The Bell of the Star of Bengal

Lifting the bell of the Star of Bengal to the surface after 117 years. Photo by Stephen Prysunka

I’m on the Endeavour in Wrangell harbor. As many of you know, Alaska Endeavour does professional research expeditions in the shoulder seasons, before and after our student expeditions in the summer. This afternoon, we’ve just gotten back from mapping the wreck of the Star of Bengal and recovering the ship’s bell. Here’s a press release I’ve just sent out.

Press Release

Archeologists Map the Wreck of the Star of Bengal

Second expedition to remote Coronation Island is a scientific and cultural success

Wrangell, Alaska, May 25, 2025: A team of volunteer researchers have located and mapped the wreck of the 264-foot Star of Bengal on remote Coronation Island, approximately 80 miles west of Wrangell, Alaska. The sinking of the ship on September 20, 1908, is the second largest maritime disaster in Alaskan history in terms of lost lives: of the 138 men on board 110 died on that storm-battered shore. Of the 106 cannery workers on board, 96 died, most of them Chinese. The remains of most of the crewmen, all white, were buried in individual graves. Bodies of the cannery workers were interred in a mass grave.

The research team first visited the site in May of 2022 with limited success due to poor weather. This year, over ten days, the team located and documented the hull frames and plates, four anchors, the windlass, other ship’s machinery, and the ship’s bronze bell. The bell was recovered and will be housed at the Wrangell Museum. The wreck site, now documented, will be nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.

Led by marine archeologist, Jenya Anichenko and long-time Wrangell fisherman and diver Gig Decker, the 2025 team included diver/photographer Stephen Prysunka of Wrangell, Sean Adams and Tayller Adams of drone company 3 Points in Space Media Ltd., divers Shawn Wells and Kevin Lansdowne, and Captain Bill Urschel and Corky Parker of the science and education nonprofit Alaska Endeavour. Ray Troll and Shawn Dilles provided organization and imagery support and were on board for the group’s first expedition in 2022, as was journalist Tessa Hulls. Ronan Rooney contributed historical research.

The 2025 project was funded in part by the State of Alaska Maritime Heritage Preservation program with support from the City of Wrangell and the Wrangell History Museum, with additional funding from 3 Points in Space Media Ltd., Shawn Wells, Kevin Lansdowne, Shawn and Susan Dilles, and Alaska Endeavour. Alaska Endeavour, based in Petersburg, Alaska, provided the research vessel Endeavour for both expeditions.

The bell will be sent for conservation to the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation at Texas A&M University before returning to the Wrangell Museum.

On its last voyage, in September of 1908, the Star of Bengal was on its way from Wrangell back to San Francisco, travelling through the Sumner Strait under tow of two small tugboats, the Kayak and the Hattie Gage. A combination of high winds, no communication, and mechanical failures forced the tugboats to sever the tow lines. The Star of Bengal dropped anchor but the anchor dragged and the ship was broken on the rocks of Coronation Island. In addition to the 138 people on board, the ship carried 2.5 million one-pound cans of salmon from the Wrangell cannery.

The Star of Bengal was an iron hull three-masted ship of 1,877 gross ton built in 1874 at the Belfast’s Harland and Wolff Shipyard in what is now Northern Ireland. That shipyard is best known for producing the Titanic. In 1906 the ship was purchased by the Alaska Packers Association to deliver the cannery workers and supplies to Wrangell in the spring and bring the workers and canned salmon back to San Francisco in the fall.

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There is something special about a ship’s bell. It gives life to a ship. One of our party said, “Science is important, but 100 years from now folks will connect to the Star and the cannery workers who died on it through this bell.”

The men going down that night heard that bell. That bell will ring again.

— Bill Urschel

The Star of Bengal in its final configuration.

The bell sitting on the deck of the Endeavour.