The story behind why 12 Toronto streetcar tickets were found in the Titanic wreckage
CTV
Twelve Toronto streetcar tickets sunk on the Titanic and were unearthed decades later on the sandy floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
Twelve Toronto streetcar tickets sunk on the Titanic and were unearthed decades later on the sandy floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
The tattered tickets, printed with streetcar illustrations and “Toronto” in block letters, were tucked into the wallet of Major Arthur Peuchen, a Toronto entrepreneur who was onboard the Titanic before it collided with an iceberg in 1912.
Peuchen often traveled to Europe for business and for pleasure, he sailed at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, Adam Bunch, a Toronto history writer told CTV News Toronto weeks after the 101st anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking.
The entrepreneur was heading home from a meeting in London, when he boarded the luxury ship alongside other mega-wealthy “Astors and Guggenheims,” as Bunch put it.
At least 34 passengers on the Titanic were Canadian, he said. There was Harry Molson, inheritor of the Molson brewing empire, and Hudson Allison, one of Quebec’s most successful stock brokers.
On April 14, Peuchen was getting ready for bed around 11:30 p.m., when he felt what he thought was a heavy wave hitting the ship.
“I would simply have thought it was an unusual wave which had struck the boat; but knowing that it was a calm night and that it was an unusual thing to occur on a calm night, I immediately put my overcoat on and went up on deck,” Peuchen said, recalling the events of that fateful night during an inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic just months later.
