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Author: Megantic (Steamship).
Title: Manifest : [summary form prepared for immigration inspection,
Montreal, July 30, 1909] / [signed by Lieutenant Harry Smith, "Master" [=
Captain].
Online Access: A contemporary photo-postcard
of the Megantic
Published: 1909.
Description: [4 leaves] : facsims (phc) + ill. [photos, phc) ; 11x14
inch
Deposited in:
Divay FPG Research collection ; Box 1 (Documents)
Contents:
- Technical information about the "Megantic" from Arnold Kludas,
Great Passenger Ships of the World, v.1 [of 6 v.held at Winnipeg
Public Library; ca. 2 p.].
- phc of Immigration Records of the "Megantic," Montreal,
July 30, 1909 [4 oversized leaves, folded in 2].
- Report***, Nov. 14,
1998, Bruce Thomson to Gaby Divay, on "Grove's Passage to America" [2p.].
- Ms. notes, and printed National Archives information about microfilmed
records [1p. each].
- A photocopy from Kludas, v. 6, depicting the "Megantic" and
her sister ship, the "Laurentic" [also launched 1908, and originally "laid
down" for Dominion Line as "Alberta"].
- Two contemporary postcards of the "Megantic," one a contemporary photograph,
the other coloured, were acquired from Bruce Thomson in early 1999. The photo-card can
be viewed on the web, and was first used to illustrate Gaby Divay's introduction to
the electronic edition of Frederick Philip Grove's A
Search for America (1927, e-Ed. 2000, rev.2005).
- Gaby Divay's article as
submitted for a Festschrift for Walter Pache, Augsburg, by late January 1999.
It was based on these exciting documents ("Felix Paul Greve/Frederick Philip
Grove's Passage to America: The Discovery of the Author's Arrival in North America
and Its Implications," was published in: New Worlds [BISON
record, Festschrift for Walter Pache], Munchen, E. Vogel, 2000, pp.111-132.
Local Notes:
The White Star Line's "Megantic" was launched from the docks of her Harland & Wolff
Builders in Belfast on Dec. 10, 1908. Her name was originally "Albany" as she
was ordered initially by the Dominion Line, Liverpool. She was delivered to the
White Star Line on June 3, 1909, and she assumed her regular route from Liverpool
to Montreal with her maiden voyage on June 17, 1909.
It was likely the ship's second voyage that took Greve/Grove to North America.
Of 1,700 possible passengers, only 739 were on board. 220 passengers [of a 430
capacity] were traveling, like Greve, in second class.
The Megantic left Liverpool on July 22, 1909, and arrived in Montreal eight days
later, on July 30th.
The steamship's "Manifest" reveals details as to the arrival in the "Port
of Quebec", which was Montreal.
Page 4 contains a list of thirty 2nd class passengers of which Greve is no.27.
He was 30 years old [correctly stated!], he was a "touring author", and he had
$50 in his pocket. gd
FPG's crossing of the Atlantic
from Liverpool to Montreal on the White Star Liner "Megantic" from July
22-30, 1909, is
in exact analogy to what Grove described 18 years later on the
first few pages of his 1927 Canadian Autobiography A Search For America (which
is however set in 1892):
1. he did embark on a White Star Liner (p.10)
2. the route was indeed from Liverpool
to Montreal (p.1)
3.he did in fact travel "2nd Cabin" or 2nd class (p.10)
4.and the
time of the year was correctly noted as being "late July." (p.1)
Greve
was, of course, not 24 as he emphatically claims
in his book, but 30 years old as stated in the Manifesto, and the Megantic sailed
in 1909 rather than in 1892.
Obviously, Grove
trusted that a distorted time-frame would be sufficient to mislead any
efforts directed at finding his true identity, and he was right. The
discovery that Grove had been born & raised as Greve was not made by D. O.
Spettigue until Oct. 1971. The discovery of his passage had to wait for another
27 years, as it was found in late October 1998, just a couple of weeks
after the International Anniversary Symposium "In
Memoriam FPG: 1879-1948-1998".
gd
*** Soon after the he had presented a paper about search strategies for
Grove's elusive passage at the "In Memoriam FPG, 1879-1948-1998" Symposium, Bruce
Thomson, Winnipeg, was sent to Ottawa with support from the UM Archives' FPG
Endowment Fund to
research the Canadian National Archives in mid-October 1998. Being a Titanic/White
Star specialist, he aptly searched the Immigration Records for dozens of ships
landing in Montreal between July and November 1909.
His perseverance was rewarded:
in November 1998, he deposited the documents of FPG's passage
at the UMA's FPG Collections, and the two contemporary photo-postcards
he found were added in early 1999.
In early January 1998, Divay's article about this important discovery
was submitted (it would not appear in print until 2000), and in February 17,
1999, the present detailed Bison entry describing these important documents was
established in the UML's online catalogue BISON.-- gd
The
diary of John Wesley Dafoe (1866-1944), former Editor of The Winnipeg Free
Press, documenting his trip to the Paris Peace Conference, reveals that, by some
strange coincidence, he returned to Canada in 1919 on the same boat Greve had
been transported to North America ten years earlier.
Subjects:
Greve, Felix Paul, 1879-1909 Homes and haunts.
Grove, Frederick Philip, 1879-1948 Homes and haunts.
Canadian literature German authors Biography Sources.
Ships Passenger lists.
Other Author(s): White Star Line (Firm).
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