Name: Thomas Porter McConnell Service: SS Verdi, Merchant Navy Date of Birth: March 22, 1851 Place of Birth: Yarmouth, Yarmouth Co., Nova Scotia Height: 5 Feet, 7 Inches Complexion: Light Eye Color: Blue Hair Color: Brown Date of Death: October 15, 1923 Age: 72 Cemetery: Mountain Cemetery, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia Thomas Porter McConnell was the son of David MacConnell (1803-1880) and Sarah (Blaney) MacConnell (b. 1807), the husband of Georgina (Hersey) McConnell (1853-1921) of Chebogue, and the father of Archibald Cann McConnell (1881-1936), Louisa McConnell (b. 1883), Ethel May McConnell (1884-1942), and Flora MacConnell. His year of birth is uncertain. Records of his year of birth range from 1849-1857. His siblings were William Henry McConnell (1834-1855), James Augustus McConnell (1836-1893), Captain George Blaney McConnell (1837-1898), Stephen McConnell (1840-1865), Waitstill Lewis McConnell (1845- 1852), Edward Norman MacConnell (1847-1921), and Joseph Albert MacConnell (1852-1936). His brother Captain George Blaney McConnell’s son Fred McConnell also served in the Merchant Navy as Boatswain on the SS Briardene in 1915. Thomas served on a number of ships including the barque Autocrat (1872), and the barque Emily Lowther (1880). From April to July of 1899, he served as First Mate on the Pioneer. As early as the 1901 Census of Canada, Thomas’ occupation is recorded as Master Mariner. He served at sea for many years. McConnell appears on the crew list of the SS Verdi from September 16, 1915, to November 20, 1915, during the First World War. His entire tenure on the SS Verdi is not known. A second Nova Scotian, 26-year-old Alfred Graham of New Glasgow, NS, served as Third Mate on the Verdi. During WWI, the SS Verdi operated as a merchant vessel, transporting goods and possibly passengers across the Atlantic. On August 22, 1917, while en route from New York to Liverpool, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat U-53, commanded by Hans Rose. The attack occurred 115 miles northwest of Eagle Island, off the coast of Ireland. 6 crew members perished in the attack. The British passenger vessel, SS Verdi, was built in 1907 by Workman, Clark & Co. Ltd., Belfast. At the time of her loss during WW1, Verdi was owned by Lamport & Holt Ltd. of Liverpool, England. McConnell survived the First World War and returned to Yarmouth, where he had always made his home. He returned to Yarmouth in January of 1923, from the Bahamas travelling aboard the Munson Steamship Line’s SS Munamar of the to New York and onward to Yarmouth. He died October 15, 1923, in Yarmouth, NS. He is interred at the Mountain Cemetery in Yarmouth.