Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072) (30 page)
Read Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072) Online
Authors: Ann Spencer
69 Saratoga Street
East Boston Mass.
Sept. 22/1910
My Dear Friend Mrs. McNutt —
Your letter of so long ago is unanswered.
It was delayed some time in reaching me. I had left New Hampshire when it arived there.
I am delighted to hear from you and to know that you have been settled on land all these years. I think the sea faring life is a hard one; there are some very attractive features about it of course.
I have not heard anything new since I wrote you last.
I have little or no hope of ever even hearing any thing more.
Some time some wreckage may be seen that would indicate the fate of the “Spray”. I get a good many letters from people who have known Captain Slocum or have read his book “Sailing Alone” and have seen the report that he is missing and write me like yourself to know what about it and so on.
I shall be at this address for the Winter. I am working for my bread and butter. I am left without support so am obliged to earn my own living. I cannot draw on royalties for seven years, at the end of seven years if Captain Slocum
is still missing I can demand an accounting from the Publishers through the Probate Court. If in the mean time I should get proof that my husband was dead. I could apply to Probate Court then at any time for a settlement. My real estate as a little home if my husband was living or at home, it would be alright, but as an investment it is of little value to me. I have kept hens before now. and probably will do so again. But it is the being alone; living alone. I do not know how to endure it, only for that I could make my living there easier than in the city. My folks all live about Boston, that is the most of them. I have a brother in Lynn[?], two sisters in Wakefield, and a sister in Brighton (greater Boston) and cousins, all about here. I have one sister in Hantsport Nova Scotia married to Rev. L. J. Tingley Baptist Minister, he used to own a place at Wolfville has sold and has bought at Hantsport. I have never been there myself. I seldom go to Nova Scotia. If I should ever go that way I should surrly look you up, it would surrly be a great pleasure to meet you and Captain McNutt after all these years.
Your little poem is beautiful and I appreciate it very much. I fear you may have made your visit to Beverly[?] before this time I have delayed so long. If you have not, and do come later I should be delighted to see you.
I could arrange to see you for a little while any how. I am very busy my time not being my own I am sorry to say. I am glad to be able to support myself and not be dependant on any one. My health is good although I am no longer young, 48 years old now.
With very kind wishes I am
Very Sincerely
Henrietta M. Slocum
Joshua Slocum Society International
The Joshua Slocum Society was founded in 1955 by Richard McClosky and incorporated as a non-profit corporation in 1972. Now known as the Joshua Slocum Society International, it is dedicated not only to preserving the memory and legacy of Captain Joshua Slocum but to honoring circumnavigators and solo voyagers.
In addition to descendants of Captain Slocum, its members include circumnavigators, experienced yachtsmen, and sailors of all types, including the armchair variety. Its annual journal,
The Spray
, and periodic newsletter,
Spray Ahoy!
, feature activities and accomplishments of members as well as information relating to Joshua Slocum.
Membership information can be obtained by writing to Joshua Slocum Society International, c/o Commodore Ted Jones, 15 Codfish Hill Road Ext., Bethel CT 06801, USA. The Joshua Slocum Society International website address is
http://www.mcallen.lib.tx.us/orgs/SLOCUM.HTM
The
New York Herald Book Review
for September 6, 1953, ran the following letter of inquiry from Walter Magnes Teller: “As I am at work on a biographical study of Captain Joshua Slocum — 1844 to 1908 — circumnavigator and author — I would appreciate hearing from anyone with documents and information or recollection pertaining to him.” He also published his request in the
New York Times
, the
Sydney Morning Herald
, and
The Age
of Melbourne, Australia. Walter Teller’s correspondence and notes of interviews from people who responded to the inquiry and who remembered Slocum are part of the Teller Collection, which is housed in the Old Dartmouth Historical Society New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
I have looked through the boxed files of letters and rough notes that led to Teller’s first book,
The Search for Captain Slocum
, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1956. Some of the material is undated and not clearly identifiable. Wherever possible in these source notes, I have included dates of letters and interviews, and names of individuals who supplied information to Teller, as gleaned from the biographer’s notebooks, and from photostats of letters sent and received by Slocum. A major correspondent was Grace Murray Brown, a cousin of Slocum’s and the family historian and storyteller. Her letters and genealogy notes, although not always clearly dated, were written between 1952 and 1956. Another important link in
Teller’s search was Donald Le Mar Poole, a captain from Martha’s Vineyard who had clear impressions and memories of Slocum on the Vineyard. He also provided technical advice to Teller, and the two men shared a friendship that developed in correspondence from 1953 to 1960 and again from 1972 until 1976.
Teller kept notes of his visits with Hettie Slocum, then Mrs. Ulysses E. Mayhew. There are letters and records of interviews with other immediate Slocum family members, including Benjamin Aymar (letters written between September 11, 1952, and March 23, 1955), Jessie Slocum Joyce (letters written between September 1, 1952, and April 2, 1959), and J. Garfield Slocum (letters written between September 1 and April 21, 1953). Letters from Victor, who died in 1949, were given to Teller by Victor’s niece, Catherine Woodruff. Lorimer B. Slocum provided letters Slocum had written to other family members.
When Teller’s book was revised for a 1971 edition published by Rutgers University Press, it was titled simply
Joshua Slocum
. This augmented edition includes information gleaned from correspondence with Kenneth E. Slack, author of
In the Wake of the Spray
, published in 1966. Leon Fredrich’s diligent research material on Captain Slocum was brought to my attention by the curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Judith N. Lund. It has changed the Slocum story somewhat, especially with respect to shipping records that shed new light on the captain’s early commands.
Other documents found in the Teller Collection (TC) include the following: copies of original Slocum letters 1872–1904; photostats of Slocum letters 1894–97 from originals at the Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; photostats of Slocum letters, 1897–1902, originals at the New York Public Library;
copies of Slocum letters 1885–1906, originals at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; copies of Slocum letters to writer Clifton Johnson; copies of records of the Department of State, originals in the National Archives, Washington, D.C.; and correspondence with psychologist Carl Binger, M.D., and graphologist Meta Steiner, 1953–54, both of whom were asked by Teller to examine Slocum’s nature and psychological makeup. Teller also corresponded with Duncan J. Spaeth, professor of American Literature at Princeton University, who lent his opinions on Slocum as a literary stylist.
The Teller Collection also contains newspaper clippings, many undated and unidentified. The major sources are the
Vineyard Gazette
, Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, the
New Bedford Standard, Times
, and
Mercury
, the
Boston Herald
, the
Boston Globe
, the
New York Times
, the
New York Tribune
, the
Sydney Daily Telgraph
, the
St. Helena Guardian
, the
Mount Holly News
, the
New Jersey Mirror
, and the
New Era
of Riverton and Palmyra, New Jersey. I have been as specific and accurate as information allowed.
The copy of
Sailing Alone Around the World
(SAAW) I have used for reference and pagination was published by W.W. Norton & Company in 1984. Reference notes and pagination also come from
The Voyages of Joshua Slocum
(VJS), edited and with commentaries by Walter Magnes Teller, Special Anniversary Edition, reissued in 1995 by Sheridan House, originally published in 1985 (contains complete texts of “Rescue of Some Gilbert Islanders,”
Voyage of the Liberdade, Aquidneck
Correspondence,
Sailing Alone Around the World
, and
Voyage of the Destroyer from New York to Brazil)
. Slocum’s son Victor’s book,
Capt. Joshua Slocum: The Adventures of America’s Best Known Sailor
(CJS), was reprinted by Sheridan House in 1972.
The previously unpublished letters written by Henrietta M. Slocum, which appear in
Appendix 3
, are housed in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia (PANS).
Prologue—
On Beam Ends
“I had been cast …”
— SAAW, p. 4
“one of the finest American …”
— PANS
“naturalized” Yankee
— Ibid.
“elegant bark”
— Ibid.
“going steam”
— Ibid.
“One day when I was …”
— Slocum interviewed in undated newspaper article (around 1908), probably
Providence Journal
, TC
“Come to Fairhaven …”
— SAAW, p. 4
“ship”
— Ibid., p. 4
“Poverty Point …”
— Ibid., p. 4
“cast up from old ocean …”
— Ibid., p. 4
“No, going to rebuild her …”
— Ibid., p. 4
“something tangible appeared …”
— Ibid., p. 4
“much-esteemed stem-piece …”
— Ibid., p. 4
“The
Spray
changed her being …”
— Ibid., p. 5
“What was there for an old sailor to do?”
— Ibid., p. 4
Chapter One —
The Call of the Running Tide
“On both sides my family …”
— SAAW, p. 3
“The wonderful sea …”
— Ibid., p. 3
“There’s all tide rips …”
— PANS
“I was born in a cold spot …”
— SAAW, p. 3
“lovely, gentle soul”
— PANS
“too many children …”
— Letter from Grace Murray Brown to Walter Teller (TC)
“the island of plenty”
— JS’s letter to Roberts Brothers, May 13, 1895, written aboard the
Spray
at Westport, Brier Island
“howling and fighting”
— CJS, p. 32
“You sail by the Grace …”
— PANS
Chapter Two
—
Learning the Ropes
“I had a fair schooling …”
— SAAW, pp. 156, 157
“I came ‘over the bows’ …”
— Ibid., p. 3
“I was not long in the galley …”
— Ibid., p. 3
“in through the cabin windows”
— Ibid., p. 3
“over the bows”
— Ibid., p. 3
Victor’s description of sextant found in CJS, p. 39
“working the ice cargo …”
— JS in letter to R.U. Johnson dated July 23, 1899 (TC)
“he found a good friend …”
— CJS, p. 39
“husky youth”
— Ibid., p. 40
“He was on the upper topsail …”
— Undated clipping (before voyage, probably April, 1895),
Boston Herald;
segment reprinted in
New Bedford Standard-Times
, December 21, 1944 (TC)
“the goal of happiness …”
— PANS
“a naturalized Yankee”
— SAAW, p. 3
“Next in attractiveness …”
— Ibid., p. 3
Victor’s description of his father’s early journals
— CJS, p. 43
“The lure of his inshore …”
— Ibid., p. 44
“come up through the hawse hole”
— PANS
“Virginia was heard to remark …”
— CJS, p. 48
Shipping Records —
Daily Alta
California Shipping Intelligence, San Francisco, October 4, 9, 16, 1869; October 7, 1870; May 7, 1871; August 21, 1873; August 22, 1873
— from Walter Teller’s correspondence with Leon Fredrich in the Teller Collection (TC)
Chapter Three —
True Love and a Family Afloat
“Mrs. Slocum sat busily engaged …”
— Excerpt from “An American Family Afloat
,” New York Tribune
, June 26, 1882, page 8, column 1.
“Father took the wheel …”
— Ben Aymar Slocum, correspondence to Teller, TC
Information on shipping records
— Teller correspondence with Leon Fredrich, TC
“never missed, no matter …”
— CJS, p. 68
“The cry arose at once …”
— Recollection of second mate, Frederick Hinckley, as cited by Suzanne J. Stark in “Mates at Sea,”
Seaport
, Spring, 1986, p. 29.
“blackbirding”
— CJS, p. 69
Pg. 37
“Up through the cracks …”
— Ibid., p.87
“Only in forests …
— Ibid., p. 87
“Indian blood”
— Ben Aymar Slocum to Teller, TC
“was trained to ride horses …”
— Ibid.
“Two of my children …”
— JS in a letter to John W. Edmonds, New York, May 3, 1890, TC
“a great success”
— Ibid., TC
“the ocean is no place …”
— Ben Aymar Slocum to Teller, TC
“made all comfortable outfits …”
— JS in a letter to John W. Edmonds, New York, May 3, 1890, TC
“all in twenty gold pieces …”
— Ibid., TC
Virginia’s letter
— photostat in Teller Collection
“Father took the wheel …”
— Ben Aymar Slocum to Teller, TC
“Any man who can sail …”
— Ibid., TC
“the lady who stood beside”
— Ibid., TC
“As beautiful as her name”
— JS in letter to cousin, Joel Slocum, May 4, 1899, TC
“his best command”
— SAAW, p. 3
“I had a right to be proud …”
Ibid., p. 3
“very much like the study …”
CJS, p. 147
“He simply revelled …”
— Ibid., p. 147
Victor’s recollection of comic book
— Ibid., p. 128
“a lot of chuckling over them”
— Jessie Slocum in correspondence with Teller, TC
“Father and mother always encouraged us …”
— Ibid., TC
“field day”
— CJS, p. 146
“How I loved to see her …”
— Ben Aymar Slocum in letter to Teller, TC
“She was an excellent cook …”
— Jessie Slocum in correspondence with Teller, TC
“Mother was a remarkable woman …”
— Ibid., TC
“deck piled with yams …”
— CJS, p. 137
“We had monkeys”
— Ibid., p. 138
“typical American sailor …”
— Excerpt from “An American Family Afloat”
“Virginia was most kind to me …”
— Emma Slocumb [sic] Miller in correspondence with Teller, October 28, 195?, TC
“Two incidents come to mind …”
— Ibid., TC
“two striking thoughts …”
— excerpt from “An American Family Afloat”
New York Tribune
, Jun 26, 1882.
“at the scant mercy …”
— “Rescue of Some Gilbert Islanders,” VJS, p. 387 [Originally published as an appendix to the 1890 edition of
Voyage of the Liberdade]
“When we behold …” — Slocum quoting Sinbad the Sailor
— Ibid., p. 390
“slop chest”
— CJS, p. 164
“at a loss to know …”
— VJS, p. 391
Chapter Four —
Ebb and
Flow
Letter from Slocum to Mrs. Walker (Virginia’s mother), TC
“When she died, father never …”
— Garfield Slocum in letter to Teller, TC
“not a martinet …”
—
Boston Sun
, August 3, 1894, TC
“My brother met …”
— Grace Murray Brown in letter to Teller, December 14, 1952, TC
“I now see …”
— Special dispatch to the
Boston Herald
, New York, June
12, 1884, TC
“Slater said he came voluntarily …”
— Ibid.
“ignominiously towed by the nose …”
— SAAW, p. 3
“the nearest in perfection of beauty”
— Ibid.
“constant alarms”
— CJS, p. 180
“Her heart was not strong …”
— Jessie Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC
“the stateroom doors …”
— Garfield Slocum, memories in letters to Teller, TC
“The deck house was …”
— Ibid.
“as close to a yacht …”
— Victor Slocum, noted in Teller correspondence, TC
“She left her needle …”
— Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC
“she often fainted …”
— Ben Aymar Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC
[Walter Teller advanced a theory regarding Virginia’s death in
The Search for Captain Slocum
(1956), but not in the revised 1971 edition: “In such sanitation as a sailing ship could spare for a woman in childbirth, would not be unlikely to lead to infection, and to a rheumatic heart.”]
“Thy will be done …”
— noted in Teller correspondence, TC
[According to Ben Aymar Slocum, his father brought down the family bible (Virginia’s), as he had for other shipboard deaths. Ben Aymar wrote Teller that he’d seen “more than once when weighted bodies went sliding along a plank or board over the main deck bulwark.”]
“Mother’s eyes were a brilliant …”
— Ben Aymar Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC
“on many occasions …”
— Ibid.
“learned to understand …”
— Ibid.
“ill fortunes gathered rapidly …”
— Ibid.
Snapping of piano wires …
— Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC
“a ship with a broken rudder”
— Ibid., TC
“Hettie was no doubt bedazzled …”
— Grace Murray Brown, TC
“for out on the Atlantic …”
— VJS,
Voyage of the “Liberdade,”
Ch. 1, p. 42
“Crew were picked up …”
— Ibid., p. 55
“A change of rats …”
— Ibid., p. 58
“looming up like …”
— Ibid., p. 58
“fearfully out of tune”
— Ibid., p. 59
“suffering, I should say …”
— Ibid., p. 59
“Arming myself, therefore …”
— Ibid.
“gang of cut-throats”
— Ibid.
“I could not speak …”
— Ibid.
“A man will defend …”
— Ibid.
“his chills turned to …”
— Ibid., p. 66
“wet, and lame and weary …”
— Ibid., p. 68
“I listened to the solemn splash …”
— Ibid., p. 69
“drifting pest house”
— Ibid., p. 70
“what it cost me …”
— Ibid., p. 71
“We came to a stand …”
— Ibid., p. 72
“Currents and wind caught her foul …”
— Ibid., p. 74
“Father lost all of his money …”
— Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC
“This was no time …”
— VSJ,
Voyage of the Liberdade
, p. 74
“she should sail well …”
— Ibid., p. 76
“a megre kit”
— PANS
Pg. 70
“But all that …”
— Ibid., p. 77
“Madam had made the sails …”
— Ibid., p. 80
“The old boating trick …”
— PANS
“Father had a lot of nerve …”
— Garfield Slocum in Teller correspondence, TC
“the thin cedar planks …”
— VJS,
Voyage of the Liberdade
, p. 93
“the most exciting …”
— PANS
“Oh, I hope not …”
— Ibid., TC
“left those of the south …”
— Ibid., p. 104
“A phantom of the stately Aquidneck …”
— Ibid., p. 104
Chapter Five —
What Was There for an Old Sailor
to Do?