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Captain Darius Smith - Sea Dog By Philip Collings West Vancouver has many heroes but almost all of them did their deeds of valour far away. The sole exception is Captain Darius Smith, who earned his fame in the First Narrows, on February 4, 1935, when West Vancouver Ferry No. 5, of which he was the skipper, was rammed and sunk by the CPR vessel Princess Alice. With permission of the West Vancouver Museum & Archives. West Vancouver Ferry No. 5, 1915 Photo 575 WV.RAH, Captain Smith was the epitome of a sea dog, a breed that has long disappeared from the world. He was born on November 26, 1878 in Musgrave Harbour, on the east coast of Newfoundland. When he was only one year old, both his parents were drowned in a boating accident. In Newfoundland in those days, drowning was as common as dying in bed. He was adopted and brought up at Greenspond on Bonavista Bay. His adopted father was in the cooperage business. He converted flour and other barrels in which goods were imported into fish barrels in which Newfoundland salt fish could be exported. Darius was articled as a student cooper to his adopted father, in whose employment he was obliged to remain until he was 18. Upon graduation or equivalent thereof, his adopted father gave him 5 dollars, a gun and a feather bed, and sent him out to earn his living in the wide world. Darius never went to a school, properly so called, after the age of 8. It is to the credit of his Newfoundland school teachers that, although his spelling was a bit rocky all his life, he wrote a good legible hand and expressed himself clearly and directly. This was Newfoundland, and so as soon as he had discharged his obligation to his stepfather, he went to sea before the mast. There is little record of his career as an ordinary seaman, but as soon as he got his ticket as an able seaman, mate, or captain, he had to keep a log of his career including particularly a “Discharge Certificate” for each vessel he sailed in. This included spaces for the previous skipper or employer to comment on how satisfactory he has been. One must remember that this was the era in which Britannia ruled the waves and Newfoundland was a British Colony. There were British officials all over the world who stamped the “Discharge Certificates” and Darius had entries from many obscure places. These “papers” were his professional identity cards - his biography in shorthand. Darius went to sea as an ordinary seaman in 1895, and got his mate’s ticket in 1907. During that period he had Cont’d. on next column Captain Darius Smith - cont’d. served as an Able Seaman (one step up from ordinary seaman) on the sailing ships Mauna Lou(?), Mayflower, Stella, Blanche, Flora, and Aurora, mainly in the transatlantic fish trade out of St. John’s, Newfoundland to Portugal. These weren’t big ships and life in them was hard and sometimes dangerous. For instance the Discharge Certificate from the Blanche shows him to have discharged in Liverpool, the ship having been abandoned in a sinking condition and the crew having taken to the lifeboats. Presumably, a ship bound for Liverpool picked them up. In 1909, Darius married a Newfoundland girl, Rebecca Jane Saunders. At the time Darius was the Captain of one of the Trans-Atlantic fish carriers and their honeymoon was a trip to Portugal in his ship. In 1910, their eldest son George was born in St. John’s, and Darius’ ship was involved in another emergency similar to the affair of the Blanche. This was too much for the young couple, who decided that the trade was too dangerous for a family man. So for a while Darius signed on deep-sea vessels for longer voyages. In 1911, he arrived in Vancouver and made several voyages on the B.C. coast - as Chief Officer of the whaler “William Arrant” out of Ross Harbour, Q.C.I., as Skipper of the Hospital ship “Columbia” out of Alert Bay, and others. In 1912, he decided he wanted to settle in West Vancouver and sent for Rebecca and George. This was a trek into the unknown for Rebecca, but wives are made of as strong stuff as husbands. They made the trip, and set up their first family home in a tent under a tree at the southeast corner of Marine Drive and 19*** Street, near where the present West Vancouver Memorial Library stands. In 1926 they built a house at 1457 Gordon Avenue and Darius lived there the rest of his life. The house is still there today. In another change to settled family life, he took a job as mate of the “Sonrisa”, one of the West Vancouver Ferries. Not quite a 9 to 5 job, but at least he would be home each night. With permission of the West Vancouver Museum & Archives. Capt. Darius Smith on the bridge of WV Ferry before 1935. Photo 101 WV RAH. Cont’d. next page Page 2