Frank Sandford - Tragic Northern Voyage

Tragic Northern Voyage

Even before returning to Maine, Sandford heard that Florence Whittaker, a member of his outpost in Jerusalem, wanted to abandon the sect whether or not her minister husband (who had just accompanied Sandford on the multi-year circumnavigation) would leave with her. At this point Sandford decided to bring back all his followers from Palestine, and Whittaker reluctantly agreed to accept passage to the United States on another Shiloh ship, the three-masted barquentine, Kingdom. She was treated with utmost courtesy until they reached the Maine coast, at which point Sandford refused to let her land until she was "adjusted" to her husband. Eventually Whittaker was freed by court order and was then given custody of her children.

The story made sensational newspaper fare, especially when Florence Whittaker sued Sandford for forcible detention. At the time Sandford was aboard the Coronet, and authorities began watching ports to serve him the legal papers. Sandford determined that they would not find him, that a mission station should be opened immediately in Africa and perhaps another in Greenland. In December 1910 more than seventy men, women, and children headed off to Africa, divided between the Kingdom and the Coronet. In March 1911, the Kingdom went aground and was destroyed off the coast of French West Africa. Sandford blamed the wreck on the spiritual impotence of its passengers and crew, but he took everyone aboard the Coronet, which now became fearfully overloaded with people and undersupplied with food and water.

Nevertheless, Sandford heard the supernatural direction, "Continue," which he interpreted to mean to sail on to Greenland. After recrossing the Atlantic to catch the northerly currents, the Coronet passed up numerous opportunities to take on water and supplies, Sandford announcing that God had ordered him not to put into port in the United States or Canada. Finally, on September 6, 1911, there was a "quiet mutiny" of some sort off the Grand Banks, and the Coronet was turned south. Unfortunately, the ship now made little headway, and the passengers and crew were saved from possible starvation only by the fortuitous appearance of the ocean liner, S. S. Lapland, which provided some food—but ominously, no fruit or vegetables.

Almost before they knew what was happening, men began to fall victim to scurvy; and within a few days after the Coronet reached Portland on October 21, 1911, scurvy had claimed the lives of six crew members. Sandford was first arrested on Florence Whittaker's warrant and then, a few days later, for being responsible for the deaths—"unlawfully, knowingly, and willingly" allowing a ship to "proceed on a voyage at sea without sufficient provisions."