Members of the Lost to the Sea Memorial committee - Nancy Hood, Eric Ruff, Byron Boudreau, Jim Corning and David Sollows - with a blueprint of the project that is now under construction on Water Street. Carla Allen photo.
Published on July 31, 2012
© The Yarmouth Vanguard
Article by Carla Allen
Alfred Meuse, 28 years old and unmarried in March 1911, met a terrible fate aboard the J.J. Flaherty while reefing the main sail. Knocked into the sea by the boom, he managed to grasp the log line as it went by but was unable to retain his hold in the heavy sea. When the vessel was brought to, he had disappeared.
Meuse's name will be one of close to 2,400 to be etched on seven stones at the Lost to the Sea Memorial on Water Street. The memorial commemorates all the sons and daughters of Yarmouth County who have died at sea and is a project of the Waterfront Development Committee, headed up by the Lost to the Sea Committee.
The $352,000 project is well underway after being in the planning stages for nearly five years. A $225,000 contribution for Yarmouth's 250th anniversary legacy project from Heritage Canada, administrated by the Yarmouth County Museum, provided a needed boost last year.
Tenders are being sent out for paving and the contract for the memorial stones has been awarded to Demone Monuments & Granite Products Ltd.
The black granite stones measure approximately five feet by three feet. Originally designed lower, they were changed due to concerns about skateboarders.
Committee member Eric Ruff says student researchers were hired last summer, in addition to two other staff members, to research the names of those who drowned.
"They went through all the newspapers and sources that they could think of," he said.
"There will be room for additional names. The dedication is for those not yet known to us as well," added David Sollows.
The names will be listed chronologically from the 1760s to the present.
Dick Stewart suggested the monument nearly five years ago and Jerry Titus was one of the first researchers.
Ivy will be grown on the back wall and there will be planters in the front. A fountain will splash into a five-foot bronze ship's wheel standing in the middle.
The wheel is a replica of one in the Yarmouth County Museum from the vessel North Star, which ran aground on Green Island in 1919.
There will also be "bump outs" in front of the park, with the sidewalk extending into the road.
The project should be completed by the end of the year.
