong to Palnackie, and they were married at Liverpool on 21st March 1899.
Captain Black began his sea career when he joined a local coasting schooner as a boy. After six months he found himself on his uncle�s Newfoundland brigantine as an ordinary seaman. This ship was in the Newfoundland fish trade and plied between Newfoundland, the Mediterranean, and this country. Then, pursuing his father�s advice never to sail twice in the same ship or under the same master until he had his Second Mate�s ticket, he signed up with a barque which took him to Australia and the west coast of South America. His next berth was an able seaman on a full-rigged ship and when he left her he had his Second Mate�s papers.
By this time sails were going out and steam was coming in. In 1894 he trod the deck of his first steam ship as junior officer and on his second trip he had the alarming experience of being shipwrecked in the Gulf of St Lawrence The ship went ashore in a dense fog on the island of Anticosta and while they lay helpless a heavy storm sprang up.
Several lives were lost, but those who survived managed to launch two boats. The surf was so heavy that they could not land and they were eventually picked up by a fishing schooner which had to run down the coast for 20 miles to a lighthouse for food and shelter and a few days later � telegraphic communication having been established in the meantime � they were picked up by one of the company�s boats and taken back to Glasgow.
His next employers were the firm of James Little & Co, of Glasgow, who signed him on as Second Officer, and, after one voyage to the Mediterranean, promoted him to First Officer. He was 24 when he received his first command, the
s.s. River Mersey. It was while he was in command of this ship that Captain Black married his Palnackie bride, the honeymoon being spent at sea.
Returning to Glasgow he was given command of a bigger ship, the
s.s. Indianapolis, which was engaged in the West Indies trade and it was during a voyage in this ship that he saved one of his crew from drowning in the Demerara River at Georgetown, the capital of British Guiana. For his bravery and presence of mind, Captain Black received the Royal Humane Society�s medal and parchment, the Mercantile Marine silver medal, and a gold medal from the owners.
In 1904, the same year as he first took up residence in Castle Douglas, Captain Black took command of the company�s new ship,
s.s. Borderer, which took him to the four corners of the world, Mrs Black accompanying him on many of his voyages. It was during one of his trips on the Borderer that the ill-fated White Star liner, the Titanic, met her doom, and Captain Black recalls that his ship passed through the same ice field only a few hours before the Titanic struck the iceberg which sent her to the bottom. There was no wireless at this time on Captain Black�s ship and it was not until he got to New York that he heard of the disaster.
Two encounters with two submarines on successive days provide the highlight of Captain Black�s memories of the Great War. It was in March 1917, and his ship had just set out for Singapore with a cargo of naval stores when, off the east coast of Ireland, they were sighted and shelled by an enemy submarine. Fortunately, a hail squall came to the rescue, and they took refuge among the sand banks along the coast. Distress signals were sent out and patrol boats were quickly on the scene, but the submarine had disappeared. Next night, off the Scilly Islands, a submarine periscope broke water a few yards off their port bow. Captain Black gave the orders to ram her, but she crash dived and got away. In response to signals, a patrol ship came racing up and provided escort until darkness fell.
After the war Captain Black�s old firm sold out to the Ellerman Line, and he was appointed manager to the Leith Salvage and Towage Company, which post he held until he retired in 1931. The hills of Galloway, as Captain Black and his wife put it, were calling too strong. They could not be resisted any longer.
Captain and Mrs Black have a family of one son and two daughters, the former, who was a Lieutenant in the
R.N.R. during the war, being now engaged in salvage work in the Firth of Forth area. The elder daughter is a doctor and hold the
M.B., Ch, B., and D.P.H. qualifications, her husband being Professor
Haddow, Director of the Chester Beatty Research Institute at the Royal Cancer Hospital in London. The younger daughter is married to Captain Campbell, who was awarded the
O.B.E. for D-Day planning, and who is now a marine surveyor and consultant for the Port of
Leith. There are five grandchildren.
[Strangely, the article does not state his wife's name. Mrs Black was born on the 6th August 1875, Janet Black Stitt, daughter of Captain John Black Stitt, master of the barque "Esk" who was lost at sea in 1875 when only 28 years of age, and was from a long line of distinguished Water of Urr sailors. Captain Black's family, too, had a long history of sailing from these shores.]
Water of Urr Shipping.
Reminiscences of Captain
George Black, Borderdale, Castle Douglas.
(by John Graham, "Dumfries & Galloway News Review"
May 1948 under the title "Home is the Sailor" )
Many years ago a regular feature of the local weekly press was the �Water of Urr Shipping News�, giving the names of vessels coming and going to the Urr. Who contributed these items of news each week, I do not know, but I rather think that it would be �Scauronian�, the pen name for Mr. Samuel
Crosbie.
Perhaps the most important port in the Water of Urr was Palnackie which lies six or seven miles up river from Kippford which is always known as the Scaur. The flat land in the Urr Valley from Palnackie to the Scaur has caused the river to wind tortuously along its course to the sea and looking down on it from North Glen, the Urr resembles a coiled serpent. I understand that the river is tidal to Craignair Bridge, or almost to that point but it must be a most difficult river to navigate.
Palnackie was at one time a thriving port when the only method of transport was by sea. Now the village is the hub of the motor transport industry and the old quay is deserted. Certainly the Admiralty have cleaned out the dock for their own purposes but never again will the little village attain importance as a trading port and indeed it would appear that the days of the transport of goods by ships are at an end so far as Solway ports are concerned. This is to be deplored for one would like to see the various ports round the Solway Coast being used once more. What a story could be told of the men who went down to the sea from these places. Some of the ships in which they sailed were actually built at Palnackie and Kirkcudbright � to name only two of the places � and no better sailors could be found than those reared in Galloway and the various ports from Stranraer to
Annan.
I had the good fortune recently to meet in with one of Palnackie�s own sailors and prevailed upon him to open out and tell me something of the ships he had known � �Water of Orr� men they called these ships, while the men who sailed on them from the River Urr were known as �Dookers�. My narrator was Captain George Black,
Borderdale, Castle-Douglas, and no-one can spin a finer yarn in true nautical fashion than he can, nor could anyone fail to be interested in what he says in his own simple straightforward manner. To me Captain Black resembles John
Masefield, himself a sailor as well as a poet and writer, both in build and in looks, especially when he wrinkles his brow to emphasis some point. When he talks about his experiences at sea and about the men he met in the calling, I could listen to him all night. He tells me he is one of the last three surviving �Dookers� � the other two being James Cumming who used to live at the Scaur and James
Clachrie, Dalbeattie. It is now over twenty years since Captain Black retired from the sea but when he left the sea he did not give up work for he was many years Superintendent of Leith Towage and Salvage Company, with headquarters at
Granton. The salvage of ships is one of the most hazardous occupations and calls f or the maximum skill, endurance and patience. The Captain finally retired some fifteen years ago and found a safe anchorage in his native Galloway, to compare with which he had seen no place in his roving over the world.
Captain Black in his reminiscing recalled the days of his father, Captain Willie Black, who was a coasting skipper sailing to the north of Ireland and west coast of Scotland as well as the north of England ports.
This old man, after retiral, became the coxswain of Balcary Lifeboat and, while he acted as such, the Lifeboat had its busiest period. Among the ships his father commanded were the smack, �Scheldt�, the sloop �Mary Campbell�. He also had the schooner �Margaret Grace� and during a trip to the east coast via the West Highlands, he observed while sailing through the Sound of Mull a wreck stuck fast on the rocks. Putting into Tobermory he bought this wreck � she turned out to be an American brigantine �Eulala� � for an old song, salved her with his own crew, put his own ship under the charge of his son, John, then 19 years old and, with a scrap crew, he himself brought the �Eulala� to the Scaur under jury rig. Only her lower masts were standing and half her decks were gone but he had her repaired at the Scaur and sailed her for many years. She proved to be the fastest vessel on the coast. Later he sold her to his brother who converted her into a schooner so that she could be more easily managed, although reducing her speed. Another ship he owned was the �Mark� built at the Scaur by Henry Cumming and named after Mark Hill.
Captain George Black first went to sea when he was 14� years of age in the schooner �Importer� owned by
Newall, Dalbeattie and afterwards by Peter Neilson, Palnackie. His father, having had the misfortune to be under a martinet of a skipper while serving his apprenticeship, was determined that his son would not go to sea as an apprentice and endure the same gruelling as himself and he planned that to gain experience in every type of ship and thus obtain the requisite practical and theoretical knowledge his son would go to sea as an ordinary seaman. Throughout his sailing career he was only in five sailing vessels and a like number of steamships. For some years before leaving the sea, he had command of S.S. Borderer (dead weight close on 8,000 tons) belonging to Little of Glasgow. He showed me three medals which were presented to him for saving a man�s life at Demerara � one from the owners, one from the Humane Society and the third the Mercantile Marine Medal. He also possesses a Parchment.
The following are notes on some of the vessels mentioned by Captain Black and no doubt many readers will remember a number of these�
�Thomas Green� � small schooner, owned by G. Wilson & Son, lost on Heston Island,
�Try Again� - barquentine, owned and sailed by James Bell in foreign trade. James Bell also had a schooner �Rambler�.
�Balcary Lass� � barquentine, owned by MacKie, Auchencairn House. This was the last vessel built at the Scaur and she was lost off the Brazil coast after a brief career lasting two years.
�Euphemia� � a schooner, owned by S. Ewart, Palnackie � sailed by him for a time, thereafter by N. Paterson and later sold to Bristol Channel.
�Gallovidian� � schooner � rigged � owned and sailed by Captain Rae, Kirkcudbright and Liverpool, then sold to J. Cumming, Scaur. "Mary Agnes" � schooner � built by
Newall, Dalbeattie at Barnstable and commanded by T. Hume, Scaur and others.
"Mantura"� schooner, owned and sailed by T. Candlish, Rockcliffe.
�Thomas Graham� � schooner, owned and sailed by J. Candlish, Palnackie. "Dolphin" � owned by
Carsewell, Dalbeattie and Sharp, Scaur, sailed by the latter.
"North Barrule" � owned by Carsewell, Dalbeattie and Tait, Scaur � sailed by Tait and others.
�Bella� � owned by Black, Auchencairn, sailed by S. Ewart, Palnackie.
�Orroland� � owned by McMinn, Dalbeattie and sailed by him. This vessel was lost off the west coast of Ireland with all hands, his young son and a Palnackie lad. being members of the crew.
�Earl Grey� � a sloop of about 30 tons owned by (1) McEwan, Dalbeattie, (2) Shaw, Tile Fields, and (3) Neilson, Palnackie, finishing up as a lighter in the river.
"John and James" � schooner, owned by J. Tait, Scaur. This vessel was lost while running into Whitehaven for shelter.
"Mary" � schooner, owned by Charlton, Dumfries � lost with all hands on Solway Banks between Maryport and
Castlehill, Rockcliffe, Edgar, the Scaur, was in command.
�New Importer� � schooner � belonged to Wright, Dumfries, and afterwards to
Carsewell, Dalbeattie. She foundered north of Whitehaven on a voyage from Liverpool to the Urr and her entire crew hailed from Palnackie.
�Craignair� � This was the only steamship owned in the river; she was built by
Biggar.
"Ton Mar" � schooner, owned by Nichol, Isle of Whithorn. Lost off the west coast of Ireland; three of the hands were from Palnackie.
�North Star� � schooner. This was a Welsh vessel which went ashore on Barnhourie Sands during a gale. She was abandoned as a total wreck and lay on the sands for a long time Then Bell, wood merchant, Dalbeattie, bought her, she was salved by some of the
"Dookers" who brought her round to the Scaur where John Cumming repaired her. Bob Hannah, who belonged to the Urr, sailed her for many years for Bell. Eventually she was laid up hear the Scaur and after lying there for years was burned out.
�God�s Curse� � a strange name for a schooner surely! This was the only vessel ever built at Dalbeattie, but her proper name was certainly not �God�s Curse�. It appears that the party who was going to name her missed her stern with the bottle of wine and was heard to exclaim �God�s Curse�. She slid down the ways without being named properly and the vessel was ever afterwards known by this name.
"Witch of the Wave� � originally a smack, but later a ketch owned by
Marchbanks, Farmer, Buittle, and Coupland, Dalbeattie, who was her skipper for some time. Various Palnackie men, including Nicol Paterson, sailed her and she was ultimately sold to one of the Wigtownshire ports.
�Elizabeth� latterly a schooner. This was a full rigged brig and only carried 60 tons. Captain Black�s father served his apprenticeship in this ship which had Royals and studding sails. Later she was schooner�rigged, owned and sailed by William
McLellan, grandfather of the McLellans of Orchardknowes. He sold her out of the river. She was only known as the �wee brig�. Certainly a strange rig for such a small ship!
"Mayfield" � a full rigged brig which was purchased from the Raes by John Murdoch of Dalbeattie. She had been trading to the ports on the west coast of South America. Later her new owner converted her into a barquentine.
�G1asgow� � a barquentine, owned. by Captain Wilson of Orchardton � in the Baltic trade, but before being purchased by Wilson, she was used as a transport in the Crimean War. A number of muskets were found on board and. these he deposited in Orchardton Tower, to the great delight of the boys who used them as playthings. The �Glasgow� was afterwards sold to Cumberland.
�Elbe� � This schooner was also owned by Captain Wilson who was in command of her when she struck the rocks somewhere about Balcary Point, losing her rudder and damaging her stern post. She drifted into the firth, drove back and struck Castle Point near Rockcliffe. Fortunately all hands managed to jump ashore before she drove off into the Firth again and sank, There is a cairn of stones to mark the spot where the crew were saved and the Wilson family used to make an annual pilgrimage to the place.
Another vessel owned by Captain Wilson was the �Caroline�, originally a smack, and named after his youngest daughter who now resides in Palnackie. The owner cut the bows off her, lengthened her and turned out a fine schooner, this work being done at his little shipyard now used by Halliday as a wood yard. This vessel was sold to John Ewart and she was lost at the Faroe Islands. Captain Wilson�s brother, George, in Dalbeattie owned the following vessels:� �Good Intent� and �Jessie Maxwell�, sloops; �Annie�, �Mochram Lass�, �Maggie Kelso� and �Renown�, all schooners.
The �Jessie Maxwell� was partly burned by a cargo of lime up the river. She was patched and taken to the Scaur beach where she lay for years, eventually being broken up for firewood. The �Renown� was a fine iron schooner in the foreign trade. All these vessels were disposed of in some manner but their fate is unknown.
The �Bengullion� was a schooner owned and sailed by James Ewart, Palnackie, and she was probably one of the fastest boats in the Firth and even round the whole coast. She was sold into an Irish port and I think was lost between Holyhead and Ireland.
The �Mary� was another little vessel and belonged to William Wilson, son of Captain Wilson, Orchardton. She was engaged in the Cumberland trade and William Wilson sailed her himself. On a voyage from Maryport with coal she went ashore at Orroland Point and went to pieces and the skipper and a man, Murdoch, from the Scaur were lost. The other hand, a Dalbeattie boy, was saved.
Captain Black referred to the publicity which Paul Jones had been receiving recently and said that the very old sailors had a different opinion from a great many people of the present time. He then proceeded to tell me the story of a man who outwitted the Yankees, that is the Federals, during the American Civil War. This story is worth recording and here it is in Captain Black�s own words:� �My father was at school at Colvend with a boy; Wilson, whose family lived at Barnbarrooh where my father was born. This Wilson lad was very placid and he never quarrelled with anyone. Although being quiet, he was well liked. Like many others reared in the locality, he went to sea and, in spite of his quiet nature, or perhaps because of it, he succeeded and became master on a barque named �Emily St. Pierre�, I think she hailed from Liverpool. During the American Civil War she was bound for Charleston which, being situated in one of the Southern States, was blockaded by the Yankees, as the Federals were called. Captain Wilson tried to run the blockade but was seized by a northern frigate and all his crew, except the bo�sn, carpenter, steward and himself were transferred to this frigate. Seventeen Yankees and a lieutenant were put on board the �Emily St. Pierre " and he was instructed to navigate her to New York or Boston, I think it was the latter port. She was of course a prize and. the Yankees were really in charge. Captain Wilson struck on a plan in order to get the ship into his own hands once more and he told the
bosn, carpenter and steward what he had in mind. They all agreed to his plan of action. All the ship�s mooring ropes were down forward and on nearing port the bo�sn took the wheel while the Captain directed the seventeen American sailors down below to turn over and clear away the ropes to be got on deck, the steward and carpenter standing by at the scuttle and he himself on the poop. The Yankee lieutenant was down below making out the entry papers. As soon as the last of the Yankees got down the scuttle, the carpenter and steward closed it up, bolted it and thus imprisoned the Yanks. Captain Wilson went down into the cabin and suddenly presenting a revolver at the lieutenant's head, informed him that, if he moved, he was a dead man. One of the others � I think it was the bo�sn � was now with Captain Wilson and the American lieutenant was divested or his sword and locked in a room. Captain Wilson now reduced the ship down to storm canvas and these four men brought the �Emily St. Pierre� across the Atlantic. The Americans were, I understand, let up on deck one at a time and then under cover of a revolver. On arriving off the south coast of Ireland, a British warship was sighted and a signal sent to her for assistance. She was boarded by a British Naval Officer, when Captain Wilson explained what had taken place and requested that a party of men be put on board to enable. him to take the �Emily St. Pierre� to Liverpool. This was done and, after crossing the bar with the pilot on board, Captain Wilson went down below, unlocked the lieutenant�s room and remarked �I welcome you Lieutenant to Liverpool�. On arriving in the dock, Wilson was made the hero of the day and had gifts showered upon him from Lloyds, merchants, owners and even the old barber whose shop was in or near Chapel Street, presented him with a case of shaving materials, etc. This was indeed an epic of the sea � a story that should not be forgotten in the Water of Urr�.
Men like Captain Black who received their training in sail endured untold hardships, for they went to sea when conditions were far from good, and sometimes in ships that were hardly seaworthy. Today we salute those who are still with us, and revere the memory of those who have taken their last departure for an uncharted land. Of such fine material the Merchant Navy was formed, and we can never forget the part played by that particular branch of the Services during two world wars.
[The deaths of Captain and Mrs. Black are recorded on a gravestone in the cemetery at Buittle Church. "In loving memory of Janet Black Stitt, dearly beloved wife of Capt. George Black, who died at "Borderdale," Castle Douglas, 19th Dec. 1949, aged 74 years. And the above George Black, who died in London, 22nd Feb. 1962, aged 90 years."]
