281

WILLIAM GAY YORKE AND WILLIAM H. YORKE

New York/Canada/England, 1817-c. 1888 and 1847-1921

The capture of the Emily St. Pierre by Federal sloop James Adger.

Signed, dated and inscribed lower right "Wm York Lpool July 1862".

Provenance:
Matthew Montgomery, steward of the
Emily St. Pierre, and thence by descent.
N.R. Omell Gallery, London.
Purchased from the above by the Kelton Foundation, November 1998
.
Literature:
See Warships and Naval Battles of the Civil War
by Tony Gibbons (Smithmark Publishing, 1989) for a reference on the James Adger.
An illustration of this painting is in Mersey Built, The Role of Merseyside in the American Civil War
by Robert Thorpe (Vernon Press, 2017), p.186, plate 7.
The Emily St. Pierre was a blockade runner, built in Bath, Maine by William Rogers & Son in 1854, owned by the Trenholm Company, and was under the command of Capt. William Wilson, a Scotsman. After sailing from Calcutta, the ship was nearing the bar at Charleston on March 18, 1862, when the U.S.S.
James Adger stopped her on the grounds that her British registration was illegal, and the Emily St. Pierre was taken into custody. The Confederate seamen were removed from the ship, with the exception of Louis Schelvin, the cook, Matthew Montgomery, the steward, and Captain Wilson, who was ordered to take his ship to Philadelphia. Wilson hatched a plan to recapture his ship, and he drew the cook and the steward into his confidence. While Lieutenant Josiah Stone, who was the acting master, was on watch, they bound and gagged the mate while he was asleep, and in another room the engineer was treated in the same manner. Wilson then requested Lieutenant Stone come to his cabin and check a chart, saying he was unsure his charts were correct. On the way, Wilson threatened Stone with an iron bar and tied him up so he could not raise the alarm. Wilson, now having taken the lieutenant's gun, ushered three men and the helmsman into a hatch and locked them in. Wilson had now regained his vessel, but he was 3,000 miles from Liverpool with only the cook and a steward, neither of whom could reef nor steer. Eventually the prisoners agreed to assist and a month later, April 21, the ship anchored in the Mersey.
This painting is quite possibly a collaboration between William G. Yorke and the 15-year-old William H. Yorke. Note the naive treatment of the small boats and the reflection on the water of the hulls and the seagulls. These are traits later associated with William H. Yorke.
This painting descended through the family of
Emily St. Pierre's steward, who assisted the ship's master, Captain Wilson and two crew members in recapturing the vessel from the American prize crew.

From the Kelton Collection of Marine Art & Artifacts.
Oil on canvas, 25" x 36". Framed 30" x 41".

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