1881
Sad Tidings. — Intelligence was received here the other day that Captain James Webster, of the ship Mary Stenhouse, of and for Liverpool from Calcutta, had died on the 16th January in the Indian Ocean, where his body was consigned to a sailor’s grave, James Webster was a native of Cellardyke. He served his time as a carpenter in Dundee before taking to shipboard, where his success is another illustration of what a sailor’s destiny may be. He was about fifty-five years of age, and has left a wife and family to mourn his loss.
1882
Call Declined.—we understand that the Joseph Low, assistant, Edinburgh, has on consideration declined the call to the Mission Church, Cellardyke.
New Fishing Boats. —The other day the Cellardyke deep sea fleet had a handsome addition built by Mr Miller, St Monans, for Mr James Cunningham. She is named the Mizpah. At Pittenweem, the first of the two boats ordered from the builder in Eyemouth also arrived in the end of the week, She is one of the finest of her class, and is to the order of Mr George Heugh.
1883
Comparatively little has been done this week at the North Sea fishing. For several nights, though the search was sometimes engaged in by a hundred boats, herrings have been so scarce in the Forth to fall far short of the needs of the coast; in fact, up to Thursday morning only eight takes had come under the auction hammer at our quay, the value being from £6 to £43. The demand, however, continues active, as appears from price—cod selling at 2s 6d and ling 4s each, whilst halibut are at least 10s per stone. It invites notice here that haddocks have been seldom so plentiful on the Fife coast, in particular a Cellardyke yawl landed fifty dozen of these sweetest of all sea dainties the other morning, the lines having been cast with skellie to St Ironic, a haddock haunt famous in the fishing annals of Fife for the last three centuries. The seven boats forming the Cellardyke squadron this season to Shetland lsles sailed on Friday, but a slant of wind forced them to take shelter in Peterhead. Resuming the voyage they had again to seek shelter, this time at Fraserburgh, whore they are now waiting for a fair breeze to waft them on their distant cruise.
1884
Sailor’s’ Outfitting House.—Large Stock of Best Oil Clothing (Martin’s, Cellardyke,). All Clothing made to order. Ready-Mades in stock, D Ross, 23 Dock Street. Dundee
DAVID MURRAY OF CELLARDYKE. The Fish Trades Gazette gives a portrait of Mr David Murray, of the well-known firm of Sharp & Murray, Cellardyke, along with notice from which we take the Following
Mr Murray belongs to one of the oldest seafaring families in the East of Fife. Inheriting their enterprise, Mr Murray, in 1852, left the fisher-boat to join the expedition organised his uncle, Capt. Alexander Rodger (subsequently so well known for his ocean clippers), to the gold fields of Australia. The party consisted of sixteen Individuals, and loud and long were the huzzas when they embarked in the steam-packet which was to convey them so far on the journey. Those were the days when everybody believed that the philosopher’s stone had been found at last. Our adventurers went Ballarat with the throng, but their Scottish wit soon enabled them to see-that gold gathered elsewhere with less sacrifice than at the diggings. Turning by a kind of instinct to the seaside, Mr Murray kept his hands busy and his eyes open for a time in the Coastguard service, till lucky chance, as the world says, placed him in the position of captain and part owner of a smart little schooner hailing from Williamsburgh. Here his energy and vigilance soon gained the confidence of the leading merchants that the vessel was almost in constant commission to lighten their ocean packets; but a terrible misfortune gave a new turn his destiny. The schooner was lying at anchor in the river, when a careless steersman caused a collision. The young captain so far averted the peril, but his leg was so fearfully crushed that it had to be taken off below the knee. He was scarcely convalescent, however, when we find him the managing partner of new store in Williamsburgh, which for the first time dispensed the comforts and elegancies of the old home this part of the colony. Not long after, however, the fretting wound induced him, at the urgent solicitation of his friends, to embark for Scotland to consult the doctors as the one hope of recovery. He was thus staying under the old roof-tree in Cellardyke when an unexpected message one night led to an interview with the late venerable Mr Fowler, who announced his intention to retire; and wished the young friend of whose energy he had heard so much succeed him in the business which he had so wonderfully developed in his long and busy life. Uniting himself to partner who in Mr Sharp was eminently fitted, only by his experience as an accountant, to fulfil the position of “Chancellor” the firm, Mr Murray found a sphere from that day fitted above all others to give scope and exercise his talents. His early experience not only enabled him to supply but to anticipate the requirements of the staple industry of the coast, so that the firm was soon lengthening its stakes, as the saying Is, all directions. Fish-curing was also extensively engaged in, and this connection was ere long developed so to become kind of handmaid to the establishment fashioned under his own eye in Australia, where by-and-by their “tins” of herring and other dainties of the Scottish sea made the name the firm familiar as household word in the farthest corner the Bush. Notwithstanding all this, however, their exports continued to embrace every description fishing gear, and, just as one step leads to another, they were induced in 1862 to build a very considerable net-weaving establishment in Cellardyke so as to meet the special orders more and more pressing with every mail. Thus launched as general merchants —fish curers, net and oil-cloth manufacturers—the firm has long maintained a foremost place in the seafaring enterprise of the coast. Mr Murray’s fine open face is, and has long been, familiar in the round of the herring harvest at the busy quays Yarmouth, the stately piers of Aberdeen, the wind-swept sands of Buchan, or the romantic shores of Baltic Ultima Thule, as in the streets of Anstruther and Cellardyke, where the firm have their head-quarters, and enjoy the respect and confidence that so naturally belong to the leading traders and largest employers labour in the district. More than twenty years ago Mr Murray floated a local company to build and equip a North Sea fishing craft with more than one of the salient improvements of which we hear so much to-day. Like others the van of the trade, he is an earnest advocate for the abolition the herring brand, as being from his own experience a reproach the statute book thus far in the nineteenth century.
Stonehaven – Remarkable Escape from Drowning.—A strong south-south-westerly mile was blowing here during the morning of Thursday last, and the sea was running very high, being driven into “clean smoke” by the force of the wind. A number of boats belonging to Cellardyke put in during the day for shelter, some of which were unable to haul their lines after the storm commenced and had to abandon them. The crew of the Endeavourer, KY. 2052 (George Moncrieff, skipper), report the providential escape of one of their number from drowning. While about two miles off Crawton Ness some additional sail was being pat out, when a lad, named Michael Pratt, who was assisting in the work, was struck by the foreyard and knocked overboard. Another the crew, named Peter Muir, observing what had happened, threw a rope to Pratt, and a coil of it happening to go round his neck, he was towed along with the boat through a heavy sea. Pratt also managed to get hold of the rope with his hands, and attempts were made to pull him aboard with a boat-hook, but each time his clothes gave way, and he was in imminent danger of being lost. Ultimately a rope was passed round one of the lad’s legs, and in this way be was hauled on board. Pratt, who was very much exhausted when landed, was taken house in the Old Town, where he was attended by Dr Edmond.