PHILADELPHIA TO CAPE HENLOPEN.
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.
[Illustration: From New York City to Cape Henlopen, Delaware.
Route of Paper Canoe MARIA THERESA From New York City
to Lewes, Del. Via Arthur Kill, Del. & Raritan Canal Followed by
N. H. Bishop in 1874
_Copyright, 1878 by Lee & Shepard_]
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, pan-fish, 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 headway 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 on 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.
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.
[Illustration: A CAPSIZE IN DELAWARE BAY.]
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 _bad_ 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
school-master 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.