A sailor of fortune; personal memoirs of Captain B. S. Osbon

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Contents

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I. Then and Now ....... 3

II. The Making of a Sailor .... 5

II The Making of a Sailor

MY great-grandfather's name was Osborne — a manufacturer of corn brooms at old Hadley, Massachusetts. In those days it was customary for broom-makers to use a burning-brand in marking their goods, and my ancestor, requiring one, sent for it to Boston. There is no doubt but that he was a very poor penman. The maker of brands deciphered his name as " Osbon," and thus it was spelled on the brand which in due time reached Hadley.

Now it was a long journey to Boston and back in those days, and the season was far advanced. Moreover, burning-brands were expensive. The old gentleman was anxious to get his goods on the market and could afford neither the time nor the money for another experiment, so he changed his name to fit the burning-brand. It is a curious thing that the branch of the family which adopted this abbreviated name has been of an entirely different brand from those who retained the two missing letters. Perhaps I might mention here that my great-grandmother was the first white woman born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

For myself, I was born of poor but Methodist parents, August 1 6th, 1827, at Rye, Westchester County, New York, and was the son of a minister, who in those days moved every year. Perhaps it was because of this that I inherited a roving disposition.

I spent every summer of my childhood Hfe at my great-grandfather's farm in Saratoga County, where the battle of Bemis Heights was fought. At the time a great many Indians lived in that section of the State, and a large number had quartered themselves on my great-grandfather's domains. In fact, we saw more Indians than we did white folk. They grew to be very fond of me and used to take me off to their camp; and I was fond of going in their canoes. They made me for my special use a little birch-bark craft, probably five or six feet long. I soon became an adept in canoe paddling, and when they missed me at the house they would send one of the men over to the camp after me, and I was usually found in a canoe. This was my first experience in navigation.

My early reading was " Robinson Crusoe," " Swiss Family Robinson," and books of that nature. It was natural therefore that I should acquire a love for adventures of the deep. At school I excelled only in geography and history, while for other reasons which it is not needful here to set down I was accounted the worst boy in the village. Being thus " between the devil and the deep sea," as it were, I chose the latter, and made up my mind to visit strange lands. I ran away at the age of eleven.

I was then at Sheffield, Massachusetts, at boarding school, and I got over to Hudson, New York, without being caught, and enlisted on a canal boat bound up stream. At Troy I became one of her chief towpath engineers, driving the horses, with a bill-of-fare of

The Making of a Sailor 7

salt pork and potatoes twenty-one times a week. I resigned at Schenectady and came back down the river. But my father was preaching in New York City and the alarm had gone out. I was captured on my arrival in the metropolis, taken home, cleaned up, and endowed with a new suit of clothes. Then I ran away again.

This time I shipped on a pilot boat in New York Harbour. The harbour was poorly charted then, and we used to " heave the lead," beginning at the Battery, out over the Bar. I had a knack for learning this kind of thing and became an expert leadsman — an accomplishment very useful to me in later years.

I made three cruises on the pilot boat before I was caught again, and remained at home nearly a month before I ran away for a third time. I now engaged in the towing business. I began with the old tugboat United States, and was assistant cook and deck hand. Also, I learned to steer. I eluded capture for some time, and after a few months joined the tug Pluto, the smallest towboat in the harbour and the best money-maker, for the reason that she stole her fuel — in those days cord-wood — from the schooners loaded with Virginia pine. Eventually I was caught again.

I was caught repeatedly after that. Altogether I spent about three years in running away and being dragged home. I was once taken in Fulton Market, sleeping in a fish-wagon. I had on a suit of sailor's blue dungaree, and my mother was so ashamed of me on the boat going home that she wrapped me up in her shawl and put me to bed, letting it be understood that I was ill.

My parents made up their minds now that it was useless to try to keep me on land. My father sought out a friend, Captain Francis M. French of the ship Cornelia, engaged in the emigrant trade between New York and Liverpool, and at last I was shipped officially and went to sea. I was then between thirteen and fourteen years of age.

We were eighteen days making the trip to Liverpool, and most of that time I was unusually ill. It was one Saturday night when we entered Prince's Dock, famous for packet ships in those days, and on Sunday morning I went ashore to get my breakfast — no cooking or fires then being allowed on a ship in port. The first thing that attracted my attention was the ringing of the chimes of the old St. Nicholas church, and I sat down on the steps and cried like a child. It was the first time I was ever hom.esick, and I have never been in Liverpool since that I did not seek out those steps and sit down and recall my first ocean voyage*

Queen Victoria, accompanied by the Prince Consort and her eldest two children, paid her first visit to Liverpool just at this time. I was very anxious to see her, but the streets were roped off where she was to pass and it was impossible to push through the crowd. So a shipmate of mine, a boy, Tommy, and I got up a sham fight and a ring was quickly formed for us, British style. We fought our way toward the rope, the crowd making room. When we reached the hempen barrier our war was at an end. We saw the Queen.

The Cornelia was a fine ship of about eight hundred tons, small enough for these days of twenty-thousand-

The Making of a Sailor 9

ton steamers, but one of the largest up to that thne that had entered the port of Liverpool, and we brought back with us nearly one thousand Irish emigrants. A volume might be written upon a single passage of the emigrant ship of those days. The food and accommodations need not be described. In bad v/eather everybody was seasick. Boxes, barrels, beds, men, women, and children were tumbled in a promiscuous heap, and often we were obliged to go below, perhaps in the middle of the night, to straighten them out. It was simply hell afloat.

Typhus fever broke out during the passage home. A large number died and were buried at sea, sewed up in pieces of old canvas, weighted with a few pounds of coal. Sharks followed the vessel constantly, and I have seen them grab a body before it was three feet under water.

We arrived in New York Harbour Saturday night and I was permitted to go ashore from Quarantine next day. My father was then preaching in Brooklyn, and I walked into the church just as he was beginning his sermon. This time I had returned honourably, and clean. I had on a neat blue shirt, white duck trousers, a black silk neckerchief, and a jaunty sennit hat, made of braided grass, such as sailors wore in those days. As I walked down the aisle his eye, and the eyes of his listeners, most of whom I knew, fell upon me. It has been said that my father that day preached the shortest sermon on record. I had been gone about three months and was a genuine sailor at last.

Ill

The First Naval Experience

I NOW remained at home for a time, and went to a private school in Court Street, Brooklyn, to study navigation. But my teacher knew less of the subject than I had acquired with my small practical experience, and my hours of study being short I became a disturbing element in the school. After a few weeks my father succeeded in getting me into the ship Rainbow, an East Indiaman, bound for Canton, China. But one day before sailing, at the Captain's house — his name v/as Hays — I went swimming in a large tank in the attic, which proved to be the water supply for family use, and such was the Captain's wrath that I concluded not to go with him to the Orient. My father was deeply grieved at the time that I had lost such an excellent opportunity, but jt may be added that some years later when I came home he said to me :

" My boy, I think you know more than I do about ships. Do you know that the Rainbow has never been heard from ? "

The Rainbow had been lost on her homeward passage. She had sailed in company with another tea and silk ship, and a race home had been arranged. Captain Hays had said to his rival and those standing around : " I'll beat you home, or I'll go to hell." The

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The First Naval Experience n

last seen of the Rainbow was off the Cape of Good Hope. It is supposed she was caught aback in a squall and went down stern foremost. Perhaps she became a consort of the Flying Dutchman and is still trying to round the Cape. Off Good Hope we always looked for the Flying Dutchman in those days.

I now resolved to join the Navy, and went down to No. 9 Cherry Street, the " Naval Rendezvous," where a Board of Officers was in session. The storekeeper down stairs coached me to present myself as an able seaman, the idea being the higher rating I got, the more plunder for him. I was examined physically, and passed, though the surgeon was a little dubious about my age and stature — the former being somewhat magnified and the latter always small. Then the line officers questioned me about " handing," reefing and steering, and I boxed the compass to their entire satisfaction.

I was now placed on the receiving ship North Carolina, but it was an uninteresting place, and I used to run away about every Saturday afternoon. I would say to an officer leaving the ship, " Can I carry your grip, sir?" and when we got to the gate the guard would think I was the officer's servant and let me pass. It was a good scheme, but it wore out at last and I had to devise another. One day I walked up near the gate with a two-foot rule and a memorandum book, and began measuring — " Two foot — four foot," etc. When the guard asked what I was doing I said, " Don't bother me, you will break my count." He thought it must be all right then, and I measured myself out. I usually went home Saturday night and was regularly in the " brig " or ship's prison every Monday morning.

I was soon transferred from the North Carolina to the store-ship Supply, and again to the schooner Onkahaye, a double-bottomed vessel, the only craft of her kind ever in the United States Navy. I found promotion very slow. I had become a gunner's mate, but this advance carried with it only a can of brickdust, a bottle of oil and a polishing rag, and my chief duty was that of brightening the brass screw caps of the carronades on the spar deck. I concluded to resign, and did so. Subsequently my father obtained a discharge for me in the regular way. I think they gave it to him very willingly.

I now departed from my ordinary custom and sought assistance of a whaling agent in South Street. A few days later I was in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and there was selected by the captain of the whale ship Junior as a foremast hand — not a greenhorn — because I had been at sea. My physique was against me, but the captain decided my strength by placing his two hands — as broad as the hands of Providence — on my shoulders and trying to *' buckle " or bend my spine backward. I stood the test and was accepted. I now began one of the most remarkable voyages ever made by any vessel, with one of the ablest whalemen and best men that ever sailed the sea.

IV The Beginning of a Great Voyage

THE whale ship Junior, Captain Silas Tinkham, cleared from the port of New Bedford on the 13th day of December, 1847, with a crew of twenty-two men before the mast, all greenhorns except " Old Bill," an English man-o'-war's man, a Kanaka, and myself. Then there were the captain, three mates, four boat steerers, cooper, carpenter, and a negro cook — the last named being the only man I ever met in all my seafaring who was born in Rye, New York, my own native town.

The Junior was a little ship — about three hundred and seventy-eight tons register, and a trifle over a hundred feet long. Such a craft to-day could be stored as long boat on the deck of an ocean liner, yet she had a capacity when full of oil of about four thousand barrels, carried four boats and four years' rations for thirty-three men. Our course was shaped across the Atlantic down to the Cape of Good Hope, where we captured a " hundred-barrel " sperm whale — a rare prize — which gave most of us our first experience in whale fishing. We now entered the Indian Ocean, where we met our first cyclone — the memory of which haunts me still.

The weather had been generally good, but it was a time for wind, and we were " lying-to " under a closereefed main topsail, main spencer, and foretopmast staysail, and the wheel was lashed " a-lee." At noon all hands went to dinner, leaving the decks entirely deserted. I came on deck to get a pot of drinking water, and as I went aft I saw a strange movement in the surrounding waters. The sea near the ship was quiet, but on the horizon it was foaming, dancing, and bobbing in a most disturbing manner. The sky had a weird, strange colouring, and the lightning made it a network of zigzag streaks. I watched it for a few seconds and then ran to the companionway and called,

" Come on deck, Captain Tinkham, I think something dreadful is about to happen ! "

In an instant he was there, followed by the three mates. All hands came piling after and were ordered to shorten sail. But before a movement could be made the storm had struck us, ropes had parted, sails had been blown into ribbons, and the little ship was on her beam ends with the water almost up to her hatch coamings. We were in the vortex of a cyclone. Then followed a most appalling time. The sea suddenly became as flat as a floor, and the spoon-drift almost blinding, while the rigging screeched like an ^olian harp of the inferno that it was. Men clung or were pinned fast where they stood. One of the thirty-foot boats was blown from her davits and in some unaccountable manner was impaled on the cross jack yardarm. Sails were stripped from the yards as if they had been made of cheese cloth and the rigging aloft was covered with threads of cotton, which gave it an uncanny look. The wind whirled 'round and Vound

Beginning of a Great Voyage 15

the compass and the screeching aloft varied with each angle. The day wore on with no abatement of this awful war of the elements, and darkness fell as an added terror, with blinding electric flashes and earsplitting thunder. No one of us expected to outlive that night.

Finally toward morning there came a sudden lull and a terrific downpour of rain. To escape this we crept below, when suddenly it changed to hail, which kept up a deafening roar for several minutes; then followed silence — an appalling stillness that turned the heart sick.

Someone at last ventured on deck and called, " Come quick, boys ! " and all hands crowded up to find the decks covered with between three and four inches of hailstones the size of marbles, while in the distance a huge cloud belching lightning and thunder showed the direction our demon had taken. Then the sun came up, and a fair wind blew through the cotton-covered rigging; but we were too exhausted to undertake repairs and were ordered below for rest, all except an officer and two men, who were relieved every two hours. Within a few days we had a full new set of sails bent and our ship righted ; but another vessel, the Emerald, that had been our companion, was never heard of again.

Perhaps this violent storm frightened the whales out of the Indian Ocean, for we met with no further success and after some months' cruising we made our way to Angier Point, on the island of Java, to recruit ship.

It was at Angier Point that I met with another new experience — that of being buried alive, though in this case by intention and for a good purpose.

Soon after our arrival I was seized with a very severe attack of the Java fever and it was not believed that I could pull through. Captain Tinkham had loaded me full of calomel; but it was no use, and I had my shipmates carry me on deck to look at the sun for the last time. A Malay merchant was on board, and, looking at me, said :

** Bury him on shore and draw out fever." Then he told them how to do it, and I was taken ashore, and under a huge banyan tree buried up to my neck in the warm earth in a comfortable sitting position, with an awning over my head, and two shipmates, a Malay and a Dutch soldier, to look after my comfort and protection. The latter was necessary, for there was a water conduit nearby where tigers often came down to drink, and it was not a comfortable thought that one of them could walk up and bite my head off in case my guards got frightened or were overpowered by the savage beasts. Neither did I relish the idea of bugs and worms that might be creeping through the soil, but my Malay friend assured me that such was the poison of the fever absorbed by the soil that no insect would remain near me.

Well, I stayed nearly two days in that hole, and the first night a tigress and two cubs did come for water, and there was anxiety and excitement enough in our camp before the snarling creatures were put to flight to throw me into a profuse perspiration, which no doubt was beneficial — at all events the natives said so, and sure enough the fever w^as all gone.

Beginning of a Great Voyage 17

I was removed from my grave in a very weak condition, taken on board, and in a few days was nearly well. I have heard of a similar treatment recently adopted in our own country for various diseases, and I think it may be safely recommended. The earth is a great disinfectant and healer.

At the end of about two weeks we left Angier Point and shaped our course for the New Zealand whaling grounds, but still with no success, and at last put into the little port of Mongonui for various supplies and a little shore liberty for the men. Nothing of note happened here except that a cooper of the whaler Clifford Wayne while in swimming was suddenly assailed by a shark and bitten in two before we could rescue him. From Mongonui we cruised to the westward again, often lowering for whales, but with no luck. We had been out nearly a year now with only one capture. " Old Bill " said there must be a Jonah on board, and until he was found and made to quit the ship we should never catch a whale. We believed " Old Bill," but the question was, who was our " Jonah." It so happened that it became my fortune to find him.

V

The Tale of a Would-be Pirate

ONE day the four boats were away chasing a school of whales on our weather beam, and five of us, including a boy named Tom Pierce and I, were left on board to work the vessel to windward after the boats. Tom had some hatchets to be sharpened and he asked me to turn the grindstone for him. The stone was forward of the try works, where the others could not hear. As I sat on the fore-hatch turning the crank, Tom first made me swear secrecy, and then unfolded a plan to me that made my hair stand on end. This was nothing less than to seize the ship, at just such a time as this, compelling the others to join us — killing them if they refused, I continued turning the crank while Tom unfolded his plan in most minute detail, showing that it must have been a study of months. My effort was not to let him see that I was alarmed or shocked at his idea. It would be easy, he said, to tell the people in any port that the entire ship's crew, being off in the boats, had been attacked by a school of whales and the boats destroyed before the ship could reach them — the crews drowned or torn to pieces by sharks. When I suggested that we might be becalmed and the boats overhaul us, he declared it would be an easy matter with the firearms we carried to kill every

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The Tale of a Would-be Pirate 19

man on the boats as they approached, or if a breeze came up we could run the boats down and drown the men, a pirate crew could be organized in an Australian port, and then we would roam the seas in search of prey.

The more he talked the more I thought I should be obliged to use a hatchet upon this would-be buccaneer, but before our discussion ended the boats returned and Tom left me, saying, " Now, Jack " (I was called Jack at sea), " don't forget your oath."

Imagine my state of mind with a load upon it like the secret of this young villain, the son of a good mother, who had sent him to sea with a Bible as a parting gift. I could not sleep, especially when he was on watch, and, though eager to tell the Captain, I was oath bound, which in those days was a solemn thing. Even if I told, I knew that Tom would be put in double-irons, or lashed to the rigging and whipped, and this I did not wish to see. Finally I was completely unstrung and preferred being aloft, looking for whales, or at the wheel — anywhere away from Tom. I felt now that I knew who was our " Jonah," but how to get rid of him was the heaviest heart-burden of my life.

One day the Captain resolved to return to Mongonui to recruit ship. This was good news, for I thought here might be a chance to get rid of Tom. On the night before we reached port I said to him :

" Tom, when your watch goes on liberty to-morrow you must leave the ship never to return. With your bundle of stuff for trading with the natives, pack up your duds and get away from the ship as far and as fast as you can. It is best for you that you do this and it is best for me, for I cannot bear this suspense any longer. Go, for your mother's sake, for your own sake, and for mine. If you don't I shall break my oath."

He looked at me a moment and then said, " All right. Jack, I'll go." I stood an extra watch that night on the plea that I could not sleep in the warm forecastle. I did not know what Tom might attempt if I went to bed. At daybreak the liberty men were in the boats, and Tom was there with his bundle. When the boats went ashore again to bring off the men, Tom was not among them. I never saw him again.

After two or three days searchers were sent out to find him, but without success. Then, a day or two before we sailed, I said to the Captain that it was better not to find him, and when he demanded my reasons I told him that if he would promise not to try to get Tom back I would tell him an amazing story, but not until we were ten days' sail from the coast of New Zealand, when there would be no chance of our returning to Mongonui. I told him that so long as we were in reach of Tom I was under an oath, which I considered sacred.

It was a long time before Captain Tinkham promised me. He coaxed and even threatened, but I would not give in. Finally he agreed to give up the search for Tom on my conditions. It was a great load off my mind, but I had many doubts as to how the Captain would receive the story. I felt sure he would blame me severely for not coming to him at once with the tale.

The Tale of a Would-be Pirate 21

It was an anxious ten days that passed, especially as the Captain more than once besieged me to reveal my secret without further delay. I know now that he saw it weighing on my mind, and feared I would be sick before the final day. It came at last, and Captain Tinkham took me into his cabin and I told him the story from beginning to end. He never spoke a word until I had finished ; then after a long pause he said :

" My God ! Tom must be crazy ! What a narrow escape for us all ! "

Then he chided me for not telling him sooner, as I knew he would; but Captain Tinkham was always kind and in some things he commended me, too. He questioned and cross-questioned me for a long time, then he told me to go forward and say nothing to any one. The men were curious to know why I had been in the cabin so long, but I did not tell them. I said they would know in due time.

On the following Sunday morning the word was passed forward by the second mate that all hands were to go aft at two bells (one o'clock), and during the morning there was much speculation as to what was going to happen. I knew. I knew the men were going to be told about Tom Pierce.

That Sunday, the dinner with its tempting plum duff was fairly bolted, and every man was ready to march to the quarter-deck before the next striking of the bell. When it struck twice we were quickly assembled, and the Captain with his back against the mizzenmast said to me, " Jack, come here ! " and I stepped out of the line and took my place by his side. " Boys," he went on, " I have called you aft to hear the story of why Tom Pierce ran away/* Then, turning to me, " Jack, tell your story, word for word as you told it to me, to your shipmates assembled here." He placed me directly in front of him, and I began and told all that had happened that day when they were away after whales and I was turning the grindstone for Tom. It was a sight I shall never forget — those thirty-two men and officers listening to a simple statement of a plan to murder them all and seize the ship — and how I had carried the secret among them for so many days. At the end I pleaded justification for this on the ground that Tom had a good mother and would perhaps now reform, and also that with Tom's desertion we might get rid of the " Jonah " which had brought us our bad luck and might have cost us our lives. I stopped then, and the Captain made a little speech on his own account. He said he blamed me for not telling him sooner, but on the whole I had done the ship a service, and he ended by saying, " Now, boys, give Jack three cheers," which I suppose they did, though I did not hear them, for the strain had been too much and I had to be carried from the deck. I was sick then, sure enough, for several days, but when I got out again I was well in a minute and happier than I had been for months.