Who Left Four Men Clinging to the Buckeye?

Whatcom, April 7 — Special. A day or two since Captain Hahn, of the barkentine, telegraphed to Inspector Bryant for a permit to run the steamer Buckeye, and in reply received a dispatch saying he would not license the Buckeye to carry passengers, and summoning Captain Hahn and his mate to Seattle on Wednesday to testify at an inquiry into the Buckeye disaster.

Captain Charles Bowden, who was acting as mate of the Buckeye and was at the wheel when the steamer swamped, called at the Post-Intelligencer bureau and gave his version of the unfortunate affair, which is fully corroborated by Messrs. Asher and Bennett, the two passengers who remained at the wreck with him until rescued by the tug Boyden in the evening.

It is quite true, as stated by the Post-Intelligencer, that there is not the best of feeling between Bowden and Hahn, and the statements of the former reflect seriously upon the latter. Bowden says the statement that Mr. Bennett was with him in the pilot house when the vessel swamped is an error, but that it is true that some time before, when the steamer was crossing Rosario Strait to Anacortes and a big wave washed into the cabin, Bennett spoke to Bowden, who was then in the cabin, about the insecure fastenings of the doors, and suggested that they ought to be barricaded or nailed up. Bowden says he immediately spoke to Hahn about the flooding of the cabin, and told him at the same time that Vogl had let the cattle loose below. Hahn, he says, did nothing about the matter, and after Bowden went out remarked to some of the passengers that he (Bowden) was 'afraid,' and that it would be 'a heap worse in Bellingham bay.'

Bowden also says that when the steamer was being loaded at Friday Harbor he protested against taking on so much live stock, and that after leaving Anacortes he told Hahn that 'unless he kept her head to the wind he would surely swamp her.'

When the steamer capsized all the crew, says Mr. Bennett, took to the only available boat. All was confusion. No orders were given by the captain, and there was a total absence of discipline among the crew. After one or two of the passengers had got out of the overloaded boat onto the wreck, Bowden says Hahn asked him if he would stay with the wreck until he could go ashore with those in the little boat and return. He answered that he would, and immediately climbed back onto the wreck and waited, meanwhile doing all he could to assist Asher, Bennett and Kautzman, who remained with him.

The little boat, however, though it reached the shore safely in about an hour, did not return. Hahn, says Bowden, left the wreck and four men tossing in the cold waters on frail rafts, and went to Fairhaven, several miles away, and reported to Captain Buckley, of the tug J. R. Boyden, that the Buckeye had capsized, and bargained with him to go out and try to tow in the wreck. Hahn, it is claimed, said nothing to Buckley at first about any persons clinging to the wreck, and that he only learned about it several minutes later from one of the crew, to whom Hahn had mentioned it incidentally.

This is Bowden's story. He speaks in the highest terms of praise of Captain Buckley and the crew of the Boyden, and says that as soon as the tug reached the wreck and picked up the nearly exhausted men clinging to the rafts, Captain Buckley ordered a small boat lowered and sent two men ashore to the point where Hahn and those with him had landed. Their boat was found all right, high and dry upon the shore, but the embers of a camp fire and tracks upon the beach were the only other traces of the seven persons whom it had brought from the wreck. It is claimed that it was clearly Hahn's duty to return to the wreck and save those remaining upon it, and that any one of the five other men who went ashore with him could just as well have carried the news to Fairhaven and had assistance sent from there.

Bowden has had long experience in Puget Sound waters. He built the schooner Perry in 1878, and in 1887 had her lengthened and converted into a steamer. He was master of her for sixteen years until she was sold. He says she is now in Alaska. Referring to the death of Kautzman, Bowden says he was undoubtedly dead when he was washed from the raft not more than five minutes before the Boyden reached the wreck. Asher and Bennett speak highly of Bowden's conduct, and say that he did much to assist them and encourage them to cling on until relief reached them.