Living History is an ongoing series showcasing just a small assortment of the more than 350,000 items housed at The Salvation Army Heritage Centre in Toronto. This month, we highlight Salvationist Cecil Mouland’s Bible, like him, a survivor of the SS Newfoundland.

In early March 1914, eight young men from the northeast Newfoundland and Labrador village of Doting Cove—seven of them Salvationists—made their way 56 kilometres south to Wesleyville. They were bound, as so many thousands of other Newfoundlanders were, for the annual seal hunt and had tickets for berths aboard the wooden sealing-ship Newfoundland, which was due to leave Wesleyville on March 12.

But by March 31, Newfoundland was jammed in ice, unable to make headway.

As it was a mild day—so mild that many men took off their heavy jackets and stowed them under their bunks—the frustrated captain sent the men to walk the five kilometres to where the seals were.

It was a fatal mistake.

Before the day was over, a vicious blizzard blotted out the ships, the temperature dropped to freezing, and the men had no choice but to spend that night and the following one on the treacherous ice. Of the 132 men caught by the blizzard, 78 died from drowning or exposure, among them three of the young Salvationists from Doting Cove—Daniel Duff, David Abbott and Art Mouland.

The Salvationists who survived—Phillip Abbott, William Cuff, and cousins Cecil and Ralph Mouland—told stories of the combination of practical willpower and prayer that had kept them alive during the ordeal. Cecil thought of his sweetheart (Salvationist schoolteacher Jessie Collins), walked and chewed continuously to avoid freezing, and encouraged Ralph to do the same. When Ralph grew too weak to eat, Cecil chewed up some hard tack and forced it into his cousin’s mouth.

“God,” Cecil promised, “if you get me out of this, I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.”

And he did. Cecil immigrated to the United States where he became a lifelong Salvationist and served as a corps sergeant-major for four decades before retiring to his native province. But he never forgot his ordeal on the ice.

The Heritage Centre has in its possession Cecil’s Bible that he had with him on the ice and no doubt provided the young man with solace and hope for the future.

To learn more about this tragic event, read Cassie Brown’s Death on the Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914.

Photos: The Archives of The Salvation Army Canada and Bermuda Territory, Camilo Mejia