Two Coal Colliers Vanished With Seattle Men Aboard

Hope has been given up of ever hearing again from the colliers Keweenaw and Matanzas. Both are believed to have gone down somewhere between British Columbia and San Francisco, carrying about fifty lives. Both were well known in this city.

A. E. Kallock, second assistant engineer of the Keweenaw, leaves a mother living in Seattle; the balance of the crew were strangers here. Seafaring men generally believe the Matanzas was too heavily laden and the Keweenaw too light to weather the gale. There is universal sympathy for the unfortunates, and the loss must mean a closer watch by all manner of craft.

The Keweenaw first arrived in this city January 8, 1890, under command of Capt. Jenkins, with coal for the Black Diamond company. She brought a cargo around the Horn, 400 tons of it for this city. She was an iron vessel, 270 feet long, forty-two feet beam and twenty feet depth of hold, built at Bay City, Mich., in 1891 for the steam freight trade between the East and the Pacific coast. Her hull was round and made of extra steel plates. About thirty inches of outer bottom formed a water bottom above the keel, with numerous bulkheads dividing the space into sections. It was intended that if a hole were broken in the outer plates the vessel would remain safe unless the inner section in the side above was also pierced—which evidently was the case. She was built so that, if necessary, the seacocks on the opposite side could be opened to let in enough water to straighten her up. Her engines were triple expansion, and she could make about ten knots an hour on little coal.

When completed she was cut in two to pass the locks in the Welland canal and afterwards put together in dry dock at Montreal, every rivet hole true as when she was built. She took on cargo at New York and had a fair trip around, except for losing her wheel in the Straits of Magellan and going into dry dock at Valparaiso for temporary repairs. Only two members of the original crew that came up to this port were aboard when she went down: A. E. Kallock, then manager and third assistant engineer, and L. W. Havenaugh, carpenter. Capt. Jenkins took her at Montreal and brought her here.

Capt. Jenkins was well known and respected in this city, as was H. O. Jenkins, second officer. A. E. Kallock was a Seattle boy and has a mother and relatives living here. Capt. Jenkins and his son, L. W. Havenaugh and A. E. Kallock were the only members of the crew on the fatal trip who were known in Seattle.

The Matanzas was commanded by Capt. D. O. Blackburn, formerly of the Walla Walla and known in this city through his connection with the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. He was noted for loading his vessel far above her capacity. Her crew included H. C. Otto, Frank Brito, Thomas Madden, Alexander McDonald, Louis Simon, Gus Borsreson, John Johnson, George Holland, P. Hayes, John Heeney, M. Moore, Williams, A. Steward, John Grolaw, George Emanuel and J. Berros.

A stanchion picked up at sea by the tug Pioneer was believed to have come from the Keweenaw. It was a heavy piece of oak, six feet long, with a yellow tinge and one black end. Theory after theory was advanced as to how it had remained at sea so long without drifting up to the Vancouver shore, but none seemed to give the right solution.