DEATH is the great leveller and it is possible that bones become Bermudian once they are buried; perhaps some authority can give us an opinion. In the meantime, there are a lot of foreign bones in Bermuda, human and otherwise.

My dear friends from England, Rohan and Margaret Sturdy, saviours of the Commissioner's House, are interred at St. James' Church in Somerset. Discovered recently at that place of worship was the "Strangers' Crypt", reserved for those persons who passed Immigration and Customs unable to fill out the forms, being in the hands of their Maker.

Having died at sea, if the religion of such strangers was not known they were not allowed to be buried in the consecrated churchyard, hence the reserved crypt for "religious expats" ? in modern jargon.

The bones of present interest are metaphorical, being the remains of an American schooner, Priscilla, still visible through the murky waters of Mullet Bay in St. George's Parish. Whether the last owners, Messrs. Manson and Neun of Rochester, New York abandoned claim to her is not known, but it is unlikely that any would dispute that Priscilla's bones are a part of Bermuda's underwater cultural heritage.

Next year is the 100th anniversary of the world's premier ocean race, now called the Newport-Bermuda Race. Priscilla, the schooner, first came to the island in the second race in 1907. The Royal Gazette reported that on June 5, 1907, 13 yachts were making sail for the 10 a.m. start of the Race from the Brooklyn Yacht Club, competing for the Maier Cup, given by Frank of that name, Commodore of the New Rochelle Yacht Club. At 80 feet, Priscilla was one of the largest boats in the Race and sailed under the flag of the Rochester Yacht Club.

In this way Priscilla came to be in Bermuda, where a few weeks later it was decided to make a run to the Turks and Caicos for a cargo of salt. She had been purchased the previous year from the Gorton-Pew Fisheries Company of Gloucester, Massachusetts by Henry P. Neun of Rochester, having been built of wood at the former town in 1891, with a burden of 53 tons, a beam of 22 feet and drawing eight feet.

Mary Ellen Parry, the daughter of Henry Neun, gave details of the Priscilla to Paul Leseur some years ago. An account of the voyage to the Turks and Caicos in July 1907 was published later that year and John Leseur has given a surviving copy of the booklet to the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Details on the trip are taken from the booklet and in late June 1907 a cargo of lumber was boarded, whether of Bermuda cedar was not declared.

Nothing changes it seems in bureaucracy and the shipping of the crew was carried on with all the gravity and red tape that may have attended the shipping of six hundred men to a fifteen-thousand-ton frigate of forty guns.

ASIDE from Master H. Kruger, the complement was recruited locally, with names many will recognise. The mate was J.C. Crisson; Seamen were R. Linley, A. Harriott and Charles Leseur. The cook was P. Anderson and the cabin boy, J. Tucker.

The navigating officer was Captain John Frederick Leseur (in whose honour John and Betsy Leseur and Paul and Penne Leseur donated a room in the Commissioner's House). There were four others, F. Selley, W. Spencer. O. Petty and W. Wilson, to each of whom a post of importance was assigned, though not described. An old yellow cat appeared as a stowaway on deck as the Priscilla made for the Narrows and the open sea on July 2, 1907.

The southern run to Grand Turk took ten days, the return to Bermuda only eight. Five days were spent in the islands, with salt being loaded at Cockburn Town in East Caicos. The salt is filled into half-bushel bags and then carried by the boatmen, five to six bags at a load, upon their heads, to the lighters. Instances of these powerful men carrying as many as seven bags, a weight of over 300 lbs., are of common occurrence.

ON board, the bags were emptied into the hold where trimmers with shovels levelled the salt for the voyage. In the Turks and Caicos, salt was made by evaporation of seawater in some 700 acres of salinas or salt ponds. Until nationalisation in the early 1950s, the Harriott Family of Bermuda and the Turks Islands made the last salt there on Salt Cay.

The Priscilla arrived back in Bermuda on July 24, 1907 and may have never gone to sea again. The boat sprang a leak at anchor in 1911, which proved fatal and sank near Banjo Island at Mullet Bay. Teredo worms, the flightless termites of the sea, did the rest. As with human remains, only the bones, the strongest part of the body, survived in the form of the keel and ribs.

In the 1950s, Clyde Leseur, grandson of Captain John Frederick, son of Charles and father of John and Paul, bought a war surplus air-sea rescue boat from the US Navy for use as a cruise ship in Bermuda. An awning and seating for tourists replaced the gun turret, the twin high-octane 1400 hp engines by conventional diesel motors, and the boat was renamed Priscilla in honour of the Leseurs of the schooner crew.

The new Priscilla began daily tours to St. George's and ushered in a famous era of local cruise ships in the tourism trade. It continues to this day with operators such as Donald and Derek Morris' Bermuda Island Cruises, although Clyde Leseur's Priscilla is itself as much a part of the bones of the past as its namesake in the muds of Mullet Bay.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion and not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone at 734-1298.