In May of 1914, Henry George Kendall became the Captain of the Empress of Ireland.  He had become famous in 1910 for helping capture American Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, who had murdered his wife, Belle Elmore.  Dr. Crippen was hanged on November 23, 1910.  Before being put to death, he put a curse on Captain Kendall – “You shall pay for this treachery, sir!”  Later, that “curse” would take its toll.   On May 29, 1914, Captain Kendall was master of the Empress of Ireland.  The Empress was docked at Quebec, and was bound for Liverpool.  She had 1,477 people onboard.  At 1:38 a.m. on Friday morning, lookouts on the Empress shouted, “Object on the right!”  The Captain could clearly make out another ship, the Norwegian collier, Storstad.  It was carrying 10,400 tons of coal.  Then, suddenly, as if the “ghost of Crippen” sent it, heavy fog covered the ships.  They could not see each other.  The two ships kept sending signals to each other, but the Storstad kept coming closer and closer.  Around 1:55 a.m., the Storstad hit the Empress between the two smokestacks.  Captain Kendall hoped to use the Storstad to plug the hole it had caused, but somehow the two ships separated.  Within 14 minutes, the Empress sank beneath the St. Lawrence Seaway, taking with her over 1,000 lives.  The sinking of the Empress of Ireland took more lives than either the Titanic or Lusitania.