St. George's Harbor: Graveyard of Ships
Fraternité on the reef near North Rock, Bermuda c. 1919 (Courtesy collection of Irving Hayward).

St. George's Harbor has been used as a ships' graveyard since the late 1800s. A concentration of industry coupled with the island's only shipyards forced most damaged craft into the harbor for repairs. Vessels that could not be fixed remained in the bays surrounding the inner harbor of the island, awaiting salvage or eventual deterioration and sinking. The five-masted French schooner Fraternité was one of these ships. Sustaining irrevocable damage to her keel in 1919 after a collision with a reef, Fraternité was towed to Meyer's Wharf to join an assortment of other vessels that can still be found there today.



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