A Grisly Gull Island Christmas
This may be one of the saddest stories I have ever told—a tale made all the more heartbreaking because it is about a group of people, separated from their families at Christmas, who knew they would never live to see them again.
It is the story of the Queen of Swansea, a ship that met its fate just before Christmas in 1867. Throughout Newfoundland’s history, the sea has claimed countless lives, but rarely has its toll been as devastating as this.
Had the crew and passengers simply perished, it would still be a tragic story. But they didn’t just die. Instead, they became castaways on a cold, desolate island, where survival demanded unimaginable choices.
This tale stands as one of the most tragic shipwrecks in Newfoundland’s history—and one of the bleakest Christmases anyone has ever endured.
The Sad Story of The Queen of Swansea
On December 6, 1867, the Queen of Swansea, a 360-ton Welsh brigantine, set sail from St. John’s bound for the mining town of Tilt Cove in Notre Dame Bay. The vessel carried a cargo of timber, mail, and a small group of passengers and crew—fifteen people in total.
Among them was Felix Dowsley, a pharmacist from St. John’s who had been hired by the mining company to provide medical services for the winter. Also on board were William Hoskins and his sister, the adult children of the mine’s manager.
Shortly after departing St. John’s, a fierce gale struck, driving the Queen of Swansea more than 120 miles off course into the open sea. For six grueling days, the ship and its passengers endured relentless battering by the storm, fully expecting to be lost at any moment. Under the determined guidance of Captain John Owens, however, the brigantine managed to reach Notre Dame Bay. By the morning of December 12, the Queen of Swansea was finally approaching its destination.
Tilt Cove was just 12 miles away—but it might as well have been 200. In fact, they would have been better off if it had been. Notre Dame Bay was in the grip of a blinding snowstorm, with visibility reduced to nothing. The crew strained to see through the squall, desperately searching for Cape St. John, but the storm was impenetrable. Worse still, they couldn’t see Gull Island, a rocky outcrop directly in their path.
At 6 a.m., the Queen of Swansea ran aground on the island. The impact was catastrophic, and the ship was quickly wrecked.
Acting fast, the crew threw ropes to the island, allowing the passengers to scramble to safety as the ship began to crumble beneath them. The vessel clung precariously to the rocks, and the crew tried desperately to secure it, hoping to salvage supplies. Four crew members still on the ship managed to retrieve a piece of sailcloth. But before they could recover anything else, the lines securing the boat snapped.
The Telegraph, January 1, 1868
Fifteen minutes after striking the island, the Queen of Swansea was swept away by the storm. The four crewmen aboard were never seen again. Days later, fragments of the ship and its cargo washed ashore near Twillingate.
At first, no one knew the fate of the Queen of Swansea or its passengers. Had they been rescued? Lost at sea? The truth was a grim mystery. Unbeknownst to anyone, 11 survivors were clinging to life on a barren, wind-swept island just a few miles from Cape St. John.
They had nothing—no food, no water, and no proper shelter beyond the salvaged piece of sailcloth. Their situation was dire, and before it was over, it would become far worse.
In Their Own Words
The survivors faced an unimaginable reality: they were tantalizing close to their destination, and even closer to the small community of Shoe Cove, but stranded—castaways on a barren, freezing rock in the North Atlantic. A few miles of open ocean might as well have been 100.
The island was little more than a desolate rock, offering nothing to sustain life. There was no food, and the only water came from falling snow. All they could do was huddle beneath their tattered piece of sailcloth, pray for rescue—and write.
Despite having no food or water, the castaways had one unexpected resource: paper and the means to write on it. Captain Owens, Felix Dowsley, and William Hoskins all made use of it to document their ordeal. When their bodies were eventually discovered, their pockets held letters recounting the horrors of their final days on the island.
With little colour, Captain Owens logged the specifics of the wreck:
“The captain and mate and seven men and two females land on the Gull Island by means of a rope at six o’clock AM, on the 12th December, 1867, just as we stood, neither bread, nor eatables, nor clothes. Boatswain, pilot, and one of the ship’s crew went away with the ship, and a married man, who was one of the passengers.
All these four perished with the ship.
This is written on the island after landing, by me.”
Captain Owens seemed to understand that his notes would have to tell the story of the disaster in his place — that he might not survive to explain it himself. His writings were brief and factual, documenting the events with stark simplicity.
In contrast, Felix Dowsley, the would-be medic for the mine, brought a personal and emotional tone to his writing. Rather than record the sequence of events, he chose to compose a series of heartfelt letters to his wife, Margaret, who was waiting for him in St. John’s.
His first letter, dated December 17, 1867 five days after the wreck— reveals the toll of the island’s harsh elements and his frame of mind.
“Our bed is on the cold rocks, with a piece of canvas, full of mud, to cover us. You may fancy what my sufferings are and have been. You know I was never very strong or robust. My feet are all swollen, and I am getting very weak. I expect that, if Providence does not send a vessel along this way to-day, or to-morrow, at the farthest, some of us will be no more, and I very much fear I shall be the first victim.”
More shocking still, Dowsley confided the grim choices the castaways faced in their fight for survival.
If he were to die first, he warned Margaret:
“You will not have the gratification of getting my body, as they will make use of it for food.”
The castaways were desperate.
They were on a cold, barren rock and had none of the necessities of life. It certainly appeared their will to survive had pushed them to contemplate some gruesome options.
Reportedly, an undated note found in the pocket of William Hoskins, who was travelling with his sister, said:
“We are starving and frozen and must draw lots so that some might keep alive longer should help come.”
A short time later he supplied the addendum:
“We have drawn, the lot fell on my poor sister. I have offered to take her place. The Horror of it all!”
But neither Dowsley, nor any of the others succumbed as quickly. The following day he penned another note to his wife:
“I have been out to see if there might be any chance of a rescue : but no such thing. I am almost mad with the thirst; I would give all I ever saw for one drink of water, but I shall never get it. We are all wet and frozen. I am now going under the canvas to lie down and die.
May God pity and have mercy on my soul!”
Again, Dowsley misjudged his fortitude. He survived long enought to write a thrid letter on Christmas Eve.
The Despair of Christmas Eve
On December 24th, nearly two weeks after the wreck, Dowsley penned his last letter to Margaret. His final text, legend has it, was written in blood.
It is, I think, perhaps the saddest of his notes:
“We are still alive. We had no relief since, and nor we are not likely to have any. We have not tasted a bit of food up to this of any kind with the exception of the dirty snow-water around and under our feet which we are very glad to devour.
O what a desolate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!
I fancy I can see you making the sweet bread and preparing everything comfortable for tomorrow.
Who would ever have supposed this would be my sad ending I did not think we could have lived so long, but now our case is hopeless... I would write more but feel unable.
Your loving, but unhappy husband.”
With that, no more was heard from Felix Dowsley nor any of the other castaways. What happened after that date, must be pieced together from the evidence left behind.
The Story Ends: April 1868
It was April 1868 when Mark Rowsell of Leading Tickles stumbled upon the remains of the Queen of Swansea castaways.
Returning from a sealing voyage, Rowsell found himself near Gull Island. The sea was calm, two of his men took a small boat to try their luck at bird hunting. They fired, wounding a bird mid-flight. The animal struggled upwards, disappearing out of sight on Gull Island. Not wanting to lose their quarry, the men rowed ashore and clambered up the rock face.
It was then they noticed a frayed, weathered rope dangling from the steep cliff. They followed the rope, and on the hilltop they found them — the remains of the castaways.
Most of the bodies were together under the piece of tattered sail — two were some distance away.
All of the bodies were frozen solid. Some, according to reports, showed evidence of flesh having been stripped away.
Shaken, the hunters returned to their vessel to report to Captain Rowsell. When he went ashore to confirm their findings, he knew there could be no doubt — these were the missing passengers of the Queen of Swansea. Leaving the scene undisturbed, Captain Rowsell set out for Tilt Cove —carrying with him the weight of what he’d seen and the horrible truth it suggested.
Rowsell returned with a crew from Tilt Cove. With them they brought crowbars and rough coffins. As carefully as possible they tried to separate the frozen bodies. Their remains were brought to Tilt Cove. It was there, the letters were recovered from the corpses.
It’s impossible to know how much beyond Christmas Eve Dowsley, or any of the other castaways survived, or the true circumstances of their deaths.
We can only be sure that one-by-one they died, in a manner that resulted in their bodies being divided into two distinct groups — one covered by the sailcloth, and one not.
It must have been horrific.
Cannibalism, Truth and Tact
Thanks to the writings of Captain Owens and Felix Dowsley, the story of the Queen of Swansea disaster has been well preserved. Their firsthand accounts provide a vivid, albeit harrowing, glimpse into the events that unfolded on Gull Island.
However, the notes written by William Hoskins—purported to include references to the drawing of lots—were reportedly lost not long after their discovery. The surviving references to Hoskins’ notes, at least as I interpret them, suggest that the group may have been considering the unthinkable: sacrificing one or more of their number to survive.
Dowsley, in his own writings, makes no mention of this possibility. However, in one of his letters to his wife, he does leave behind a hauntingly cryptic statement:
“I don’t know how I have written what I have, but this I can say, the facts are worse than what I have named. ”
Dowsley’s letter is far from an outright ‘admission’ of anything, but it does suggest there were darker, unspoken events on the island beyond the already grim realities he described — cold, starvation, and the possibility that his own corpse might be consumed.
Even so, I think the claims attributed to William Hoskins’ lost note must be viewed with a degree of skepticism. Mostly because we don’t have a good account of what was said, it wasn’t mentioned alongside the writings of Dowsley and Owens in most early reports, and it brings an additional drama that would have been very tempting to storytellers.
Many local accounts of the Gull Island tragedy make no direct mention of cannibalism. One standout, and I think relatively reliable source, is Rev. M. Harvey.
In a piece for the Maritime Monthly he wrote:
“This much is certain, that the fierce cravings of hunger at length drove some of the unhappy sufferers to that extremity from which nature revolts most strongly. Two skeleton forms, lying apart from the other dead bodies when discovered, and almost denuded of flesh, told a sad tale.”
The international press was far less restrained. Reports circulated widely, with some alleging that the bodies recovered from Gull Island had stab wounds. An article in the English newspaper The Intelligencer, for instance, was particularly blunt.
What is the truth? Well at this point, the story of Gull Island may forever be clouded by the folklore that has developed around it.
Fires and Folklore
Speaking of folklore, there are other aspects of the Queen of Swansea story that remain questionable. Often when people tell the tale, they say the people of Shoe Cove saw lights and fire on Gull Island that December. However, because the island was uninhabited and unused during the winter months, no one thought to investigate.
Some have even suggested that the villagers were reluctant to venture out due to a superstitious belief in Jack the Lantern—mysterious lights thought to be malevolent spirits or omens of danger.
While this detail adds an additional element of tragedy to the story, it is likely untrue. Both Captain Owens and Felix Dowsley wrote that they had no fire on Gull Island, casting significant doubt on the idea that any light or flame was ever seen coming from the island.
Legacy
The story of the Queen of Swansea has remained in Newfoundland’s memory for nearly 160 years, a powerful reminder of the harshness of the North Atlantic. While some details have been blurred by time, one fact is clear: the men and women stranded on Gull Island endured one of Newfoundland’s most tragic events.
Separated from their families at Christmas, they faced starvation, freezing temperatures, and despair, knowing rescue would not come. Their final letters, filled with sorrow and farewell messages, reveal their courage and heartbreak during those desperate days.
The Queen of Swansea disaster is more than a tale of shipwreck; it is a story of loss, despair, and the cruel irony. The castaways died so close to safety—a relatively short walk to settlements but for an open ocean—but there was nothing they could do.
It remains one of Newfoundland’s saddest tragedies and, I’m sure, one of the bleakest Christmases ever recorded.
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One of Newfoundland’s Most Tragic Sea Stories, Family Fireside, January 1938
The Castaways of Gull Island, Sea Stories from Newfoundland, 1958
The Sorrow of the Sea, Colonist Xmas Number, 1887
The Queen of Swansea Tragedy, Book of Newfoundland, vol. 2.
Dreadful Sufferings of a Ship’s Crew, The Intelligencer, July 3, 1868
Shipwreck, The Daily News, Dec 31, 1867
Perished on Gull Island, Evening Herald, May 1, 1914
A Trip to Newfoundland, Harbor Grace Standard, September 4, 1886
The Castaways of Gull Island, Rev. M. Marvey, Maritime, Monthly, vol. 1. 1873
Newfoundland, the Oldest British Colony, J. Hatton, 1883
Around and About, Paul O’Neill, The Monitor, 1977
Strange Tales of Mystery, Joan Horwood, Daily News, March 27, 1982
