The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1869-06-24
TIE HEROINE OF LAKE ERIE

The dark, stormy close of November,
1854, found many vessels on Lake Erie,
but the fortunes Of one alone have special
interest for us. About that time tho
Schooner Conductor, owned by John
Mcleod of the Provincial Parliament,
resident of Amhersburg, at the mouth Of
the Detroit River, entered the lake from
that river, bound for Port Dalhousie, at
the mouth Of the Welland Canal. She
was heavily loaded with grain. Her
crew consisted of Captain Hacket, High
lander by birth, and skilful and expert
enced navigator and six sailors. At
night-fall, shortly after leaving the head
of the lake, one of those terrific storms,
with which the late autumnal navigators
of tha! ''Sea of the Woods" are all toe
familiar, overlook them. The weather
was intensely cold for the season the air
was filled with snow and sleet the chilled
water made ice rapidly, encountering the
schooner, and loading down her decks and
rigging. AS the gale increased, the tops
Of the waves were shorn off by the fierce
blasts, clcuding the whole atmosphere
with frozen spray, or what the sailors call
''spoondrift,' rendering it impossible to
see any object few rods distant. Driv
ing helplessIy belure the wind, yet in the
direction Of its place of destination, the
schooner sped through the darkness. AT
last, near midnight, running closer than
her crew supposed to the Canadian Shore,
she struck on the outer bar OFF Long Point
Island, beat heavily across it, and sunk in
tho deepest water between it and the in-
ner bar. The hull was entirely sub
merged, the waves rolling in heavily, and
dasbing over the rigging, 10 which the
crew betook themselves Lashed there,
numb with cold, drenched by the pitiIess
waves and scourged by the pitiless wind,
they waited for morning. The slow
dreadful hours wore away, and at length
the dubious and doubtful gray of Il morn
ing tempest succeeded to the utter dark
ness of night.
Abigail Becker chanced at that time 10
be in her hut with none but her young
| children. Her husband was absent on
the Canada shore, and she was left the
sole adult occupant of the island save the
light-keeper at lis lower end, some fifteen
miles Off. Looking out at daylight on the
beach in front Of her door, she saw the
shattered boat OF the Conductor, cast
! upon the waves. Her experience Of storm
and disaster on that dangerous coast
needed nothing moro to convince her that
somewhere III her neighborhoUd human
life had been, or still was, in peril, She
followed the southwesterly tread Of the
island for a little distance, and peering
! through the gloom Of the stormy morning,
disccrned the spars of the sunken schoon-
er, with what seemed TO be human forms
! clinging to the rigging. The heart of the
strong woman sunk within her as she
gazed upon those helpless fellow>crea-
! lures, no near, yet SO unapproachable.
She had no boat and none could have
lived on that wild water. After mo-
ments reflection she went back to her
dwelling, put her smaller children in
charge of the eldest, took with her an iron
kettle, tin teapot, and some matches, and
returned to the beach at the nearest point
to the vessel and gathering up the logs
aud drift wood always abundant on the
coast, kindled great fire, and, constantly
walking back and furih between it and the
| water, strove to intimate to the sufferers
that they were at least not beyond human
sympathy. AS the wrecked sailors look~
ed shoreward, and saw through the thick
haze of snow and sleet, the red light of the
fire, and the tall figure of the woman walk
ing TO and fro before it, faint hope took
the place of utter despair, which had
prompted them to let go their hold and
drop into see thing waters that opened and
closed about them like the jaws of death.
But the day wore on, bringing no abate-
ment to the storm that tore through the
fraiI spars, and clutched and tossed them
as it passed, and drenched them with ice
cold spray,-a pitiless, unrelentisg horror