At sea and in port; or, Life and experience of William S. Fletcher

Front matter

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Introduction

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T T will be well for those who propose to read ^ this unpretentious volume to understand at once its mission. It is not sent forth as the lifestory of a man who fancies that he has won a high place amongst men. Nor is Br. Fletcher covetous of literary recognition or of the rewards that ordinarily attend successful authorship. He is only a plain Christian man, who, in what he has to communicate, seeks to honor his Master rather than himself. As the representative of the Seaman's Friend Society in this city, Mr. Fletcher has been not' only an enthusiastic witness for Christ in all assemblies, but a tireless missionary among the sailors visiting this port. I am sure that in thus introducing him I can express no desire more in accord with his own design and purpose than that the story of his rescue shall be to many a sin-

S IXTRODrCTORY.

wrecked sailor a life-line thrown by the hand of a saved shipmate.

Surely other lives than those of ''great men" should "remind us (that) we may make our lives sublime; and, departing, leave behind us"— ay, something better than — "footprmts on the sands of time." After all, greatness consists first in character. It is Divine possession, only, that makes man capable of deeds worth teUing — deeds that do not pale in the presence of the motive that prompted them. We have heard of savages who were prodigies in cunning and courage, but monstrosities as men. Beasts of prey can leave footprints in the sand. "Greatness,'' as measured in the past, often stalked with bloody trail over the rights and liberties of man. But we have learned, and the world is fast learning the truer type. "The Light that lighteth every man" has not been shining in vain. The greatest life ever lived was that of Jesus the Christ. From pole to pole, and the earth around, He is crowned the Ideal INIan, and the Saviour of men. Think of it : that two should be one. The result of this accepted truth upon the world's measurements of men is being wrought out slowly, but the revolution is on and

INTRODUCTORY. 9

will prove resistless. Henceforth the true man, the brave man, the perfect man, — the great man, if you will, — is to be the friend and saviour of men; not an oppressor, not a plunderer of his kind. So let it be. Good-bye to the stars that rose in selfish ambition, lust and carnage. Welcome the new galaxy with Christ as its central sun, and this its prophetic legend:

"THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHT- EOUSNESS SHALL SHINE AS THE STARS FOREVER AND EVER."— [Daniel xii: 3.]

No; the author of ''At Sea and in Port," is not seeking reputation. But if God shall bless his witness to the men ''who go down to the sea in ships," many may yet come from all nations and call him great, because honored of his Lord. Amen.

EARL CRANSTON.

Portland, Oregon, March 20, 1898.

PRELUDE.

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A S Compiler and Editor of this Memoir of -^^^ Mr. William S. Fletcher, it is suitable that I should say that those portions of this book appearing as my own are the result of an intimate personal acquaintance with Mr. Fletcher and his work that has continued for over thirty years. They express the personal estimate that so long and so intimate a knowledge of the man and his work has enabled me to form of them. Pure and incorruptible, devout and consecrated, firm, yet kind and charitable, his life has been a beacon to voyagers over the ocean, and a guide to toilers on the land.

H. K. HINES.

Portland, Oregon, April, 1898.

Chapter I. Birth And Early Life

"I am: How little more I know!

Whence came I? Whither do I go?

A centered self, which feels and is; A cry between the silences; A shadow birth of clouds at strife With sunshine on the hills of life; A shaft from Nature's quiver cast Into the Future from the Past!

Between the cradle and the shroud.

A meteors' flight from cloud to cloud."

— AVhittier.

T X 7 ILLIAM S. FLETCHER was the dd- ^ ^ est child of WilUam Fletcher, and was

born in the parish of Kilmore, near the town of Neaugh, County Tipperary, Ireland, on the 29th day of May, 1829. His parents were members of the Roman Catholic Church, and the boy was brought up in its faith. When he was seven years of age his father died, and soon after his mother married again. The next seven years he spent at home, but at fourteen he left his home, or, as he says, "ran away from home," and soon reached the port of Limerick, with the intention of going to sea. He had but a few pennies in his pocket, but, as he had come with the intention of going to sea, he soon found his way to the deck of a ship and asked the captain if he would take him ''and make a sailor of him." The captain took him and William remained with him for more than two years in the Quebec trade. He finally left this ship in Quebec and worked his way to New York, and after spending a couple of weeks in that great city shipped on one of the "Black Ball" line for Liverpool. On the return of the vessel to New York it brought over six hundred emigrants.

For some years there was nothing in the Hfe of this young man unlike that which enters into the life of any young seaman. He made a number of voyages out of New York to various European ports, and also to South America. In one of his European voyages he brought out a younger brother with him and apprenticed him to the sailmaker's trade in a large Sail and Rigging Loft in South Street, in New York. On another voyage to Dublin he brought his sister with him on his return. He had found an aunt in his rambUngs about the city of New York, on another occasion, and he left his sister with her, and himself entered a sailor boarding house kept by one Sam. Smith, on Oliver Street. Here he was the subject of one of those inhuman practices which disgrace this class of business in nearly all ports. Desiring to "have a little run ashore" before he went to sea again, he paid his landlord for two weeks board in advance. In about four days the landlord came to him and said: ''Bill, I want you to go in a little down-east bark to New Orleans, and then up the Mediterranean.'' Bill declined, as he had been ashore so short a time, and had paid for his board in advance, and he did not wish to go to sea so soon again. Little did Mr. Smith care for that. He sent one of his "runners" to entice Bill down to one of the "chain lockers," and there he was persuaded to take a couple of "drinks," which stupefied him, and when he came to he found himself in a "Whitehall" boat, with his "dunnage," and shipped on the bark bound for New Orleans under another name than his own. One of the men engaged by Smith to the captain of the bark had decided not to go, and this method was taken to supply his place with Mr. Fletcher. However, he left the bark in New Orleans and shipped on board a large Philadelphia ship for Liverpool. After the cargo of this ship was discharged, six hundred emigrants were taken aboard for Philadelphia. In running down the channel, when off Holyhead. and before all the emigrants had gone below, a fearful squall struck the ship and away went the three topmasts, the jib-boom and all the "tophamper" of the vessel with them over the side. When the wreckage was cleared away, about daylight, one of the Belfast steamers picked up the ship and towed her to that port. Here Mr. Fletcher left her, returned to Liverpool and entered on another ship bound for New York.

On arriving in New York he went up to see his old "friend" Smith, who was "delighted" to see him, and desired immediately to send for his "dunnage," which was yet on the ship. Mr. Fletcher declined, reminding Smith in not very gentle words of the "dirty trick'' he had played him before, and took up his quarters at "Jack Barry's," at 42 Cherry street. But a like experience awaited him here, for, in about a week he was again outward bound for San Francisco in the ship Monument, of New York. The ship had a stormy passage, but arrived in San Francisco about the last of March, 1850.

By this time Mr. Fletcher was becoming wearied of the sea, or, if not of the sea itself, then of the character of the life that comes to the ordinary sailor. And, besides, this was in the very midst of the golden flood of prosperity that was rollingover San Francisco, and over all the Pacific coast, from the gold mines that had been discovered but about two years before. Wages were so high and work so abundant that he determined to try what he could do on shore. Stopping in San Francisco and working along shore for some time, the enchanting tales of sudden and fabulous wealth to be dug out of the hills and gulches of the Sierra Nevadas drew him away from the city, and he soon found himself on Feather River, and engaged in mining on a bar on the Middle Fork of that stream, in the primitive fashion of that primitive period. Himself and his companion generally took from the dirt from twenty to thirty dollars per day. The winter was spent in the southern mines, where the same fortune attended his work. Notwithstanding money was so rapidly and easily made, it was just as rapidly and easily spent. Still he wrought industriously on until the fall of 1853, when he sold out his interest in the mines on Feather River, went down to San Francisco and shipped for Liverpool, with the intention of visiting his mother in Ireland and his sister in New York, and then returning to California. But though he visited the place of his nativity, which he had left when a mere boy, he found that his mother had removed to England and so he did not see her.

By this time, it is clearly to be seen, Mr. Fletcher had come to some enlarged views of the purposes and ends of life. He had seen its hard sides and dark shadows. He had visited many of the great ports of the world. Sea and land were familiar to him. His body was hardened by toil, his mind expanded by trial, and to a good degree aspiration for a better condition of Hfe was awakened in his soul. One can easily trace these results in the record he made of the events and experiences of these years. Still there is not, up to this time, a single intimation of any religious emotion or sentiment coming into his heart or fashioning his purposes. Still there Avas love in his heart; love to his friends, affection for mother and sister, and an evident desire to minister to their happiness. Where there is any susceptibility for love, there is yet a place for God in any human heart. This has evidently been a growing grace in the heart of Mr. Fletcher up to this time.

Not finding his mother, the young man turned back again towards his sister, who was still residing in New York. He had got beyond the hard need of working his way before the mast, and took passage on the steamship "City of Glasgow^" with a large company of passengers. This was the last trip of that ill-fated vessel. On her next voyage she sailed out of her port with a large passenger list, disappeared in the sky-rimmed loneliness of the ocean, and was never heard of more.

Remaining with his sister a few days in New York, he returned to California and its golden treasures. So prospered was he in his mining operations that in the fall of 1854, finding that he had |2,000 for his summer's work, he resolved to return to New York and spend the winter with his sister in that city. But life even in a great city, lacked the excitement and impulse of life in the mines and mountains of California, so, in the spring of 1855, taking his sister with him, he turned his face again towards the west, and, after a short tarry in San Francisco, with his sister he went into Klamath County, California, and again began mining at Sawyer's Bar, on Salmon River.

There is something in the work of mining for gold that holds an adventurous and enthusiastic spirit with an entrancing grip. It seems monotonous to a looker on, but not so to the worker. The excitement of seeking something that is only just out of sight, and that something gold; and the hope that the next blow of the pick or the next pitch of the shovel will uncover it to the eager gaze, keeps the nerves strung to rapid and easy toil. And in those early days the weirdness and wildness of the mountain gorges, the rush and roar of the river, the song and shout of the successful miners, the lights of the campfires that set aglow the hillsides, the "yarns'' of the eager circle that drew near the cheering blaze, the stories of "finds" of fabulous wealth in some distant camp that seemed to breath themselves over plains and mountains and through forests for hundreds of miles to every miner's cabin, all conspired to spread over such a life a charm and a promise that were unknown and unfelt in city or on farm. It was a new civiHzation, if it was civilization, or a new barbarism, if it were a barbarism. If it were either, it had many of the elements of the other strongly blended with its own, and so constituted a new life, rough but charming, developing a character of strong vigor, of high independence, with a kind of wild, penetrating intelligence that could look farther into a rock for a seam of gold than any other time or people have ever evolved. Out of this new civilized-barbarism have developed many of the strongest and most practical intellects of our national history. Out of it have come many of the purest and most chivalrous Christian lives that have blessed humanity. Amidst it have been kindled to immortal song poetic spirits that else had dreamed themselves away in unsung rhapsodies amidst the monotonous and uninspiring bricks and walls of the dreary cities, or in measuring calicos and woolseys behind the counters of village traders. There is a relation of beauty and poetry between true souls and Sierra heights up there in the skies, and murmuring cascades and flowing rivers in the gorges and on the plains. Since Bryant sung of

"Where rolls the Oregon,

And bears no sound save his own dashiugs."

till Miller glorified the mountain peaks of California with the ''Song of the Sierras," it has been thus.

Mr. Fletcher remained at Sawyer's Bar as a miner until the fall of 1858, when he removed a few miles to a place known as "Russian Creek," where he secured interests in mining property and applied himself with his usual industry to the hard toil of the miner. Nothing of special note occurred in his life or fortune during the first year that he spent on Russian Creek. He had a home kept by his sister, whom he cherished very fondly and faithfully, and the months of daily toil in the mines during the svmimer of 1859 were pleasant. His lot seemed fixed for life. He had drifted off the ocean and drifted, almost without purpose, into the mountains of California. But life has its eras, many of them seemingly beyond our own ordering, but it may be guided by a wiser and more powerful hand than our own. So it may prove with Mr. Pletcher.

CHAPTER 11.

THE CHANGED LIFE.

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said imto thee, ye must be born again."— Jesus.

^^ HE life that Mr. Fletcher had lived up to ^ the fall of 1859 was, as we have seen, that of a seafarer and miner. While such a life had in it much that would prove detrimental and even ruinous to a man of weak moral nature, to one of a vigorous sense of the reality of life there was in it an experience that could be made very effective and useful in the future. A wide knowledge of the world, and a wide acquaintance with all classes and conditions of men, gained by personal contact with them, was a kind of education that compensated in a good measure for the lack ofthe education of the schools. None have greater opportunities for acquiring such knowledge than the sailor and the miner. They see men at their best and at their worst. They become acquainted with the kindest and noblest of men, and with the hardest and meanest. They meet and mingle with the most truly religious and the most shockingly wicked. They hear prayers and profanity in the same company. Drunkenness reels and staggers before them or lies down and wallows in the mire of the gutter, and sobriety walks with manly uprightness and clean garb at the same time. They see the difference; and the man of natural moral strength instinctively comes to choose the better for his portion. The lesson may not always be learned quickly, but it is quite sure to be finally learned. It may not always be learned radically, so as to lead to a distinctively religious life, but it will often be so; and when it is it makes a character that becomes a worthy model of life. This was the result with Mr. Fletcher.

He had now reached thirty years of age. His naturally sincere mind had been prepared in many ways for the planting of the seed of truth within it, and when it was once planted it could rapidly spring up into a gracious harvest. The instrumentality that finally reached this result was simple, yet "mighty through God."

In the autumn of 1859 a religious friend by the name of Henry Ferrett made a visit to the miningcamp of Mr. Clough and Fletcher, and spent the evening in a religious conversation with Mr. Clough, Mr. Fletcher being a simple Hstener. He had never read the Bible. He had never attended religious meetings. His naturally inquisitive mind detected at once that Mr. Ferrett was in possession of something to which he was a stranger. On retiring for the night, after a chapter of the Word of God had been read by Mr. Clough, Mr. Ewing made an earnest prayer that God would apply the truth about which they had been talking to the hearts of all present. Mr. Fletcher says:

'•It was the first time I had knelt in prayer for many, many years. I then and there gave my heart to God, and asked Him to teach me how to pray and lead me in the way of truth. The few little prayers I had learned when I was a child, out of our Catholic prayer book, I believe, since God has shown me the way of truth, were not in harmony with God's word."

To the truth that makes "wise unto salvation" Mr. Fletcher was an utter stranger up to this time. All about him were like himself. His closest associates were irreligious. His own sister, his brother-in-law, his daily companions, all alike forgot

God. It was under such unfavorable surroundings that then and there Mr. Fletcher's mind and heart reached the high resolve to surrender to God. The way, the time, the completeness of his resolve and the deliberate earnestness of his action under it, mark the inherent independence and sincerity of his nature, as well as the reality of his change "from darkness to light." He says of it:

"I did not experience that joy and ecstacy which some have felt, but I felt an abiding witness of the Spirit of God in my soul that He had pardoned my sins and accepted me as righteous in His sight for the sake of Christ."

How thoroughly this work of regeneration changed the course and purpose as well as the motive and spirit of his life is expressed in his own record of the event. He says:

"I then commenced to strive to read His word, for I had no one to teach me but God. How many times I went on my knees and spread my Bible before the Lord, and there spelt out the word, for I could not read. But the Lord, Avho is more willing .o give than I was to ask Him, gave me that light by which I was enabled to read His word in a short time, and also how to write, so that all I am I owe to the goodness of God towards me."

One can hardly imagine less favorable conditions for the development of the religious and intellectual life of a man like Mr. Fletcher than those that surrounded him at this time. The trueness and decision of his action aUenated his old friends, and they 'Svent by on the other side." But their loss was his gain. God did not forsake him, but raised up other and better friends; for He never leaves himself without a witness to those that seek Him. Not long after his conversion he was minded by the Divine Spirit, to visit the family of a Mr. Reany. During the visit Mrs. Reany spoke most earnestly about seeking the Saviour, and finding his heart inclined that way, encouraged him in every way she could. Among other helps she gave him two of the books that have helped mould the Christian life of thousands, namely, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Dodridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. These were the first reHgious books he ever read; and these were read when he was only able to read at all by the laborious spelling out of each individual word. After he had thus read them once he took them back to their owner with the acknowledgment that he could not understand them. She persuaded him to take them back and read them again; and herself gave him some instructions how to read them understandingly. He took them again, read them over more carefully, earnestly praying to God to enlighten his mind so that he could understand them. The prayer was answered, and he was greatly blessed then, and through all his Hfe, by this ministry of these two eminent and devoted men, long after they had gone to Heaven.

Mrs. Reany so illustrates a phase of the fragmentary religious life found in mining regions, and on the frontiers, that we should not pass by this incident without a brief notice of it. Mr. Fletcher speaks of her most tenderly and gratefully. Her interest in him reHgiously led to inquiry concerning her, when he found ''she was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Saywyer's Bar; a good, pious woman, one who was always striving to lead sinners into the light and liberty of the children of God.'' This good woman evidently became ''the guide, philosopher and friend" of Mr. Fletcher in his earUest Christian life, and, without a doubt, her influence and teaching did much to fashion that life that ripened into such a beautiful fruitage in later years. His own brief reference to this early Christian friendship is so tender and frank that we here transcribe it. He says:

"I was living seven miles from her place of residence, so I had not many opportunities of speaking to her. When T would go to see her the first question she would ask me Avas how I was getting along spiritually. She won my coutidence and I opened ray mind to her freely. O, how the tears ran from her eyes when I told her of my resolve to serve God and make my way to heaven. She then invited me to join her little class and become a member of her church. I told her when I came down again I would let her know about it. In the meantime I was striving to read my Bible, but could not read it very well yet: though the Lord was giving me light and liberty in it.

"The next time I went to Sawyer's Bar was in April, 1860, It was on Sunday, and I met Mrs. Reany going to hold her Bible class and class meeting. I asked her what that meant. She told me if I would go with her I would find out for myself. I thank God I did find out one thing. I found out that it was more profitable for me to be there than to spend the hours in the saloon or bar-room. When the little meeting was over Mrs. Beany told me that their Presiding Elder would be there on the twelfth of May to hold their quarterly meeting, and asked me to attend it. I told her that I would be down and hear a Methodist preacher for the first time in my life. I spent the time before the quarterly meeting reading my Bible and improving my mind. I made some inquiries about the doctrines and discipline of the Methodist Church, and made up my mind to become a member of that church at the coming quarterly meeting.

"As I was about to join another church than that under which I was brought up, I put myself under the guidance of God, to be led by Him, for He had assured me in His Word if I would acknowledge Him in all my ways, that He Avould direct my paths.

"May the eleventh. I left home to attend the quarterly meeting, and on May 12th, 1860, at Sawyer's Bar, on Salmon Kiver, Klamath County, California, I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church on probation, under Nelson Reasouer, presiding elder of the Mount Shasta District, California Conference."

Mr. Fletcher concludes this touchmg account of his early Christian life up to his union with the visible church with an earnest prayer for grace and guidance in the life he had thus and there undertaken, and solemnly records his vow^ of fidelity as a member of that church with which he had connected himself. How he kept that vow will appear in the entire course of this narrative.

It appears a strange coincidence that the Rev. Nelson Reasoner, under whose ministry Mr. Fletcher became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, should have been one of the most intimate of the early ministerial friends of the writer of these memoirs, when we Avere both in our early twenties in Western New York. We have not met for nearly fifty years, but our works thtts meet in the actual and recorded life of our dear Brother Fletcher, thousands of miles distant from where our early associations were formed.

Thus the wandering, wayward life of William S. Fletcher, after being tossed by the storms of all the seas so long, and buffeted and beaten by so many waves and adverse tides, came to safe anchorage at last, and he could joyously sing:

My soul in sad exile was out on life's sea,

So burdened witli sin and distress, Till I heard a sweet voice saying make me your choice,

And I entered the haven of rest.

I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest,

I'll sail the wide seas no more: The tempest may sweep o'er the wild stormy deep;

In Jesus I'm safe evermore.

Here in the fastnesses of the mountains this rover from the seas found this safety; and, with a little band of eight, who there represented the great Church of Christ on the earth, connected himself as a Christian. As these eight names had such a vital relation to the after Hfe of Mr. Fletcher, we transcribe them from his journal: Joseph Beasley, leader; Henry Ferrett, E. Lee, Joseph Smith, Josiah Gwin, Mrs. Reany, Mrs. Luckett and W. S. Fletcher.

It will be interesting and profitable to trace the early Christian life of Mr. Fletcher, while he remained in this locality, a little farther. His helpers were very few in number, though these few were men and women of good sense and solid character. They had no pastor, and only once in three months were favored with a visit from the Presiding Elder of whom we have spoken. But the means of grace, like class meetings, Bible class, prayer meeting, were not neglected. Mr. Fletcher lost no opportunity for improvement in knowledge, as well as in piety. Immediately on his conversion an impulse to do good to others became the controllingforce of his mind. Small as was the light kindled in his heart, and few as there were among the rough miners of the mountains to profit by it, it was never hid under a bushel. There is a charming simplicity and honesty in the words in which he himself wrote of his first participation in public religious services. It was not long after he had connected himself with the church. He says:

"Our class leader gave out an appointment for a prayer meeting in connection with our class meeting. As it was the first prayer meeting that I had ever attended, and the first that had ever been held in our class since I united with it, I did not know how I should get through with it. I had never prayed in public, and was greatly troubled during the week to know how I should act 1 wrote a little prayer for the coming meeting and committed it to memory. It was well fixed in my mind, as I hardly thought of anything else during the week. When Sabbath evening came and our meeting time drew near I was very much embarrassed about my little prayer. Although I could repeat it readily, I felt that I had not confidence in myself. As our meeting progressed I scarcely knew what was going on, as my mind was so taken up with my little prayer. The class leader called on me to pray. As I was in the act of kneeling my little prayer vanished from my mind. As quick as thought it came into my mind to ask God to be my present help in time of need. Blessed be God! I prayed in a way I bad never prayed before. I had an access to the throne of grace I had never had before. This is the second time the Lord has taught me not to put too much confidence in my own strength, and I have profited, I trust, by my own experiences, to trust more in God and less in myself."