The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1872-05-31

| Tne sleep no more entnrall,
| The fountains flash in sunshine,
And summer bless us all.
Rose Terry, in HdTPer's Magazine for Jane.
SMisfellallepas.
STORIES OF SHIPWRECK
BY ABBY SAGE RICHARDSON.
From the Christian Union.
All families have their own prlvat,
and personal traditions. Ours--prob
ably because so many generations O
us have been born and died by th,
sea-are always OF shipwreck. In al
the stories told in my childhood, il
the twilight, or by the winter fireside
1 scarcely remember one that has moi
for its central point of interest the
figure of lost, dismantled ship, with
many freighting souls within her
going down in black. angry waters.
The first shipwreck / remember to
have heard about, for many years
tinged my childish dreams with some
of the hues OF its own melancholy.
1t was that of my grandfather, who
sailed away from Salem harbor one
bright summer morning, many, many
years before I was born. He was 0
vigorous, handsome man, they said,
and walked his ships deck like al
emperor. From the long wharf run.
ming out into the hsrbor- then so full
OF life and hustle, now so dead to e..
the STRINGS OF fcommerce--mY grand
mother, holding her little son by the
hand, looked her last upon the re-
treating sails, after the form OF her
husband had blerded with his ship.
And from the moment that her eyes
thus bade him farewell, it is not
known that any mortal eyes ever
again beheld that doomed vessel. In
the language of tie story, as l heard
i.-listening with childish, vague awe,
"neither the ship nor the captain, moi
any of tie men, were ever seen OF
heard of afterward."
There we're many conjectures abou,
their fate. One l remember was that
some reyengeful British man-Of-waI
had found the lonely merchantmen
on the high seas and had burned heI
to the waters edge. For it was just
after the peace of the war OF Isl:
that my grandfather sailed on this ill
iated voyage, and many of his goot
friends thought then that pirates an.
Britishers were words OF the sams
coin. There was report also, which
somewhat aided this conjecture, hon
Boston captain coming from long
| cruise, had passed, one night, far ou
at sea, the hull OF burning vessel
and sailed cautiously around to find
if he could, any living man about he
sides, a sudden burst of flame hat
lighted up her figurehead and showed
him the name of the missing ship
No living creature was seen Or heart
near her, and the story, as it was told
sounded SO dim and unreal that i
seemed like little more than tanc,
of his who told it. This report, how
ever, suggested the hope that som
of the ships crew had got away il
boats, and that they might some tim
be heard from. The hope had die'
out many years before l heard tn
story, but it revived in my childis
brain, ahd for years l had q secre
fancy that the cid man, whose hai
and beard had turned silver gray il
the long, sad years, was waiting o
some solitary isle, like Alexande
Selkirk, for a friendly ship to TAX
him home. Many time, thinkin
the story over, my heart has be:
rapturously at the thought OF th
! welcome / would give the tired, shiI
wrecked wsnderer, and imaginatio
has throbbed with visions of ii
I strange stories his exile would |
: rich in.
There was another shipwreck whit
= fascinated me strongly, although
!; had none of the mystery in its trsg
p y ending which gave the last such
d hold upon my imagination. The b
i 70 of this tsle was the husband OF
& great aunt, who, in spite of her We
d erable title, wears an imm or,al ha
e OF youth and beauty in my fanC
d She was q bIide-a bride oil hard
e six months duration-when her hi
q band sailed out of a little harbor
It the Massachusetts coast, leaving b
G. in little village that nestled do
re there by the bleak sea. Up to Il
Il day tradition has not forgotten wi
er a blithe, sweet voice she had, q
d, what bonny brown hair. A month
OF two after the little vessel went aw
ID l-she was only q coast tradi
X schooner sudden sea stoi N CO
III up; and while the anxious dwell
on shore were waiting to sec the fl
i'd of startled fishing boats outside
st harbor come in for sale anch
Se a age, they all at once described I
"; schooner beating upon some sh'
te rotks, only mile or two frori sho
n 1t was SO lar that no help cculi rel
or the vessel or crew in such G stol
he yet not SO lar but all eyes on IL
could see every molten of the stri
uti en- vessel. For hours they watei
m, ns her till the cruel rock had gored
~ through and through, and the !
,S :Ro plank with its helpless, struggl
lis, freight had gone under the boil
+. surge. With the other watchers
hn ia' shore stood the happy BRIDE OF
ne months, her beautiful hair stream
re- re- in the salt wind, and her sweet VI
ew hoarse with anguish as she criet
c earth and heaven for help for
or i. sinking boat. Sand although uF
ser, that time her hair had never show
art art. single thread of gray,' SO ran
n1ry story in my girlish ears, "and tho
les, she was barely twenty-icur years
Bun Bfaun when she saw her husbands vt
ler, 60 down so cruelty under her
o%n. % eyes, in less than q week from
1n, day she saw him drown, her hair
v" turned as white ss drifted tn'
.s,a : a She never married again, alth(
said her voice grew blithe once more
aale ade made cheerful music in the hom'
her many kinsfolk, till her face
old TO match the bleached hair.
said Another of my shipwrecks
me me flavor of India's coral strand.
fund of another klnswoman who went
i be lopg voyage with her husband.
Rai,. Raul. was an East India merchant, D
Idges to China and the ports of Cal
and Bombay. He had little boz
), fitted up on board his ship for b,
oun. whose furnishing all foreign
had been made tributary, and