DESCENT OF DELAWARE RIVER. -- MY FIRST CAMP. -- BOMBAY
HOOK. -- MURDERKILL CREEK. -- A STORM IN DELAWARE BAY. --
CAPSIZING OF THE CANOE. -- A SWIM FOR LIFE. -- THE
PERSIMMON GROVE. -- WILLOW GROVE INN. -- THE LIGHTS OF
CAPES MAY AND HENLOPEN.
Monday, November 9, was a cold, wet
day. Mr. Knight and the old,
enthusiastic gunsmith-naturalist of the city, Mr. John
Krider, assisted me to embark in my now
decked, provisioned, and loaded canoe. The
stock of condensed food would easily last me a
month, while the blankets and other parts of the
outfit were good for the hard usage of four or
five months. My friends shouted adieu as the
little craft shot out from the pier and rapidly
descended the river with the strong ebb-tide
which for two hours was in her favor. The
anchorage of the iron Monitor fleet at League
Island was soon passed, and the great city sank
into the gloom of its smoke and the clouds of
rainy mist which enveloped it.
This pull was an exceedingly dreary one. The
storms of winter were at hand, and even along
the watercourses between Philadelphia and
Norfolk, Virginia, thin ice would soon be forming in
the shallow coves and creeks. It would be
necessary to exert all my energies to get south
of Hatteras, which is located on the North
Carolina coast in a region of storms and local
disturbances. The canoe, though heavily laden,
behaved well. I now enjoyed the advantages
resulting from the possession of the new canvas
deck-cover, which, being fastened by buttons
along each gunwale of the canoe, securely
covered the boat, so that the occasional swash sent
aboard by wicked tug-boats and large schooners
did not annoy me or wet my precious cargo.
By two o'clock P. M. the rain and wind caused
me to seek shelter at Mr. J. C. Beach's cottage,
at Markus Hook, some twenty miles below
Philadelphia, and on the same side of the river.
While Mr. Beach was varnishing the little craft,
crowds of people came to feel of the canoe,
giving it the usual punching with their finger-nails,
"to see if it were truly paper." A young
Methodist minister with his pretty wife came also to
satisfy their curiosity on the paper question, but
the dominie offered me not a word of
encouragement in my undertaking. He shook his head
and whispered to his wife: "A wild, wild
enterprise indeed." Markus Hook derived its name
from Markee, an Indian chief, who sold it to the
civilized white man for four barrels of whiskey.
The next morning, in a dense fog, I followed
the shores of the river, crossing the Pennsylvania
and Delaware boundary line half a mile below
the "Hook;" and entered Delaware, the little state
of three counties. Thirty-five miles below, the
water becomes salt. Reaching New Castle,
which contained half its present number of
inhabitants before Philadelphia was founded, I
pulled across to the New Jersey side of the river
and skirted the marshy shore past the little Pea
Patch Island, upon which rises in sullen
dreariness Fort Delaware. West of the Island is
Delaware City, where the Chesapeake and
Delaware Canal, fourteen miles in length, has one
of its termini, the other being on a river which
empties into Chesapeake Bay. Philadelphia and
Baltimore steamboat lines utilize this canal in
the passage of their boats from one city to the
other.
After crossing Salem Cove, and passing its
southern point, Elsinborough, five miles and a
half below Fort Delaware, the inhospitable
marshes became wide and desolate, warning me
to secure a timely shelter for the night. Nearly
two miles below Point Elsinborough the high
reeds were divided by a little creek, into which I
ran my canoe, for upon the muddy bank could be
seen a deserted, doorless fish-cabin, into which I
moved my blankets and provisions, after cutting
with my pocket-knife an ample supply of dry
reeds for a bed. Drift-wood, which a friendly
tide had deposited around the shanty, furnished
the material for my fire, which lighted up the
dismal hovel most cheerfully. And thus I kept
house in a comfortable manner till morning,
being well satisfied with the progress I had
made that day in traversing the shores of three
states. The booming of the guns of wild-fowl
shooters out upon the water roused me before
dawn, and I had ample time before the sun arose
to prepare breakfast from the remnant of canned
ox-tail soup left over from last night's supper.
I was now in Delaware Bay, which was
assuming noble proportions. From my camp I crossed
to the west shore below Reedy Island, and, filling
my water-bottles at a farm-house, kept upon that
shore all day. The wind arose, stirring up a
rough sea as I approached Bombay Hook, where
the bay is eight miles wide. I tried to land upon
the salt marshes, over the edges of which the
long, low seas were breaking, but failed in
several attempts. At last roller after roller,
following in quick succession, carried the little craft on
their crests to the land, and packed her in a
thicket of high reeds.
I quickly disembarked, believing it useless to
attempt to go further that day. About an eighth
of a mile from the water, rising out of the salt
grass and reeds, was a little mound, covered by
trees and bushes, into which I conveyed my
cargo by the back-load, and then easily drew the
light canoe over the level marsh to the camp.
A bed of reeds was soon cut, into which the
canoe was settled to prevent her from being
strained by the occupant at night, for I was
determined to test the strength of the boat as
sleeping-quarters. Canoes built for one person are
generally too light for such occupancy when out
of water. The tall fringe of reeds which
encircled the boat formed an excellent substitute for
chamber walls, giving me all the starry blue
heavens for a ceiling, and most effectually
screening me from the strong wind which was blowing.
As it was early when the boat was driven ashore
I had time to wander down to the brook, which
was a mile distant, and replenish my scanty stock
of water.
With the canvas deck-cover and rubber
blanket to keep off the heavy dews, the first night
passed in such contracted lodgings was endurable,
if not wholly convenient and agreeable. The
river mists were not dispelled the next day until
nine o'clock, when I quitted my warm nest in
the reeds and rowed down the bay, which seemed
to grow broader as I advanced. The bay was
still bordered by extensive marshes, with here
and there the habitation of man located upon
some slight elevation of the surface. Having
rowed twenty-six miles, and being off the mouth
of Murderkill Creek, a squall struck the canoe and
forced it on to an oyster reef, upon the sharp
shells of which she was rocked for several
minutes by the shallow breakers. Fearing that the
paper shell was badly cut, though it was still
early in the afternoon, I ascended the creek of
ominous name and associations to the landing of
an inn kept by Jacob Lavey, where I expected to
overhaul my injured craft. To my surprise and
great relief of mind there were found only a few
superficial scratches upon the horn-like
shellacked surface of the paper shell. To apply
shellac with a heated iron to the wounds made
by the oyster-shells was the work of a few
minutes, and my craft was as sound as ever. The
gunner's resort, "Bower's Beach Hotel,"
furnished an excellent supper of oyster fritters,
panfish, and fried pork-scrapple. Mine host, before
a blazing wood fire, told me of the origin of the
name of Murderkill Creek.
"In the early settlement of the country,"
began the innkeeper, "the white settlers did all
they could to civilize the Indians, but the cussed
savages wouldn't take to it kindly, but worried
the life out of the new-comers. At last a great
landed proprietor, who held a big grant of land
in these parts, thought he'd settle the troubles.
So he planted a brass cannon near the creek,
and invited all the Indians of the neighborhood
to come and hear the white man's Great Spirit
talk. The crafty man got the savages before the
mouth of the cannon, and said, 'Now look into
the hole there, for it is the mouth of the white
man's Great Spirit, which will soon speak in tones
of thunder.' The fellow then touched off the
gun, and knocked half the devils into splinters.
The others were so skeerd at the big voice they
had heard that they were afraid to move, and
were soon all killed by one charge after another
from the cannon: so the creek has been called
Murderkill ever since."
I afterwards discovered that there were other
places on the coast which had the same legend
as the one told me by the innkeeper. Holders
of small farms lived in the vicinity of this tavern,
but the post-office was at Frederica, five miles
inland. Embarking the next day, I felt sure of
ending my cruise on Delaware Bay before night,
as the quiet morning exhibited no signs of rising
winds. The little pilot town of Lewes, near
Cape Delaware, and behind the Breakwater, is a
port of refuge for storm-bound vessels. From
this village I expected to make a portage of six
miles to Love Creek, a tributary of Rehoboth
Sound. The frosty nights were now exerting a
sanitary influence over the malarial districts
which I had entered, and the unacclimated
canoeist of northern birth could safely pursue his
journey, and sleep at night in the swamps along
the fresh-water streams if protected from the
dews by a rubber or canvas covering. My hopes
of reaching the open sea that night were to be
drowned, and in cold water too; for that day,
which opened so calmly and with such smiling
promises, was destined to prove a season of trial,
and before its evening shadows closed around
me, to witness a severe struggle for life in the
cold waters of Delaware Bay.
An hour after leaving Murderkill Creek the
wind came from the north in strong squalls.
My little boat taking the blasts on her quarter,
kept herself free of the swashy seas hour after
hour. I kept as close to the sandy beach of the
great marshes as possible, so as to be near the
land in case an accident should happen.
Mispillion Creek and a light-house on the north of
its mouth were passed, when the wind and seas
struck my boat on the port beam, and continually
crowded her ashore. The water breaking on
the hard, sandy beach of the marshy coast made
it too much of a risk to attempt a landing, as the
canoe would be smothered in the swashy seas if
her head way was checked for a moment.
Amidships the canoe was only a few inches out of
water, but her great sheer, full bow, and
smoothness of hull, with watchful management, kept her
from swamping. I had struggled along for
fourteen miles since morning, and was fatigued
by the strain consequent upon the continued
manoeuvring of my boat through the rough waves.
I reached a point on Slaughter Beach, where the
bay has a width of nearly nineteen miles, when
the tempest rose to such a pitch that the great
raging seas threatened every moment to wash
over my canoe, and to force me by their violence
close into the beach. To my alarm, as the boat
rose and fell upon the waves, the heads of
sharp-pointed stakes appeared and disappeared in the
broken waters. They were the stakes of
fishermen to which they attach their nets in the season
of trout-fishing. The danger of being impaled
on one of these forced me off shore again.
There was no undertow; the seas being driven
over shoals were irregular and broken. At last my
sea came. It rolled up without a crest, square
and formidable. I could not calculate where it
would break, but I pulled for life away from it
towards the beach upon which the sea was
breaking with deafening sound. It was only for
a moment that I beheld the great brown wave,
which bore with it the mud of the shoal, bearing
down upon me; for the next, it broke astern,
sweeping completely over the canoe from stern
to stem, filling it through the opening of the
canvas round my body. Then for a while the
watery area was almost smooth, so completely
had the great wave levelled it. The canoe
being water-logged, settled below the surface,
the high points of the ends occasionally
emerging from the water. Other heavy seas followed
the first, one of which striking me as high as my
head and shoulders, turned both the canoe and
canoeist upside-down.
A Capsize in Delaware Bay (100K)
Kicking myself free of the canvas deck, I
struck out from under the shell, and quickly
rose to the surface. It was then that the words
of an author of a European Canoe Manual came
to my mind: "When you capsize, first right the
canoe and get astride it over one end, keeping
your legs in the water; when you have crawled
to the well or cockpit, bale out the boat with
your hat." Comforting as these instructions
from an experienced canoe traveller seemed
when reading them in my hermitage ashore, the
present application of them (so important a
principle in Captain Jack Bunsby's log of life)
was in this emergency an impossibility; for my
hat had disappeared with the seat-cushion and
one iron outrigger, while the oars were floating
to leeward with the canoe.
The boat having turned keel up, her great
sheer would have righted her had it not been for
the cargo, which settled itself on the canvas
deck-cloth, and ballasted the craft in that
position. So smooth were her polished sides that it
was impossible to hold on to her, for she rolled
about like a slippery porpoise in a tideway.
having tested and proved futile the kind
suggestions of writers on marine disasters, and
feeling very stiff in the icy water, I struck out in an
almost exhausted condition for the shore. Now
a new experience taught me an interesting
lesson. The seas rolled over my head and
shoulders in such rapid succession, that I found I
could not get my head above water to breathe,
while the sharp sand kept in suspension by the
agitated water scratched my face, and filled my
eyes, nostrils, and ears. While I felt this
pressing down and burying tendency of the seas, as
they broke upon my head and shoulders, I
understood the reason why so many good
swimmers are drowned in attempting to reach the
shore from a wreck on a shoal, when the wind,
though blowing heavily, is in the victim's favor.
The land was not over an eighth of a mile away,
and from it came the sullen roar of the breakers,
pounding their heavy weight upon the sandy
shingle. As its booming thunders or its angry,
swashing sound increased, I knew I was rapidly
nearing it, but, blinded by the boiling waters, I
could see nothing.
At such a moment do not stop to make vows
as to how you will treat your neighbor in future
if once safely landed, but strike out, fight as you
never fought before, swallowing as little water
as possible, and never relaxing an energy or
yielding a hope. The water shoaled; my feet
felt the bottom, and I stood up, but a roller laid
me flat on my face. Up again and down again,
swimming and crawling, I emerged from the
sea, bearing, I fear, a closer resemblance to Jonah
(being at last pitched on shore) than to
Cabnel's Venus, who was borne gracefully upon
the rosy crests of the sky-reflecting waves to
the soft bed of sparkling foam awaiting her.
Wearily dragging myself up the hard shingle,
I stood and contemplated the little streams of
water pouring from my woollen clothes. A new
danger awaited me as the cold wind whistled
down the barren beach and across the desolate
marshes. I danced about to keep warm, and for
a moment thought that my canoe voyage had
come to an unfortunate termination. Then a
buoyant feeling succeeded the moment's
depression, and I felt that this was only the first
of many trials which were necessary to prepare
me for the successful completion of my
undertaking. But where was the canoe, with its
provisions that were to sustain me, and the charts
which were to point out my way through the
labyrinth of waters she was yet to traverse?
She had drifted near the shore, but would not
land. There was no time to consider the
propriety of again entering the water. The struggle
was a short though severe one, and I dragged
my boat ashore.
Everything was wet excepting what was most
needed, -- a flannel suit, carefully rolled in a
water-proof cloth. I knew that I must change
my wet clothes for dry ones, or perish. This
was no easy task to perform, with hands
benumbed and limbs paralyzed with the cold. O
shade of Benjamin Franklin, did not one of thy
kinsmen, in his wide experience as a traveller,
foresee this very disaster, and did he not, when
I left the "City of Brotherly Love," force upon
me an antidote, a sort of spiritual fire, which my
New England temperance principles made me
refuse to accept? "It is old, very old," he
whispered, as he slipped the flask into my coat-
pocket, "and it may save your life. Don't be foolish.
I have kept it well bottled. It is a pure article,
and cost sixteen dollars per gallon. I use it only
for medicine." I found the flask; the water
had not injured it. A small quantity was taken,
when a most favorable change came over my
entire system, mental as well as physical, and I
was able to throw off one suit and put on
another in the icy wind, that might, without the
stimulant, have ended my voyage of life.
I had doctored myself homoeopathically under
the old practice. Filled with feelings of
gratitude to the Great Giver of good, I reflected, as
I carried my wet cargo into the marsh, upon the
wonderful effects of my friend's medicine when
taken only as medicine. Standing upon the cold
beach and gazing into the sea, now lashed by
the wild frenzy of the wind, I determined never
again to do so mean a thing as to say a
word against good brandy.
Having relieved my conscience by this just
resolve, I transported the whole of my wet but
still precious cargo to a persimmon grove, on
a spot of firm land that rose out of the marsh,
where I made a convenient wind-break by
stretching rubber blankets between trees. On
this knoll I built a fire, obtaining the matches
to kindle it from a water-proof safe presented to
me by Mr. Epes Sargent, of Boston, some years
before, when I was ascending the St. Johns
River, Florida.
Before dusk, all things not spoiled by the
water were dried and secreted in the tall sedge
of the marshes. The elevation which had given
me friendly shelter is known as "Hog Island."
The few persimmon-trees that grew upon it
furnished an ample lunch, for the frosts had
mellowed the plum-like fruit, making it sweet and
edible. The persimmon (Diospyrus
Virginiana) is a small tree usually found in the middle
and southern states. Coons and other animals
feast upon its fruit. The deepening gloom
warned me to seek comfortable quarters for the
night.
Two miles up the strand was an old gunners'
inn, to which I bent my steps along Slaughter
Beach, praying that one more day's effort would
take me out of this bleak region of ominous
names. A pleasant old gentleman, Mr. Charles
Todd, kept the tavern, known as Willow Grove
Hotel, more for amusement than for profit. I
said nothing to him about the peculiar manner
in which I had landed on Slaughter Beach; but
to his inquiry as to where my boat was, and
what kind of a boat it was to live in such a
blow, I replied that I found it too wet and cold
on the bay to remain there, and too rough to
proceed to Cape Henlopen, and there being no
alternative, I was obliged to land much against
my inclination, and in doing so was drenched to
the skin, but had managed to get dry before a
fire in the marshes. So the kind old man piled
small logs in the great kitchen fireplace, and
told me tale upon tale of his life as a
schoolmaster out west; of the death of his wife there,
and of his desire to return, after long years of
absence, to his native Delaware, where he could
be comfortable, and have all the clams, oysters,
fish, and bay truck generally that a man could
wish for.
"Now," he added, "I shall spend my last
days here in peace." He furnished an excellent
supper of weak-fish or sea trout (Otolithus
regalio), fried oysters, sweet potatoes, &c.
This locality offers a place of retirement for
men of small means and limited ambition. The
broad bay is a good sailing and fishing ground,
while the great marshes are the resort of many
birds. The light, warm soil responds generously
to little cultivation. After a day of hunting and
fishing, the new-comer can smoke his pipe in
peace, to the music of crackling flames in the
wide old fireplace. Here he may be
comfortable, and spend his last days quietly vegetating,
with no criticisms on his deterioration, knowing
that he is running to seed no faster than his
neighbors.
The wind had gone to rest with the sun, and
the sharp frost that followed left its congealed
breath upon the shallow pools of water nearly
half an inch in thickness by morning. From
my bed I could see through the window the
bright flashes from Cape May and Cape
Henlopen lights. Had not misfortune beset me, a
four-hours' pull would have landed me at Lewes.
There was much to be thankful for, however.
Through a merciful Providence it was my
privilege to enjoy a soft bed at the Willow Grove
Inn, and not a cold one on the sands of
Slaughter Beach. So ended my last day on Delaware
Bay.