To the Editor of the Hartford Courant
19 September 1877 • Hartford, Conn.
(Hartford Courant, 20 September 1877, UCCL 01481)
New York, Sept. 18.—A Wilmington, N. C., dispatch says that the schooner Jonas Smith, with a black crew of thirteen and only one white man, was spoken by Pilot Joe Burris, twenty miles south of Cape Fear, last Friday. They claimed to be from Boston for Savannah, out three weeks and had lost their bearings. Burris gave them the bearings, and the vessel squared away for the south. As it did so and the backs of the black crew turned from him, the white man on board made signals for Burris to return. On Saturday the cutter Colfax sailed in search of the schooner, but returned on Monday, and will not give any account of her trip. A schooner named the Jonas Smith, was reported off Faulkner’s Island,1 August 18, with her [foreboom] patched and mainsail torn, since when nothing has been heard of her.
[To the Editor of The Courant]:—
The above appeared in the telegraphic columns of our evening papers yesterday. [The Courant’s] telegrams from Wilmington add some particulars this morning:—
Some of her sails had been blown entirely away, while others hung in shreds from the masts, only a few being at all serviceable. Near the water line weeds and grass a foot long were growing from the hull, evidencing that she had been a long time out of port.
The affair has caused considerable discussion here, and there are many surmises as to the character of this vessel and her ultimate destination; but the opinion most generally received is that the crew of negroes are mutineers, and that the white man seen on board was retained by the crew when they mastered the vessel for the purpose of navigating her.2
It sounds like a dreadful mystery, but I can throw some light upon it which may dispel some of its darker features. These poor fellows are not mutineers. I know them to be men of good character. Four months [&] a half ago I was at sea, with Rev. Joseph H. Twichell of Hartford, in the steamship Bermuda, Captain Angrove. We had sailed from Hamilton, Bermuda on the Queen’s birthday, May 24. At 4 p. m., May 25, twenty-four hours out, our position was 250 miles northwest from Bermuda. When I read the above telegrams, I said, “Here is something I have been watching the papers for during a great many [weeks.”] I hunted up my old note-book of our Bermuda voyage & turned to the date May 25. There I found a rude pencil sketch of a disabled vessel, & this note concerning it:—
“Friday, 25.—Jonas Smith, ten days out from Bermuda, 250 miles. Signal of distress flying (flag in the main rigging with the Union down.) Went out of our course to see her. Heavy ground swell on the sea, but no wind. They launched their boat, stern first, from the deck amidships (of course it filled with water at once), & then a man took hold of a rope that was rove through a block at the starboard end of the [foreyard] arm, & swung himself off over the sea like a spider at the end of his thread. The vessel’s deck stood up as high as a house, she was so empty. Naturally, she rolled fearfully in the ground swell. That man would swing far out over the waves & then go rushing back again like a pendulum & slam against the ship’s side. The boat never was there when he arrived. However, he made his trip at last, & began to bail out. Two others followed him in the same precarious spider fashion. They pulled off to our ship, & proved to be two colored men & a Portuguese, who was blacker than both of them put together. They said they had sailed from Bermuda for New York ten days before, with five days’ provisions! They were about out of everything now—had a little bread left & a cask & a half of water. The vessel had an absurdly large crew—we could see as many as a dozen colored men lying around taking it easy on her deck. We loaded four barrels of potatoes into their boat, together with some 300 pounds of salt junk & a great quantity of sea-biscuit, but no water, for it was stowed where we could not well get at it. We saw the sun go down on the rolling & tumbling hulk, & later caught a final glimpse of her, black & ragged in the broad track of the moon. Shall we ever hear of those negroes again?”3
One of the three men who came to us in the boat was the captain & owner of the hulk. We questioned him freely, & all that he said was confirmed afterwards by three of our passengers who knew all about the matter. The poor old tub had been condemned officially in Bermuda & sold at auction—& queerly enough, not as a whole, but piece-meal, as one may say. For instance, one man bought the top-masts (& all the sails, I think); another had bought an anchor; another such odds & ends as sky-lights & such things; & this colored man had bought what was left, viz., the empty hulk & the stumps of the fore & mainmasts. He paid £42 for his bargain. Then he bought three old rags, & made one do duty as a spencer on the mainmast, another as a jib, & the third as a sort of flying-jib, or [jib-stay-sail], whichever you please to call it. These had become rags indeed, when we saw them, & poetically appropriate to the wandering, food-soliciting, ocean-tramp which the poor old outcast has been all these months that have since dragged by. One of our passengers said that the new owner of this solemn property was offered a sufficiency of ballast for his purposes, for $25, but he was not able to afford it, & so went to sea in all his perilous emptiness. His idea was to take the creature to New York & sell her at a profit, either as a coaster or to be broken up.
We did not hear of any white man being on board, but of course there may have been one. (I don’t count that Portuguese.) But there were fifteen colored men at first, if I remember rightly. I asked Captain Angrove how he could account for that extraordinary crew when five men would have been more than enough. He said it was easily explained: it was a great thing for those colored islanders to go abroad & see the world—that is to say, New York; that without doubt their only pay was their pleasure excursion.
So this four months’ horror is a Pleasure Excursion—imagine that!
I said I should think that unless the winds were very favorable those rags would not enable the hulk to overcome the ocean currents; that when she struck the Gulf stream she might be carried south; that the provisions would soon run out again, & so, taking all things into consideration, that crew might be looked upon as doomed, perhaps. But Captain Angrove said that their main trouble would be their danger of getting out of the track of vessels: if they could manage to keep in that, they could borrow food & water & extend their excursion indefinitely.
Your telegram says: “Near the water line, weeds & grass a foot long were growing from the hull, evidencing that she had been a long time out of port.” One easily perceives from this that when Captain Burris thought the hulk’s skipper said he was from Boston (where he hadn’t been at all,) the real word used was “Bermuda”; & that when the skipper seemed to say he was “three [weeks]” out, he really said three months. You know how the winds distort a message at sea when the speaker can afford no better speaking trumpet than his cylindered hands. I remember that the colored skipper used no trumpet when he spoke us. I wonder he didn’t tell Captain Burris he was three years out instead of three weeks; it must have seemed about that long.
What that poor fellow probably said, was that he was from Bermuda & was trying to make Savannah—for he had found out that he wasn’t going to make New York & was very anxious to get to the nearest port he could find.
What an excursion it is! Four months ago the hulk was 10 days out & was 250 miles northwest of Bermuda; a week ago she was 250 miles south of that position, & when Captain Burris spoke her she was 500 miles from Bermuda & directly west of it! She was then 4 months & 1 week out from port.
I have heard of a good many dismal pleasure trips, but this one heads the list. It is monumental. The hulk was spoken just a month ago, off Faulkner’s Island. If we could overhaul the log-books of the mercantile marine, we should doubtless find that she has been spoken & relieved with provisions a dozen times during her strange voyage. It is a great pity the cutter Colfax did not continue to chase her up till she found her. That hulk can’t run; she can only drift her lubberly & unmanageable way down the Gulf Stream. There can be small difficulty about finding her. And if ever the tired old tramp is found, I should like to be there to see him in his sorrowful rags & his venerable beard of grass & sea-weed, & hear those ancient mariners tell the story of their mysterious wanderings through the solemn solitudes of the ocean.
Hartford, September 19.
SLC to Ed., Hartford Courant, Hartford, Conn. (UCCL 01481).
U.S. Treasury per John Sherman wrote to Sam replying to his of Sept. 20 (to President Hayes) and another on 22nd. The schooner had been boarded but no problem was found; the passengers & crew did not need assistance [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “The Sec’y of the Treasury about the ‘Jonas Smith’ “