Year: 1872

mander 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
arrived abreast of where she had been
frozen in, the ice was broken up to within
five miles of the land, and the schooner was
gone.


Three weeks passed and all remained
uncertain with regard to the fate Of the
Western Trader and her brave boy com
mander, when she was heard from az ain on
the Canada side, some fifty miles to- the
westward uf her former position. But be-
fore relief could be sent to her there came
on violent gale from the westward which
troke up the ice. ard he was borne away
down the lake embedded in field of more
than hundred acres.


Next she was seen of Erie, hundred
miles westward OF Buffalo, and they could
not even see the boy on her deck but it
was almost night-to board her was impos.
sible, and at daylight oD the following
morning she had disappeared.


And there was only small stock of pro
visions on board when she left Cleve-
land, people wondered how the boy had
subssted all that 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 in various
parts of the lake but always too far off to
discover anything about her distinctly,
only that there was always smoke coming
out of the funnel of her cabin stove


At last, one sunday afternoon in the
month of April, about week after The
western part Of the lake was clear of ice, a
s, hooner under just the head of her fnresail
was ,ep ten miles outside the harbor of
Cleveland as she same bravely in between
the piers thousands of people on the shore
and ranged along the wharves recognized
ber as the truant Western Trader, and the
brave little fellow at her helm as Frank
Merrill, the winter rover who had now
returned in safety from his dreary and
solitary ice voyage Such welcome as
England would have accorded to Sir John
rankin, had he escaped from his ice rib
bed Arctic prison and returned to his
native land. was given by the citizens of
Cleveland to the young ice voyager Frank
Merrill.


People wondered a. first how he subsist-
ed, but when they saw his conditional face,
his liberal supply Of boiled and parched
corn, and the way he cut away the schooners
rail, wiudlass aud the joiner work of the
cabin for fuel they wondered no longer.


The young commander Of the winter
cruise got his twelve dollars a 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. Merril's hands for her
son, by Mr.. Denison.


Long before the summer was over, there
was no Mrs Merrill in Cley Gland, and
those who inquired for her at her former
residence were directed to beautiful man.
sion on the bank of the lake. some two
mites from town, where they were sure to
find the rich Mrs. Denison just as courte-
GUS aud happy to meet them as ever the
poor widow Merrill had been.


Frank Merrill is at the present time one
of the most gen:lemanly as we'll as popular
steamboat captains on Lake Erie. Aud
one of the noblest traits in his character is,
that he still loves respects, 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.