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Sable Island 27th March 1854

Dear Sir

I expect a visit from the Daring soon and hope the weather may be more favourable than when she was here on the 5th Feb.y. We have had a very severe winter, but are all well and have no wrecks, excepting the stern and other fragments of a vessel that apparently had been run down at sea, which drifted onshore here on the 11th Instant, and has "Resolution of St Johns NFL.D" on it in yellow letters. From the 3rd to the 23rd of this month we have picked up on all parts of the Island as follows. viz. 13 Whole barrels of flour and a number of broken barrels, 1bbl of pork and some broken pork barrels, some broken Tea chests, a considerable quantity of red oak [illegible] and bbl staves, a Bowsprit, a Pump and parts of two Boats, and the stern &c above mentioned. One of the boats was quite new and was built of oak timbers and White Cedar plank and was Iron fastened, was painted White, and had "15" marked in three places with red chalk. The other boat had been of ^a superior kind and was copper fastened. Both the flour and pork have N York branded on them.

I have kept our men employed at sawing lumber, making shingles, window sashes, doors &c &c, and dressing framing stuff for a house at the foot of the lake and a barn on the South side, but the weather has been so exceedingly boisterous and Shingle wood scarce we have not got a very great deal done. With hard scratching among all the stations we have made 30 lbs shingles.

I moved Solomon Knock and family into the house on the South side of the Island on the 5th Dec.r and gave them a new Milch cow, a young bull and a pig to winter over.

Our live stock are doing well, we let the oxen run out till the 30th January when the weather being very severe I had them brought home and housed. The young Stallion is as wild as any beast on the Island, we could not get hold of him till the 21st Dec.r and he
got