Obediah Gilbert Joyce (abt. 1853 - 1935)

Born about 18 Oct 1853 in Freshwater, Carbonear, Newfoundland

Ancestors

Husband of Mary Hannah (Giles) Joyce — married 17 Jul 1883 in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada

Husband of Annie Major (Giles) Joyce — married 15 Jul 1890 in Annie Giles' father's home, St. John's, Newfoundland, Wesleyan Methodist, Cochrane Street

Descendants

Died 24 Nov 1935 at about age 82 in St. John's, Newfoundland

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Patricia McKee [send private message]

Biography

Obediah Joyce ^[1]

• Baptized 15 February 1853, Freshwater, Carbonear, Newfoundland
• Married 18 July 1890, St. John's, Newfoundland
• Died 24 November 1955, St. John's Newfoundland, cause: Bladder Cancer, 44 Lemarchant Rd, St. John's, NL^[2]

Survived a shipwreck at Anticosti Island as a young man in 1874 ^[3]

Master of the Barquantine "Clutha" sailing out of St. John's for many years

Given a gold watch by the Canadian Government for his rescue of the crew of a Canadian vessel in the 80's, when he was master of the Brigantine UKestrel.^[4]

On November 22, 1874 the brigantine ORIENT, owned by the Joyce Brothers of Carbonear, one of their three sealing ships was wrecked at Anticosti Island.

A simple marker in a field not far from the beach on the south side of the island of Anticosti in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River (Quebec) reads:

In memory of Captain John Edgar Joyce of Carbonear, Newfoundland aged 27 years and crew of Brigantine Orient lost 22nd November 1874 who are buried as follows:

Joseph Taylor (25 years) Stewart Taylor (17) Thomas Fitzpatrick (13?) William Clark (21) Charles Henry (36) Ambrose Forward (20) Richard Taylor (19)

The Captain’s brother, Gilbert JOYCE, who was mate on the ship and seaman Charles MOORES of English Hill, Carbonear, were the only survivors.

Anticostiis almost 8,000 sq. km of pristine wilderness: 222 km long and 50 km wide in some spots. Its name derives from the French’s literal assertion that it was impossible to land a boat on its coastline, because of a treacherous limestone reef that extends up to a kilometre into the St. Lawrence all around the island. More than 400 ships found this out the hard way, the last one foundering onto the reef in a storm in 1982.^[5]

The rough narrow dirt road that runs through an endless tunnel of green and then along a rugged shoreline finally opens out onto a windswept prairie, forlorn and long forgotten. The wind rustles and hundreds of gulls circle above. Time has stopped. Looming ahead and dominating the horizon is the unmistakable silhouette of a lighthouse, crumbling stone by stone back down to the earth. It’s an unsettling place, so remote and quiet. Inside a small untended cemetery, fenced off by rusted metal, a marble headstone marks the graves of eight sailors, the youngest, aged seventeen, the captain, John Edgar Joyce, aged twenty-seven.

On November 22, 1874, the brigantine Orient, out of Carbonear, Newfoundland, slammed into the reefs off Anticosti Island, with sixteen men on board. Six perished in attempting to reach shore, their bodies lost to the sea. The captain and seven others were frozen to death in the rigging. The captain’s brother, Gilbert Joyce, who was mate on the ship, and seaman Charles Moore, managed to survive, though badly frozen.

Joyce and Moore were succored by Edward Pope Jr. and his family, who were stationed at Pointe du Sud-Ouest Lighthouse. The pair was stranded at the lighthouse, tending to their wounds and burying their dead, until the following spring.

These were not the first shipwreck victims to be kept under the watchful care of the Pope family. Nor would they be the last. The little graveyard holds other remains whose names have been lost to history.^[6]

Sources

http://ngb.chebucto.org/Newspaper-Obits/guardian-1913.shtml

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NFLD-ROOTS/2004-06/1087932908

http://ngb.chebucto.org/PhpDB/display.php?action=community&district=St.+John%27s+West&community=Ward+5&page=119

Footnotes

1. ↑ Entered by Patricia Ruth McKee, Wednesday, August 21, 2013.
2. ↑ "Canada, Newfoundland Vital Records, 1840-1949", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKQF-ZH6V : 2 March 2021), Obadiah Gilbert Joyce, 1935.
3. ↑ http://www.angelfire.com/oz/bemister/1/BemisterBook.html
4. ↑ http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/guardian/AG_V06N11.pdf
5. ↑ http://archivalmoments.ca/tag/gilbert-joyce/
6. ↑ http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=1612

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Patricia Ruth McKee for creating Joyce-676 on 21 Aug 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by Patricia Ruth and others.