In October 1866, the sailing sloop Matilda disappeared beneath the waters of Cook’s Bay, taking with her four lives.
The only survivor was a good-for-nothing named George Doolittle, who did little to cast light on how the tragedy unfolded. Doolittle’s varying accounts of the fateful voyage were conflicting in their details and, in many cases, so full of lies and obvious misdirection that they carry little weight.
The true story of what happened aboard that vessel remains one of Lake Simcoe’s most enduring mysteries.
The Matilda was owned by Capt. McCullough, of Orillia, and was one of numerous vessels plying the waters of lakes Simcoe and Couchiching, transporting any manner of goods from one port to another.
On Oct. 13, 1866, while McCullough was away, Doolittle approached Mrs. McCullough about borrowing the boat. Doolittle had a poor reputation around town as a drunkard and a “shiftless kind of fellow, never caring to work if he could by any means avoid it,” so Mrs. McCullough flatly refused.
Doolittle was undeterred. Under the cover of darkness, he quietly slipped aboard the Matilda. Accompanying him were his wife, their two young daughters, and a young lad named Alex Birch, a native of Barrie. Silently, they cast off and headed out into the moonlit waters, heading for either Keswick or Sutton. (Accounts differ.) According to Doolittle’s later testimony, a sudden storm came howling across Lake Simcoe and began tossing the Matilda around. Buffeted by wild wind and crashing water, recently repaired tears in the ship’s hull ripped open.
Doolittle realized the boat was beginning to sink and he alerted his wife to the danger. She handed him one of their children, and then raced below deck for the other. While his wife was below, the jibbing mainsail swung loose and blindsided Doolittle, knocking the child out of his hands and into the angry water. Instantly, the baby was swallowed up by the water and lost.
By this point, the Matilda was sinking so fast, Doolittle barely made it to the sloop’s small lifeboat. His wife never emerged from below deck. As the ship slipped beneath the waves, she and her second child were trapped by the inrushing water.
As for Alex Birch, Doolittle never could decide upon his fate. In one account, the young man jumped into the turbulent water and disappeared. In another, he was in the skiff and then was washed overboard by a massive wave that crashed over the boat. In any event, Birch was claimed by the lake that night as well.
Doolittle alone survived to be swept up onto Fox Island.
After his rescue, newspapers began following the story, and the more reporters dug, the more a foul stench began to emerge. The Barrie Northern Advance, for example, noted, “The circumstances (of the incident) look rather gloomy and suspicious.” Almost everyone who took note of the tragedy believed Doolittle had killed the other passengers. It was the only way to explain the wildly different versions of what happened. And yet, no charges were ever laid. There was simply no concrete evidence against the man.
What occurred aboard the Matilda that night remains a tragic mystery. Were four people murdered? Only one man knew the true story, and he went to the grave unwilling to share it.
