The Portland daily press., 1886-07-31
Death of a Prominent Aroostook
Man.
LocKEDIN THE FoRECASTLE.
Mutiny on Board the Maine Schoon-
er John X. Louther.

PHILADELPHIA, July 29.-The schooner
John K. Louther of Bangor, Me-, arrived at
this port today with the crew. save the cap
tain and two men, locked in the forecastla
The prisoners were mutineers and had been
81 hours without food. The schooner came
into port flying signal of distress, and po-
lice tug Stokly went to her assistance and
took the men off, put them in irons and car
ried them to the United States commission
er's office. Capt James w. Bolano, the
owner of the schooner, told the following
story: 'On July 10 we sailed from Camden,
Me-, at 5 O'Clock p. N. Two hours later the
crew, which consisted of mate, second
mate, cook and five Seamen were ordered to
clean up the ship. The five men, whose
names are Carl Ferdinand Berg, Charles
August Anderson, Swedes, Joseph Heroine,
Antona Kaiser, Germans, and Theodore
Bunster, Norwegian, refused to work. They
threatened my life unless l allowed them to
do as they liked | again ordered them to
work, but the mutineers went In a body to
the,forecastle, when we turned the key on
them, and since that time until noon today
those five men were confined in the forecas
tie and were fed on bread and water. The
mate, second mate cook and myself worked
the schooner from Camden, Me-, to PhIladel-
phia Three times we had to heave the 5000
Lound anchor, the work of half a dozen men.
1t was hard work, and that is why we were
so energetic in isignaling the police boat L
asked the men three times to return to work,
but they refused, so kept them there, and a
hungry lot of men they must be-
The mems statement does not agree with
that of the captain. Through the bars of
the door of the lookup they told their story:
"Hunger is no name for it," said Joseph
Heroine, who says he has wife and child
at Salem, Mass. 1--WE are nearly starved. 1t
was because we We're hungry that we refused
to wash the decks and do lot of other work.
1t was O'Clock, and we had been hard at
work from 5 in the morning. We told the
captain that we were hungry, and asked that
we be given our supper before being required
to perform unnecessary labor. He refused,
and we refused to work. He wanted us to
keep anchor watch at o'clock, but we said
not until he fed us. At 1 o'clock the next
morning the anchorwas weighed, and two
hours later we went into the forecastle hum
CRY. The captain turned the key on us, and
in that hole he kept US until the police came
aboard today. We had nothing to eat for q
hours, and then the captain gave each of us
a ships biscuit. Fifty-there hours after we
were locked up we got another biscuit and
some water Nineteen hours later the cap
tain gave us another biscuit. We had had
nothing but three biscuits like these SHOW
ing a fiat round cracker about three inches
in dameter) for go hours. They kept us on
three biscuits every day until the last two
days, when they gave us herring in the
morning and small quantity of corn meal
mush for dinner. We are nearly dead with
hunger"
Commissioner Edmunds heard both sides
of the case, and decided that the crews Of
fence was very serious one. He commit
ted them all to Moyamensing prison in de-
fault of bail.