St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-15
TIRELEss VIGIL.
fWenty-Five Years Spent In
Watching for Ships.


San Francisco Call.
A Sunday visit paid to John Hyslop,
the lonely marine reporter at Point Lo-
pos, found that individual watching for
ships. John Hyslop always watches
Tor them. To him the when my ship
comes in is lifelong refrain.
twenty-five years ago Jack as he
is best known, began his solitary vigil,
and has kept his tireless watch cease
lessly for century's quarter. While
others standing on this margin of the
continent have looked eastward across
the mountains this Waterman has kept
his eyes fixed over the Western sea.
He Is a sort of warder at the gate.
Not a craft goes out between daydawn
and eve but is noted and told over the
electric wire to the Merchants ex-
change in the city. With his glass he
follows her beyond the horizons verge
and until the mist curtains Of the sea
close down and shut her away from
view. Nothing comes in over the swell
or the ocean but is seen and reported
IN the halls where the busy men of
commerce deal in the interchangeable
commodities Of the world.
Many glad messages has John Hyslop
sent down into the city over his electric
Wlre-meSsages to waiting hearts for
the ship that fingered in her coming.
Yet many have listened in vain for It'd
ings John Hyslop has never been able
to tell. The great voiceless sea stops
not in it's eternal ebb and flow to speak
of the ships that have passed down in
the night of it's deep waters.
Years ago-forty and more of them,
In fact-the fleets of the merchant
world began to sail in through the
Golden Gate. Point Lobos was a
dreary place-sand and rocks and
shrubs that only made the place more
desolate. The fog and the gulls flying
above like white wraiths of the lost at
sea, and the surge and seal growing
below like monsters from the caves of
the deep, were the comrades of the
Waterman on the hill.
Then the fleets began to come in
and the marine reporter took his place
on the harbor gate. About five years
after the civil war John Hyslop came
to the station, and he has seen the
commerce of new Yerba Buena grow
ship by ship.
II have counted sixty sails at one
time down there" said he, pointing
to the segment Of ocean bounded by
the arc of horizon before him. BE
tween the heads and out from Point
Pedro to Point Reyes the white of the
canvas dotted the blue of the sea.
From this altitude above the water,
go feet, l can see when clear, about
thirty miles, and just as soon as a YES
sci raises her signal flags above the
circle of the sea know her.
Have 1 seen many interesting things
down on the ocean? Oh, yes! Not
many wrecks. Those disasters take
place in the fog and the night and
can be heard, hardly seen. My most
important find was the City of Picking
when she was so long overdue from
China several years ago. Knowing
how many were anXiouSly awaiting the
news of her appearance the first
glimpse of the big steamer out by the
Farallones was the most beautiful
sight l ever witnessed.
"A marine reporter always consid-
cred the coming in of a given-up-for-
y, lost. ship a sort of personal victory,
as if he had been specially sent out
on the heads to find her. Many times
when l hear of the wreck of a vessel
my mind goes back to the last view I
got of her as she disappeared over
the sea departing from this port.
Often ship will go out to return
years after so little changed in appear
-ance, it seems that she had only been
out of view a short period of time"
!, This is the sentimental side of life
tonithe lookout, yet John Hyslop isn't
"a talker, and hesitates in the telling
OF things he has seen in the lonely
vigil of years.
- But he watches with his glass out
through the windows of his small
house always. When the fog hides
him In bank of whiteness he goes
down to the beach and looks along the
waves, watching for the ocean-weary
snip creeping to anchorage, and
then he puts word into the electric wire
that tells of her coming.