The case of William Drummond is a curious one.

On the morning of June 12th 1882 a punt with sail was observed adrift off of Little Bay Islands. Two boys set out to investigate. They found no one onboard but the boat appeared to have recently held two people. The boat contained a jar of spirits, a box of tobacco, and biscuits. From the boat they noticed one of the ship’s oars floating in the water. Attached to the oar was the stiffened body of one William Drummond. No other body was found and no one was reported missing. The fact that Mr. Drummond had been a shipowner added suspicion to his unusual demise. This puzzling case confounded the locals and can be found reported in the Evening Telegram, the Harbour Grace Standard, and the Mercury.

Mr. Drummond is absent from the 1882 voter’s list and I have found no other record of the man in Little Bay outside of the newspaper articles mentioned. However, they contain quite a few details about him. He was engineer of the mining company at Little Bay when he died. He was a widower and he was Scottish. He was an heir set to inherent property in Scotland. He’d been born in Dundee although his more recent home had been Boston, Massachusetts. He owned property there with three houses found in South Boston. His children were also in Boston – two sons and one or two daughters.

I should note that there is an article in the Twillingate Sun from March 20th 1886 in which the author is concerned about the impact of overfishing on cod stocks. They compare the issue with the impact overhunting by American sportsmen had had on the caribou population. When listing men who’d hunted the deerline but considered exceptions to said practice one of those mentioned is a Captain Drummond. This may be a different person but the American connection is interesting and Captain was one of the ranks found in the mine. If this was William it may be that he was considered a responsible hunter.  I should also note that there is a 1878 Supreme Court listing “Ambrose Shea v. William Pettipas: examination of William Drummond” found at The Rooms. I have lot of material to see there on my next trip to town so I’ll add it to the list.

Thanks for reading!