S.S. "Hochelega"

An interesting bit of information on the S.S. Hochelega has been discovered, thanks to Henry S. Jeanes, a farmer and lives in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania as passed along by Waldron Leard. Waldron had the pleasure of a visit from Henry, during which the subject of the Hochelega came up. He was able to pass along much of its pre-PEI history, and bring the history a bit closer to the present. He had an interest in the Hochelaga shown on the coastal ships page.

His story on the yacht was that it was built for an Archduke of Austria who did not like it. He sold it to Henry's ancestor in the U.S. who used it as a yacht (called the Waturis) and took it back and forth across the Atlantic several times. Then it was sold to the Canadian government who used it during World War I. In 1919 it became a ferry between Pictou and Charlottetown. Though the information here is that it was sold in 1940 for scrap, and apparently that may well have been the case, it survived the salvagers, and was pressed into service after World War II as a ship from the Netherlands and Belgium ferrying holocaust survivors to Haifa in Israel. Not surprising since any ship capable of sailing was pressed into service for the war, and many sent for scrapping wound up back in service. The Hochelega sank with no loss of life in the late 1940's off the coast of Belgium. The site of the wreck is known to the Jeanes family.