Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-05
THEY KNOW NO FEAR
Merry Whitehall Boatmen Of
Y York Harbor.
A PERILOUS BUSINESS
OUT ON THE WATER IN ALL SORTS
OF WEATHER.
Dare the Eiercest Gales in Their Tiny
Skiffs-Tales of
Daring.
A PERILOUS BUSINESS


written for The Evening Star by Bassett staines.
OF all the men who follow the sea there
are none drawer and tougher than the
whitehall boatmen who ply their trade at
tie port of New York, carrying passengers.
seamen and owners agents out to ships
which do not come alongside the wharves
aud docks. They are called Whitehall boat
men, after their boats, which follow the
model of the skiffs in which Dibdin's Jolly
young watermen' used TO ply from White
hall Stairs. the Thames.
When winter grips the river with it's icy
hand and the bay is full of small icebergs,
and wrapped in a pail of fog or lashed by
a northwest gale. these men go about in
their tiny skffs as nonchalantly as If they
were navigating 4 park lake in midsum-
mer Rarely. indeed, is the weather so bad
that they will not go out in the open sea,
far beyond Sandy Hook. if necessary. If
passengers can be found to take the risk
they are willing.
Years ago when sailing ships came more
frequently TO New York and tugboats were
not so plentiful, there were hundreds of
Whitehall hoatmen for vessels anchored
in great numbers off the Hook and around
the mouth of the Hudson Now only about
a SCbie VI THESE me- ola lONSSnOrelnen are
left. They find it hard to make a living.
and their number grows less every year.
Most OF them have been in the business for
a generation or more. and have plenty of
stories to tell about their adventures
CuriOuSly enough, the oldest men in the
business can only remember one or two
cases OF q Whitehall boatman being
drowned, although they daily run what ap-
pears to landsman to be appalling risks.
There is one man now plying off the Bat
terry whose boat has been twice cut down
by steamship in fog He escaped both
times-and grumbled each time because his
savings had been swept away by the loss
of the boat.
Take Big Chances.
Every cent I had in the world was lost
when my first boat was cut i'm two" he
said. Then l went to work for a couple
of years for other men, and saved enough
money to get another boat hadn't had
1t more than a month before it went down
Just like the other. But I've kept the one
l have now for pretty near a dozen years
and nothing has ever happened to me
though was out one night in tearing
gale, OFF the Hook, which sunk three big
windiammers."
There is one gnarled, wfzened old boat
man who has worked. man and boy. for
over sixty years on the broad waters of
the port lie was apprenticed to his uncle
as a Whitehall boatman in the days when
fe''ioI ms ihtiI sun turned their heads a
second time to look at the uncommon siobt
OF steamship in New York harbor He
Ieft the harbor for three or four yea to
hsht Ior old Abe Lincoln in those stormy
years of the sixties
When you talk to him about IL x,o,, die
cover that he knew and cared nothing
accut the rights and wrongs of that s,i
preme struggle; but he once heard Lin
lin speak; and eyer after that moment
him. s'Spei "
Inc river grows upon man." said this
ancient mariner To some of ,,s If he
comes more than meat or drink. more than
wife or child. 1t grips Won and vo,, canrt
get away from it, however much Won may
try. ~" may
No Longer Pays.
Inc trade of a Whitehall boatman
doesn't pay rs it used to do in NV vouns
days, and several times I've tried to get
out of 1t and into something more nrofit-
able. Once spent a summer trading down
10 the San Bias coast for cocoanuts in a
trim little schooner part owned bv nv
NEPHEW. lie was skipper and was mate
II was good enough job. but couldn't
stand sailing under a kid I'd spanked not
50 many years before. 1t seemed only YES
terday that his mother used TO ask mo 70
Eve MN good thrashing because he
PidJeu uuant While his father was avay
az sea: course, 1t came natural to me to
KIND o order him about and he used M re-
nina me-quite nasty-that he was tho
skipper OF the ship AT last we came TO
scrap on Magua, and he threatened TO
put me in irons. That was too much for
me, SO went ashore. with all NV trans
on the beach. Next week an Atlas liner
put m and worked my way on her TO
Whitehall boat oiio'leI
We been whaling, too and deem wafer
saiing several times; but l never could
70 No 20 u / always wanted to get back
nv, oS,'r , foTk' and be my own skipper of
my own httle craft. There's nothin' like IT
II funny to see how scared deem ya+ar
sailors get in our little boats when tbere's
anytning ike sea on. Course, We are
-. -, ~ 10 OUT IN pretty nearly any kind
weather Half, a gale o. wind or the
tHickest KIND of fog makes no differences
10 u.s. Our principal business is takine nneo
OUT 10 windjammers that lie wav down
INC ilEer' OH SANDY Hook or beyond.
Skipper Was Scared.
remember once taking out a skinner
OF Nova Scotia bark who was famous for
his pluck all through the Nova Scotia
trade That man would fight whole crew
single-handed or crack on sail in the teeth
OF hurricane. But when l got him out in
my little boat he was scared to death.
There was tidy sea running. but I'd
Deen out in lots worse weather Before we
had got quarter of a mile from the wharf
I ne began TO hdget and suggest that we had
better go back and wait till the wind went
DOWN. Then, as we climbed up some of the
Dig waves and slumped down them. lust
IKE shooting the chutes at Coney Island
ne turned blue and green and all kinds of
colors and swore that l had brought him
out To drown him.
When we got alongside his bark at last
she was saving up and down on her cable
chaln pretty flercely. and he clean lost his
nerve and refused to jump for the pilot
ladder. lie kept me tossing up and down
there Tor quarter OF an hour while his
Zoe sic hands leaned over the side and
srinned at him. At last he screwed up his
courage and made the jump, fell short. and
got ducking. / hauled him up by the col
lar. and his men lusged him over the side
on a rope.
No sooner did he feel his feet on his
own deck again than all his pluck returned
10 MIN: What do you Iubbers mean by
GRIMM at me-? he yelled. and he sailed
INTO those foe sic hands like prize fighter
when rowed away the fight was still
going on but he had laid out a couple of
them, and was getting all the best OF it,
When Women Are Aboard.
'Plnck's n queer thing You would think
woman would be scared in a little craft
Ike mine. but I've carried hundreds of
them, and l never knew one who was