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Wreck of the Brig 'Earl of Dalhousie'
Date posted: August 23rd, 2008
Authored by Cecil J. McPhee
In the late 1950s my great aunt, Mrs Thomas Young nee Catherine McPhee (1888-1973) of Avoca, Quebec, told me the most amazing story. I was taking advantage of her visit to my family in Dauphin, Manitoba, to quiz her about our early McPhee ancestors. She didn't seem to know much about them, except that "they came from Fort William." In fact, whenever I asked her a question about the McPhees, she ended up talking about her great grandparents, the Murrays. "Oh," she said, very matter-of-factly, as if to belie the obvious drama of the event, "they were shipwrecked off the coast of Anticosti when they came out to Canada." I was astounded. Did she know the name of the ship? No. When did they come out? She really didn't know. She went on to say, however, that "they lost everything", except the "mugs" that had been given to their two little daughters as souvenirs just before they left Scotland. What happened to the mugs? That, she didn't know, either. Since I couldn't think of any other probing questions, young and inexperienced as I was, we went on to talk of other things.
Read the complete story here.
