Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1875-04-09


of water between them and the shore
was half q mile wide, the ice having
broken one mile out from the land and
the immense. field upon which they
stood floating steadily further out to sea.
1t was now quite dark, the party were
exhausted and but half clad, and they
prepared for the terrible cold which
soon set in. At first it rained until they
were all wet to the skin. The rain then
turned to sleet and snow, the wind
veered to the northward and the cold be-
came intense, the fierce blasts of wind
cutting them to the bone. Then began
the effort for life, the men stamping
their feet, running madly about, and the
more sturdy encouraging the weak and
faltering. The cold still increased until,
as Mooney says, it had reached degree
of intensity not equaled before in that
latitude during the winter
AT midnight the cold and exhaustion
began to tell upon the doomed ones in
the little party. First one and then
another of them would lie down saying
that he could go no further. The others
would pick them up and try to keep
them on their feet, but after reeling for
a short distance like drunken men they
would fall senseless upon the ice and
die without struggle. Those able to
keep their feet had enough to do to
keep themselves from falling into the
fatal lethargy, and with sad hearts each
victim was left to his fate. Father or
son or brother saw each other fall and
were powerless to help. When morning
dawned seven corpses were counted at
intervals upon the ice, and of the re-
mainder none could tell who was to be the
next victim.
A field of ice twenty feet square
foated near the brink of the ice in the
open water, upon which nine of them
got, hoping that it would float toward
the shore ice and they could thus save
themselves. When it had fioated 300
yards from the ice upon which their
comrades stood it grounded, and the un-
fortunates remained upon it for three
days ana nights, during which time six
of them died, the other three being those
picked up by the schooner George
s. Fogg On the 9th of March.
When it is remembered that seven
perished the first night, it is wonderful
that even three of the nine on the small
ice-feld escaped alive, they having en-
dured hunger as well as the cold. All
the food they had in all that time was a
small whitefish, which was frozen in the
ice. This they divided between them.
Of the three men two are on the Nurn-
berg, viz John Fuer, in the ships hos
pital, badly frozen, and James Peddle.
The eighteen men remaining after the
nine floated off on the small ice-field
made their way back to the abandoned
brig, which was tightly jammed in the
ice and was carried with it. All expect
ed to die in her, and some of them had
lost their senses before reaching her the
second time. There were no stores on
the brig, and they su5sisted on molasses,
a few oranges and edible scraps that could
be found. The fishermen, who admit
they are unlettered, could not read her
name, but knew she was not English.
The crew had left On the ice for Hollow
road, village near st. Mary's, March 1.
The brig moved with the ice for week
in sight of the land, and the fishermen
were on her ten days.
At length one evening at sunset
schooner was seen four miles away,
which had been caught in the same field
that imprisoned the brig. That night
the half -famished men held council,
and determined to reach the schooner
next day or die in the effort. Next morn
ing at daylight they embarked in the
briggs small boat, which could scarcely
hold them all, and after struggling
through the ice nearly all day reached
the schooner George S. Fogg and were
saved. There they met the three surviv-
ors of their nine comrades who left them
nearly two weeks before; the three, sim
gularly enough, having been saved by
the same vessel which rescued the other
eighteen. Cart. Spence gave them plenty
of food, and if the prayers of those grate-
full, honest, poor Irish fishermen can
avail to make his future life prosperous
he will never want of this earth's
stores. The twentyone fishermen
and crew of seven over-crowded the
little schooner, but the Captain had food
enough for all, and all the discomfort
they experienced was from their circum-
scribed quarters. Some of the most ro-
bust of the party perished, and some of
the more frail escaped, among them the
boy James Grace.
On that terrible night, March 2, the
boy and other delicate ones were placed
in the middle of the throng as they
stood or moved about, and thus secured
some shelter. To question as to how
the news would be received in st.
Mary's, Mooney replied, as he brushed a
tear away: "There is now mourning in
every household, for they do not know
any of us are saved" He said he had
SIX children, and that some of those who
died have families equally as large. The
ten men were taken in charge by the
British Consul, who will send them home
in the Caspian, which goes to Halifax
this week.
The other evening when Sixth
street father boxed his sons ears as a
punishment for impudence the lad stood
before him and remarked: "See here,