And first the first bright memory, still so clear,

An autumn evening in a golden year,

When in the last lit moments before dark

The Chepica, a steel-gray lovely barque,

Came to an anchor near us on the flood,

Her trucks aloft in sun-glow red as blood.

¿ John Masefield, Ships

By the nature of this place, Bermudians are sometimes a people at sea, some literally, and others metaphorically in the windblown turmoil of daily living.

We shall ever be surrounded by the sea and its influence was felt in the early days of settlement after July 1612 and will remain with us until the end of time. From those early days, we "went down to the seas again", not in ships, but rather in punts and dinghies, for it was not until after the dissolution of the Bermuda Company in 1684 that we were allowed to make our own big boats.

From the need to influence the sea grew two of Bermuda's greatest cultural inventions, the Bermuda Sloop and the Bermuda Rig. The former for a period was possibly the fastest boat afloat and enjoyed considerable fame in the 18th and early 19th century. The Royal Navy wanted the sloops as fast "advice" vessels, HMS Pickle serving in that capacity to take the news of the victorious Battle of Trafalgar from Spanish waters to Britain in October 1805.

The Bermuda Rig, the "fore and aft" system of sails, was probably invented to deal with the contrary winds and geographical circumstances of sea transportation between the east and west ends of the island, according to studies by the late. Most sailboats now carry this rig and its fame will continue for as long as "Sea Fever" draws men and women "to the lonely sea and the sky. And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by".

Drawn to the ocean, many Bermudians have not returned from its tempestuous vastness, as witnessed by the monument to those lost at sea at Great Head, St. David's Island. Some went for economic necessity, others for pleasure and travel and others in military service. The monument records some of those who did not return to Bermuda, for the sea has claimed them for eternity.

Others drawn to a mariner's life have not returned, for their "personal navigation system" led them to distant safe harbours and new lives far overseas, to return home no more. One such mariner was Charles William Dowding Steed, a black Bermudian, born in 1852 in Hamilton Parish, the son of a Benjamin Steed and his first wife, Sarah Ann.

At some time before the age of 26, Charles took ship from Bermuda, for in that year of his maturity, we find him at Leith in Scotland, signing on for a voyage on the Ann of Liverpool, bound for the port of Miramichi in New Brunswick. We know this to be so, for his booklet of "Certificates of Discharge" has survived and was recently copied here, courtesy of his visiting great-granddaughter, Rosemary Steed of Leith.

For the next 17 years, Charles sailed from Liverpool, Leith, Plymouth and Grangemouth. In 1879, he took the Chepica for Callao, which was the most important port in Peru, a journey lasting nine months.

Within several weeks of his return to Britain, Steed signed on for a voyage to the Far East on the Aeolus, being discharged three months later in Singapore at the end of March 1880. Making his way to Burma, he obtained passage on the Nimrod from Rangoon south to Moulmein, from where after several months at sea, he was discharged at Greenock in Scotland in October 1880. After a month, Charles departed Leith for Bombay on the Czar, returning after three months in March 1881.

The next call to the sea was 18 months later, on a ship for Quebec. In the meantime, he married Isabella Cunningham, a young lady of Leith, in December 1881. Over the next 15 years, Charles and Isabella had ten children, the last two being twins. In the same period, Charles made another 11 voyages, several of which lasted up to six months, while the last was almost a year. Perhaps at that stage, Isabella issued home orders and he obtained a job in a local dockyard, where he was killed in an accident in August 1897 in his 46th year.

Of his ships, the Chepica of Liverpool may be that written of by Masefield in his lament of bygone days of sailing ships at that great English port, but Steed's Chepica was wrecked on the "Hooks of Holland" in January 1885, when Masefield was but a young boy. Another Chepica was built soon thereafter, of which a picture survives in Australian archives, and that may be Masefield's vessel. However, it is interesting to think that the Poet Laureate of Britain may have given honourable mention to one of Charles Steed's ships.

One of Charles and Isabella's sons, William Thomas Steed, served in World War One, and William's son, Charles William Steed, served in the 1939-45 conflict, both in the Royal Artillery. There is no sense that Charles ever returned to Bermuda and time blurred that connection, as well as his African-Bermudian origins in later generations.

A full century and a quarter would pass before Charles Steed, in the person of his great-granddaughter, would come home, for Rosemary Steed, the daughter of Charles William, visited Bermuda in 2006 to find her island roots. She, and her cousin Janet who later visited, were accorded a true and generous Bermuda welcoming by their relations here, much as would have been given to Charles had he ever come home from Scotland and the sea as a prodigal son of the islands.

(The author wishes to thank his research assistant, Jens Alers, for information on the Chepica.)

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.