In 1828, off Isle aux Morts, Newfoundland, seventeen-year-old Ann Harvey, her fisherman father and younger brother came upon the wreck of the Despatch, an Irish immigrant ship originally destined for Quebec City. In thick fog and fierce wind it had run aground and broken apart. Ann's courage and strength at the oars of the rescue boat were largely responsible for the saving of more than 160 passengers stranded amid the raging storm, left "like seabirds clinging to the rocks."