The Edwin Fox by Boyd Cothran

Author:Boyd Cothran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Single women were in the lower part of the saloon, which put them as far as possible from the sailors’ quarters beneath the forecastle.29 They also enjoyed a direct entrance from the poop deck. After the Edwin Fox’s previous settler expedition in 1873, the immigration commissioners in Wellington had noted that the arrangement was “of very great advantage in preserving order and discipline during the voyage.”30

On Thursday, August 8, 1878, Captain John Phease—who had taken command in November 1876—gave the order to weigh anchor as the crew broke out into the capstan song and the other sea shanties that helped them find the rhythm for their work.31 The Edwin Fox began under tow, and the steam tug did not cast off until they had passed the lighthouse marking the treacherous and much-feared Eddystone rocks, twelve miles off Plymouth Sound. Despite the calm waters, several of the passengers quickly felt seasick. A few others fainted, and Dr. Scott treated them with ether and sal volatile, a kind of smelling salts made by mixing ammonium carbonate in alcohol.

The pleasant weather drew some of the women on deck to do needlework, and Mary McMonagle “ran a crochet needle into her finger.” The carpenters were called to stop a leak on the port side of the single women’s quarters, and Dr. Scott and Chief Officer Stephen Black found themselves mopping up after some single women had “emptied slops into the wash-basin stand in the W.C. and even over its deck.”32 The journey had begun. New Zealand was 100 days away.

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