On September 12-14, 1900 one of the Provincetown's three-masters, the Cora S. McKay, was lost on the fishing banks around the Virgin Rocks, which are one hundred miles southeast of St. Johns, Newfoundland and twelve hundred miles slightly north of east from Cape Cod. Thirty crewmembers disapppeared with the schooner and they left 16 widows and 54 fatherless children here - and more elsewhere. The three-day storm was called the Galveston Gale after the destruction that it had caused in that port city of Texas several days before. (Between 6000 and 8000 people died there.) It swept diagonally across North America and exited through the Canadian Maritime Provinces.
I am one of the widows, Mary Matheson, later Bowley, the captain's wife.
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Greetings,
I quite unexpectedly happened upon your site while searching for some information on the boat, Cora S. McKay. My grandfather,
Angus McKay, named this boat of his after my mother.
I greatly appreciate being able to access this data.
--Stuart Adams
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