"The Wreck of the Premier"

The Wreck of the Premier

Upon the wide dull water-stretch 

The deep fog sank and lay, 

The firs along the rugged shore, 

Climbed out like spectres gray, 

And the hoarse voice of the Premier called, 

Pleading, across the bay. 

Each heart upon the fated ship 

Leaped into that wild cry, 

And tears of mingled hope and fear 

Trembled in every eye, 

And lips that would not pray, yet prayed 

In a deep, unconscious sigh. 

Oh, but the voice in that swart throat 

Plead passionate and strong! 

And the bell-buoy farther out to sea 

Tolled mournfully and long! … 

One poor mute mother by her dead 

Knelt in that white-faced throng. 

Only the dead upon the decks 

Heard not that passioned call, 

They that had suddenly grown wise, 

Indifferent to all― 

Complaining not tho' the chill fog 

Spread o'er them her gray pall. 

At last came level-browed Despair 

And sate our hearts among. 

Then there were some, bereft of hope, 

That wept, or prayed, or sung; 

And still across the sullen sea 

That supplication rung. 

But of a sudden thro' the dark 

Came the strong, thrilling cry 

Of a pilot steering straight for us 

And signaling―“Ay, ay!” 

As if he bade us―“Be of cheer 

And not afraid―’tis I!” 

Oh, bent was every knee that hour 

And bowed was every head; 

The mother stirred, and her pale lips 

Prayed now above her dead; 

And then she wept―as if the prayer 

Her grief had softenéd. 

Thou shipwreck’d soul upon Life’s sea― 

Call to thy pilot so! 

Call long and loud, and call again, 

And if thou doubtest, lo! 

Call once again . . . and still once more . . . 

He’ll answer thee . . . I know. 

"The Wreck of the Premier" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).

“The Wreck of the Premier” recounts the October 8, 1892 collision of the collier ship the Willamette and the passenger steamer the Premier on Puget Sound that resulted in six deaths and many more injuries. The Willamette was carrying 2,400 tons of coal at the time, and the Premier roughly 70 passengers. Ella Higginson, who escaped unharmed, was on the Premier heading south to Seattle when the vessel reportedly entered a thick fog near Port Townsend. Shortly after the Premier departed from Port Townsend, where it docked briefly for passenger boarding, they were struck on their portside by the bow of the Willamette across from Bush Point. The Willamette impaled the Premier’s pilot house, dining room, smoking room, saloon, and the sleeping quarters of the crew.

Captain C. K. Hansen of the Willamette realized after the collision that if he were to put his vessel in reverse and pry them apart, the Premier would immediately flood due to its gouged portside and sink in the middle of the channel. The passengers were then instructed to gather the dead and wounded as best they could and transport them from the nearly-destroyed Premier to the Willamette. Captain Hansen then plowed across the channel, driving the Premier through the water, and beached her on Bush Point. A tugboat called the Goliah, hauling a vessel north, passed by a little while later and was flagged down by the Willamette. The Goliah abandoned its task and instead loaded the passengers and raced to Seattle, where the wounded were admitted to Providence Hospital. 

In a letter to The Dalles Daily Chronicle of Oregon, Higginson recounts her experience:

The best description of the disaster which we have seen was written by Ella Higginson. She says that all her life she has had a desire to be in an accident, preferably a water accident, because the waves always curl up so soft and caressing that it seemed to me it would be a good place to lie down beneath them and rest. "Well, I have had my desire, and I am bound to confess that when I stood on the guard of the Premier with the whole side of a bedstead in one hand, a pillow, yes a feather pillow, in the other, my cloak under my arm, and a life-preserver around my waist, and realized that in a moment I might be struggling with those same waves for my life, there was nothing soft or caressing in their appearance." I was flung on the floor several feet from my chair, and men, women and pieces of furniture were swept violently past me. I heard groans and moans of anguish, and low murmers of prayer, but not one scream. Not for an instance did I lose my presence of mind."

However, in attempting to find a life-preserver for herself, she was met with unexpected difficulty, particularly from the other male passengers:

I ran to four different staterooms to get a life-preserver, but every door was locked. Then I ran out on the rear guard, and I found men climbing down from the upper deck, and up from the lower. They all swarmed around me, and all shouted at once, 'Now madam, keep cool! Don't get excited!' In two seconds I realized that the flutter of a petticoat had the effect on every men of jerking his mouth open and forcing out the words: 'Keep cool! Don't get excited!' Exasperated, I exclaimed: 'I am cool! But in the meantime, we may as well be thinking of life-preservers. We needn't be too cool for that!' 'Life preservers!' wildly ejaculated a man. 'Why, madam, we are on Puget sound! A boat can't sink on Puget sound!'
Even in that awful moment I was struck with the grim humor of his reply. What an advertisement for Puget sound! Then a lady with a solemnity that puts me into convulsions of mirth now whenever I think of it: 'Young man, don't you tell us that if it ain't so!'

Frustrated with the gendered chaos on board, she mounts her soap box and calls for reform:

I want to lift up my voice for better laws concerning life-preservers. I want them out in plain sight, easy of access―I don't want them under berths in staterooms with the doors locked, I want them labeled. They may not be pretty ornaments for finely furnished cabins, but let me tell you, Mr. Law-Makers, that after you have been in a shipwreck, they will be beautiful in your own eyes under any and every circumstance. Another thing, make a law that the name of each passenger shall be taken. The man who jumped overboard is unknown, and may always be. We don't want to vote, but take our advice sometimes on a new law.

Quotes from "The Premier Collision: A Visit From One of The Survivors---Ella Higginson's Account---Some Suggestions." The Dalles Daily Chronicle. 25 Oct. 1892. 

In her poem "The Wreck of the Premier," Higginson only references one specific causality, that of thirteen year-old Frank C. Wynkoop of Tacoma, WA who was traveling with his family. Two places in the poem a mother is referenced, once in the first stanza with, “One poor mute mother by her dead,” and again in the seventh stanza with, “The mother stirred, and her pale lips/Prayed now above her dead.” The mother here is Mrs. D. J. Wynkoop, young Frank Wynkoop’s mother, who Ella Higginson later recalls having spoken to earlier in the voyage ("The Premier Collision" The Dalles Daily Chronicle. 25 Oct. 1892). Frank Wynkoop’s head was “smashed almost to a pulp” and “Mrs. Ella Higginson, the poetess, of New Whatcom, assisted in laying out the body of the boy” ("Disaster in Dense Fog" The Seattle Post Intelligencer. 9 Oct. 1892).