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MG 1 VOL 2124 number 212

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
CHRONICLE BUILDING

HALIFAX, N.S.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Thomas Ormiston.
Master of Tug-Boat Weatherspoon

Tall, good looking, well dressed, blue eyes, wide open and steady, ungrammatical.

On the morning of December 6th had a telephone message from Hendry Limited, his employers, to get schooner from pier 6, near which was a fire. Was on his way and abreast of the High-flyer, when the explosion occurred. Ormiston was thrown down, cut on the head and dazed; recovered himself and got the boat under control.
The steam-joints of the Weatherspoon there started; he took wounded men off the Douglas Thomas, five or six of them, and put the first lot on shore at Pickford and Slack's. The 'second bunch" of the Midland Castle, seven or eight, and put them on board a three-masted schooner. It was on this trip, that he took on Captain Harrison at Furnace Withys Wharf, where the men were landed. Nothing could be done for them on the tow-boat, and Ormiston thought that the men on the schooner might be able to help them.

Note: It is said that the anchor chain of the schooner which was destroyed at pier 6 was formed coiled round and round a box-car.

The Weatherspoon with Captain Harrison on board went over to the Imo to see if there were any persons on board, and then proceeded to the Picton. The Picton was lying at the Sugar Refinery wharf with her bow to the south, with an achor [sic] down.