Tag Archives: Lushman

A Tale of the Sea etc.

Amazon link for Lone Voyager, story of dory lost off Nfld south coast
Amazon link for Lone Voyager



An incredible story, made more incredible by Blackburn’s continued adventures sailing Howard Blackburn Great Republic sailboatsolo across the Atlantic and north on the Pacific.  His rowing abilities are commemorated in The Blackburn Challenge, a rowing event in Glouchester Mass.


Lushmans of Little River and USA

Blackburn had lived with the Lushman, or Lishman, family of Little River.  The story  of his rescue came across the desk of a Massachusetts newspaper editor named Litchman Howard Blackburn's tavern, now a museum, Glouchester Mass.who showed it to his father.  The senior Mr. Litchman, as a boy, had left Newfoundland with his father in search of work.  The father then left Massachusetts and the son stayed, later changing the spelling of his name from Lishman to Litchman.

Hmm, the Litchmans thought, worth a letter to Little River.   So the Lishmans of Little River found their brother who had left for the United States 50 years earlier.  Siblings were reunited, but what had happened to the father who had left Newfoundland and then Massachusetts?

Publicity about this led to another man making a connection.  A letter he’d found in his late father’s possessions explained the missing father.  He had gone to Louisiana and indeed had tried to find his son in Massachusetts.

The trail went cold until a woman from Minneapolis contacted the Litchmans.  She had been born a Lishman in Louisiana.  Her late father had come from Newfoundland.  She knew nothing more about his family. Yes, she was a half-sister.

Nfld. Quarterly Dec 1912 H Blackburn on Newfoundland south coastHere’s my transcription of the story from the Dec. 1912 Newfoundland Quarterly by Sir Edward Morris, Prime Minister of Newfoundland.  The only point that confuses me is that Francis Lishman says his mother’s name was Susannah née McDonald and in Earl Pilgrim’s book* she is called Jenny.  But that’s a small mystery compared to those with which these people lived.  Family vanished – abandoned or lost, a daughter orphaned.  Loss and grief, betrayal, survival, reconciliation and renewal.  As Morris says, it’s the stuff of novels.  I say movies too.

*Earl Pilgrim’s Drifting Into Doom led me into this incredible tale. I wrote about it here.

Drifting into Doom: Book

Click to see on DRC Publishing





The Lushman Family

Another story came from this one. Aunt Jenny Lushman lives on her own with her grown children. However, there is no Mr. Lushman.  That’s the other story. As a photo of Grey River by Holloway 1933result of publicity over Blackburn’s rescue, the story of what happened to Mr. Lushman came to light. It is also one of unbelievable happenstance and hardship. Probably it too is not an isolated case of people lost and believed gone, but it is one that became known and loose ends could be tied up. It is as epic as is the story of Howard Blackburn.

