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Reflections: Perth County connections to the Titanic's sinking

The president of the Grand Trunk Railway was among the victims of the infamous disaster

This postcard showing the “ill-fated S.S. Titanic” was donated to the Stratford-Perth Archives along with a set of family papers last year. Its careful preservation prompted curiosity about local reactions to that tragedy when it occurred in April 1912.

Beginning with search results from the archives’ newspaper database, one can see the Nov. 4, 1910, edition of the Atwood Bee included a brief international news report that the White Star trans-Atlantic ship, the Olympic, “the largest vessel in the world” had been launched. Among other details about that event, it was noted that her sister ship, the Titanic, was under construction.

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Much more attention was given to the Titanic’s launch followed by its shocking sinking about a year and a half later. The Monkton Times of April 19, 1912, described how “From the dawn of history, since men sailed the unplumbed . . . seas to the present time the records of sea disasters contain no parallel to the foundering of the Titanic bound from South Hampton to New York, the largest ship that ever sailed from port went down on Sunday morning in the treacherous Newfoundland Banks region after coming in contact with an iceberg. . . . The Titanic of the White Star Line was the last word in boat building and was making her maiden trip across the Atlantic.”

Details of what happened was front-page news around the world, including newspapers across Perth County, for several issues. Initially, there were reports that all passengers were safe and then reports that almost all had died, and finally, details about who had been rescued appeared. The fate of Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Railway, was of great concern in Stratford because of his connection to one of the city’s largest employers, the GTR’s locomotive repair shops. The Stratford Daily Herald reported on April 18 that “all hope” of him having been saved had been abandoned, though his widow was safely on board the rescue ship Carpathia.

Many here were also concerned about what may have happened to George E. Graham. Born in Blanshard Township (now part of Perth South) in 1873, he climbed the corporate ladder at the T. Eaton & Co department store empire. His wife, Edith Graham, apparently received telegrams initially suggesting he was alive. She then learned his body had been recovered. The April 22, 1912, edition of the Stratford Daily Herald described how many Eaton employees along with Graham’s father and most of his siblings, attended his funeral in Toronto. There was a simultaneous service in St. Marys. Graham was originally buried in Harriston, his wife’s hometown, but was moved to St. Marys cemetery in 1933. The centennial of the Titanic sinking and Graham’s death were marked in April 2012 with an exhibit at the St. Marys Museum entitled Not Among the Survivors: George Graham and the Titanic Disaster.

A perhaps less-known local connection to the Titanic tragedy is a passenger who was a direct descendent of Sebastian Fryfogel, builder of the historic Fryfogel Tavern. The Stratford Daily Herald of April 18, 1912, had a small report that described how “great anxiety was felt in Shakespeare until the list of the passengers saved from the wreck of the Titanic was published, as it was feared that Mr. John Irwin Flynn, an old resident of Shakespeare, had gone down, but in Wednesday’s list it showed him to be among the lucky persons. Mr. Flynn is the eldest son of Mrs. John Bauer and nephew of Mrs. Richard Freeman, both of Shakespeare.” Passenger John Irwin Flynn’s mother — identified as Mrs. John Bauer in the report — was first married to James Flynn, who died at a very young age in 1877 when his son was a toddler. James Flynn’s mother was Mary Fryfogel, daughter of Sebastian and Maria Fryfogel. Mary Fryfogel married Dr. John Irwin Flynn. Among their other children besides James was a daughter Mary, who later married Richard Freeman, the person identified as Irwin’s aunt in the 1912 newspaper report.

John Irwin Flynn was born in 1875. He was working as a buyer for Gimbel Brothers department store in New York and travelling for business when the great ship sank. According to the website, Encyclopedia Titanica, Flynn was a first-class passenger who survived on a lifeboat along with 33 women, four children and two men. Flynn described his Titanic experience for a 1935 article in the Pittsburgh Press. He said that he “was in a cabin with a department store buyer from Pennsylvania. The accident happened at midnight. We were awakened but there was no crash. Sounded like logs rolling down the side of the ship. . . . It took nerve to go out in those little boats . . . at a time when no one thought the Titanic would sink. We didn’t want to go down in those shells, over the side of the boat in the middle of the night. We just happened to be at a certain spot on deck at a certain time, and so were forced into the boats.”

Irwin returned to his career as a buyer for department stores and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1923. He died there in 1951 and is buried in Ashville, N.Y.

The Stratford-Perth Archives welcomes donations to the collection and is open for drop-in research from Tuesday to Friday, as well as other times, including Saturdays, by appointment. You can search the Stratford-Perth Archives newspaper database in our Reading Room or online at vitacollections.ca/s-pacollections/search. For details about what else is available during Reading Room drop-in hours and appointments for in-depth research, please visit www.perthcounty.ca/StratfordPerthArchives, call us at 519-271-0531 ext. 259 or email archives@perthcounty.ca. 

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