The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-03-19

Though patient, powerful fellows oxen
seem better fitted for pulling carts and
plows than for heroic service.
Yet more than once oxen have helped
in more noble deeds. Certainly there
lived many years ago in New jersey a
yoke of oxen whose humble work deserves
to be known, though they themselves
have long been dead.
The British brig Quongo went ashore
one night in northeast storm, on the
New Jersey coast, and lay helpless in the
breakers.
The waves washed everything movable
from the deck and would have quickly
swept the sailors away had they not
climbed the masts and dashed themselves
fast. With every great wave the brig
rolled first toward then away from the
beach ana flung her heavy rnasts back and
forth like whips, and would have tossed
the sailors off into the breakers hao they
not been securely fastened.
The government had not vet built along
that coast its life-saving station houses;
though it had begun to think of ship
wrecked people and had provided in some
places a life car, mortar and line and
other things necessary to send the car
our to the wrecks; but it had not fur
nished any life-saving crews. 1t en-
ployed just one man at each of the few
places where it had a life car and ex-
pected him to get his neighbors to help
him in time of wreck.
The brig had gone ashore near the sta
ton known as 'tOld No. 81 The man
in charge OF the life car there was young
fisherman named John Dorsett. He was
a modest, quiet fellow, but as brave and
sensible and cecil as a man need be in
time of danger. Young Dorset lived
near theshed in which the car was shell
tered, and to help in his other business
he kept a yoke of oxen.
AS soon as it was light enough to dis
tinguish objects, Dcrsett went out on the
beach the morning of the wreck to look
for vessels in danger. The wind was
blowing so hard that be could scarcely
keep his footing and though rain fell
heavily at times, the wind blew the sand
sharply into his face as he stood looking
windward, nearly binding him.
But after moment he caught sight of
the rolling Quongo and saw she was in
great distress, and as it grew a little
lighter, he made out the men in the rig
ging. He knew he could not wait to
rouse the distant neighbors for help He
thought quickly. He went at once and
yoked up his oxen and made all haste
with the cart to the shed for the life car.
ana then nlmSelI lOaQeQ the mortar,
But the heavy car itself was
too much for him. Fortunately a
neighbor who had also spied the wreck
came running down. The two got the car
into the cart and started the oxen for the
beach AS they were leaving the shed, a
third man came running in and the three
were soon at the shore.
The mortar was set on the sand and
loaded by young Dorsett, while the two
men held over him the tarpaulin to keep
the powder dry. The mortar with a
double charge Of powder was fred, but it
was more of a chance shot than an aimed
one, for the wind blew in gusts, and
there could be no certainty whether there
would be gust or calm at the instant
of firing. Perhaps it was a good aim;
the ball went SO close to the foremost
that the line attached to it came near
enough to be caught by the mate in the
rigging.
Quickly he pulled in the thin line and
then drew TO the vessel the thicker one
and after that the great hawser on which
the car must swing and slip along. While
the mate was doing this the men on the
shore were digging in the sand TO bury
the sand anchor and setting up the
ssshears'' on which the shore hawser was
to rest and fixing the car to start along
the mighty rope.
Men work last in a wreck and by the
time the hawser had been drawn to the