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Ye daring sons of Newfoundland,
Come listen unto me,
And l will sing of dangers
That are met with at sea;
I'll tell you of The Tolsby
That came to grief one day,
At a place called Little Seal's Cove
Up in Trepassey Bay.
She left Galveston, Texas,
In December, safe and sound,
With a heavy load of cotton
To a port in France was bound;
Her voyage being uneventful
Till her course she tried to trade,
All in a blinding snowstorm
While making for Cape Race.
It was on Monday afternoon
The storm it did appear,
On the thirteenth day of January,
To you I'll make it clear;
When suddenly she struck a rock,
Which ships had struck before,
Some distance from Freshwater Point,
Near Little Seal's Cove shore.
With twenty-seven souls on board,
Which did compose her crew,
They lowered the boats when Captain Payne
Gave orders for to do;
Like matchwood they were smashed in twain
By heavy seas and knocks,
While those frail craft and crew
Were striking on the rocks.
They jumped into the seething froth
And swam towards the beach,
With thanks unto kind providence,
They all did safely reach;
With the wreckage from the ship
They left amidst the storm,
A fire upon the rocky beach
That night to keep them warm.
They won't forget that awful night,
When they had reached the shore,
With the frowning cliffs all 'round them
And the ocean's maddened roar;
With the frozen sleet beneath their feet
And freezing, blinding spray,
Shipwrecked near Little Seal's Cove
Up in Trepassey Bay.
Don't talk to me of other lands
Where courage has been shown,
Have we not got the men to do
Such brave deeds in our own?
Where would you find such braver men
Than those upon that day,
Who saved The Tolsby's shipwrecked crew
Up in Trepassey Bay?
At ten o'clock next morning
Some fishermen from The Drook
'Twas on that awful precipice
They chanced to cast a look;
They saw The Tolsby's shipwrecked crew
Five hundred feet below,
And brave Joe Perry volunteered
That he would to them go.
This gallant, valiant fisherman
Such danger would have faced,
As they low'r'd him o'er the hillside
With a rope tied 'round his waist;
Around the waist of twenty-two
The hempen rope he tied,
And one by one they were pulled
Up that rugged steep hillside.
Collected in 1951 from Mrs. John Molloy of St. Shott's, NL, and published in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
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A variant was also collected in 1951 from John Bulger of Trepassey, NL, and published as The Wreck Of The Tolesby in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
According to Newfoundland Estate Files, Rose Perry, the wife of Joseph Perry of The Drook, a tiny settlement in Trepassey Bay, predeceased him intestate on August 26, 1891. He later filed a petition to be his wife's executor in order to recover $400.00 in her bank account in St. John's. Today, The Drook is part of Portugal Cove South.
