Year: 1872

i
in the office at the time..


Within two hours more efficient
I commander with eight fearless fellows,
who agreed to stay by the vessel till
. they got her into port somewhere, set
out from Cleveland to board her; but
when they had arrived abreast of
where she had been frozen in, the ice
was broken up within five miles OF the
land, and the schooner was gone.


Three weeks passed, and all remain
ed uncertain with regard to the Wes-
tern Trader and her brave boy COM
mander, when she was heard from
again on the Canada side, some fifty
miles westward of her former position.
But before relief could be sent to her
there came on a violent gale from the
westward which broke up the ice, and
he was borne away down the lake
embedded in field of more than q
hundred acres.


Next she was seen off Erie, hun
dred miles westward Of Buffalo, and
they could not even see the boy on her
deck; but it was almost night-to
board her was impossible, and at day
light on the following morning she had
disappeared. And there was only a
small stock of provisions on board
when she left Cleveland, people won
dered how the boy had subsisted all
this time, and predicted his death by
Starvation provided the schooner
should live out the fierce winter gale.
Several times after her appearance off
Erie, the Western Trader was seen i'm
various parts of the lake, but always
too far off to discover anything about
her distinctly, only that there was
always smoke coming cut of the fun
mel of the cabin stove.


At last. one Sunday afternoon in the
month of April, about one week after
the western rart of the lake was clear
of ice, schooner under just the head
of her fOresale, was seen ten miles out
side the harbOr of Cleveland, and as
she came bravely between the piers,
thousands of people on the shore and
| along the wharves recognized her as
the Western Trader, and the little fel-
low at her helm as Frank Merrill, the
winter rover of the lake who had now
returned in safety from his dreary and
solitary voyage. Such a welcome as
England would have accorded to Sir
John Franklin, had he escaped from
his ice-ribbed Arctic prison and re-
turned to his native land, was given by
the citizens of Cleveland to the young
ice-voyager, Frank Merrill


People wondered at first how he had
subsisted, but when they saw his we'll
conditioned face, his liberal supply of
boiled and parched corn, and the way
in which he cut away the schOoner's
rail, MINDLESS, and joiner work of her
cabin for fuel, they wondered no
longer.


The young commander of the winter
cruiser got his twelve dollars month,
besides many handsome presents from
those who admired his courage and
fidelity, and when the Western Trader
was completely repaired, bill of sale
for One-half of her was placed in Mrs
Merrills hands for her son, by Mr..
DenisOn.


Long before the Summer was over,
there was no Mrs. Merrill in Cleve-
land. and those who inquired for her at
her former residence were directed to
the beautiful mansion on the bank
of the lake, some two miles from town,
where they would find the rich Mrs.
DenisOn just as courteous and happy
to meet them as ever the poor widow
Merrill had been.


Frank Merrill is at the present time
one of the most gentlemanly as we'll as
popular steamboat captains on Lake
Erie. And one of the nobIest traits in
his character is, that he still loves, re-
spects, and makes his home with his
mother; while Mr.. Denison he calls
father, and loves him quite as we'll as
if he really were his father.