The two surprised each other. The sight of Hawkins wearing nothing more than a hat and a tattered old blanket startled the young woman, who screamed, dropped her basket, and ran to the nearby house. Hawkins turned and ran for his life in the other direction, still carrying a few potatoes cradled in one arm. He darted into a wooded area, surprised at how “nimble” he still was despite his weakened condition. Along the way, he scooped up a branch to use to defend himself if he was caught. A small river offered him the chance to avoid detection in the event the British or Tories used hounds to track his scent. Hawkins crossed the water and came ashore some distance away.
He could run no farther. Hawkins found another barn filled with fresh flax, which he used to make a bed.* Hawkins then ate the raw potatoes and slept soundly. A long sleep and the potatoes left him feeling a bit rejuvenated and able to continue his journey. Hawkins avoided roads and kept to the woods.
However, partway up Long Island, near Oyster Bay, he was caught by a group of loyalists who accused him of being a prisoner on the run. The angry “refugees” from the war treated him poorly and placed him under arrest for “some time.” To his horror, Hawkins learned that they planned to take him back to Brooklyn to be put aboard the Jersey. The gesture, they informed him, would ingratiate them with the British military.
Fortunately for Hawkins, a local patriot helped him escape at night. The man even provided Hawkins with food and money, and showed him how to travel farther up Long Island and then across the sound to Rhode Island.
With the exception of the potatoes, it had been days since the boy had a meal. Satisfying his hunger and quenching his thirst were his new priorities, so Hawkins approached another farmhouse. He crept low and quietly to avoid the people in the fields and came upon a young boy working in a garden. Hawkins decided to take a chance. He approached the boy and asked him for food and clothing. The boy did not run or scream. Instead, he simply went inside to ask his mother. Hawkins was prepared for the worst, but the “old” and “kind” woman invited him in to eat.
As Hawkins devoured the food, the young boy brought him a pair of pants and the woman asked him questions. He informed her that he was going home to see his mother in Providence. The woman was remarkably calm and caring, saying to him, “Oh, how I wish you were at home!” Hawkins had the sense that his host knew from where he had come. As they spoke, he discovered he was right. It turned out that the woman’s husband had enlisted, been captured, and was imprisoned on the Jersey, where he died. This explained, he reasoned, why the woman was so “timid and cautious in her manner,” yet so “kind hearted.”
Hawkins told her his story and they both agreed that the “pestilent old hulk” was a living hell. After he had eaten his fill and dressed, the woman packed Hawkins food for his trip and sent him on his way with “her blessing” and an extra shirt and pair of pants that had been hanging on a line to dry. Showing him the best way to travel undetected, the kind widow informed Hawkins of the location of a canoe and told him to row across the small bay to Sag Harbor; from there he could try to cross the wide sound to Rhode Island. She made only one request: that he tell no one she had helped him. Fear of the Jersey had spread throughout the colonies and she still had a son at home.
Hawkins found the canoe, crossed the bay and sound, and eventually arrived in Rhode Island. The young boy’s incredible ordeal came to an end a few days later when he made it home. His father was not home, as he had volunteered for the war, but Hawkins was welcomed by his tearful mother, to whom he admitted that he was finally “pretty well cured this time of his sea-faring propensities.”
For quite some time, Thomas Dring and an officer from Philadelphia named Lawrence had been planning to escape from the Jersey. Despite the concerns of all but one of their fellow officers, Dring decided to join Lawrence in cutting a hole in the side of the old, rotted ship, as young Hawkins had. It was essential, they agreed, to keep the plan a secret. No one could know outside of the small group of officers. Desperate prisoners were prone to snitching on their fellow inmates in an effort to curry favor with the guards and perhaps gain an extra ration of food or water. Someone always seemed to be awake and unable to sleep, and everyone had too much idle time on their hands, so the challenge would be to bore the hole quietly and at times when other prisoners bunking in the small, crowded gunroom would not discover it. It was a risky plan, but Dring believed it was their only chance to beat death.
The men, led by Lawrence, worked in shifts, concealing their labor by hanging a blanket over the hole. The side of the ship was four inches thick and, even though much of it was rotting, cutting through oak was difficult. They had only a single small jackknife and a gimlet.* All the officers in the mess assisted Dring and Lawrence in cutting the hole, working in rotation. It was a slow process, but eventually they neared completion. It was time to plan the moment of their escape.
The officers agreed that after squeezing through the hole and dropping down into the bay, they would wait until the last one was off the ship. Only then would they begin swimming. During their time on the upper deck, they planned the location where they would come ashore and agreed on a spot about a quarter mile away.
A few nights later, a heavy squall swept through the bay. It was time! The rain and wind would help cover their escape. At midnight, the final section of wood was cut out. The officers undressed and tied their clothing together. They crawled through the hole one at a time and passed down their clothes. Four men were out and Dring was next. But after the fourth man dropped down into the water it happened.
The guards had known about the plan all along. One of the prisoners must have tipped them off. Yet the guards did not stop the prisoners from trying to escape. Rather, in what Dring described as a “perverse” idea, they remained “vigilant” and waited in a rowboat near where the prisoners dropped into the water in order to catch them in the act and ambush the unsuspecting sailors. Musket shots rang out, freezing Dring and the other prisoners waiting quietly in the gunroom. They heard shrieks coming from the water below as the guards used bayonets and swords to finish off the escapees. Dring peered out through the hole to see what was happening, but in the darkness of the storm, he could see nothing. The prisoners began panicking, not knowing what to do, as news of the escape “ran like wildfire through the gloomy and crowded dungeons of the hulk.” Dring realized how fortunate he was that he was still in the gunroom.
A few minutes later, the hatch above opened and the guards came down the ladder, dragging a wet, naked, and bloodied prisoner. It was Lawrence, and he was hurt badly. One arm had been nearly “severed” by a “cutlass,” and he had also been shot. While Lawrence cried in pain, the guards informed the prisoners that they had shot him while he was holding on to the gunwale at the back of the ship and that the other three escapees were dead.
Even though candles were not permitted belowdecks after dark, the guards lit a small flame next to Lawrence. It was psychological warfare—the guards wanted the other prisoners to see Lawrence’s bloodied body and his suffering. After the guards went up the ladder, prisoners crowded around Lawrence’s bunk. The scene unnerved them. Dring and the other officers dressed Lawrence and, after washing his wounds, wrapped a rag around the exposed bone and flesh of his arm to try to stop the bleeding. It did not work. They also tied a wet handkerchief around his head. Dring had seen many men die on the ship, but Lawrence’s painful ordeal struck terror into him, and everyone else. Amid Lawrence’s shrieks of agony, few men slept that night.
In the morning, the gratings were not removed at the usual hour; the hatches remained shut. As punishment, the prisoners were given no food or water until ten o’clock, even though it was an especially hot and humid morning. The guards eventually allowed the men to eat and go to the upper deck, but never provided a surgeon and made no inquiry about Lawrence. Dring’s friend lived through the night, though he was delirious in the morning. He died later that day, and his body was left on deck as an “example” to the other pris
oners.
The guards made Dring and his fellow officers cover the hole they had cut in the ship with a plank and punished them by reducing their rations of food and water. Dring began working on a new plan—to attack the guards and throw them overboard.
Thomas Andros, another one of the prisoners suffering on the Jersey in 1781, admitted, “While on board almost every thought was occupied to invent some plan of escape; but day after day passed and none presented that I dared to put into execution.” He and other prisoners knew the ship was contaminated by smallpox, yellow fever, and other diseases. He had contracted both and, although he was a man of faith, believed it was only a matter of time before he came down with another disease. Sure enough, Andros became ill again and was taken off the Jersey to a nearby hospital ship. Luck remained with him—he eventually recovered. However, before he was transferred back to the Jersey, Andros assisted the nurses with the sick prisoners and contracted yet another disease. He knew it was time—if he recovered from the present malady, he had to get off the ship.
Hope came this time in the form of an announcement by the guards of a prisoner exchange. With the men gathered on the upper deck, the names of prisoners to be exchanged were read aloud. The list included the crew from the ship on which he had served! Andros “immediately stepped forward” and announced his name, but he was informed that he was not a part of the exchange. Andros attributed the rejection to the preference by the British for prisoners “whose flesh was ready to fall from their bones” rather than “sound and healthy men.” Even though Andros was weak from a bout with yellow fever and sick with another ailment, one guard growled at him, “You have not been here long enough, you are too well to be exchanged.”
Andros became desperate, writing, “But the time had now come when I must be delivered from the ship, or die. I could not be delayed even a few days longer; but no plan could I think of that offered a gleam of hope. If I did escape with my life, I could see no way for it but by miracle.” In “utter despair,” Andros and a few other prisoners developed a desperate plan: “The next night, to steal down through a gun-port which we had managed to open… unbeknown to the guard, and swim ashore.”
Barely able to walk, Andros worried that he might not be able to swim. Moreover, he knew that there were always informants who ratted out their fellow prisoners and that those caught trying to escape were severely punished. Such an incident had just occurred on the Jersey. A captain named Young from Boston had tried to escape during a prisoner exchange, hiding in a large chest belonging to one of the prisoners being exchanged. However, as the chest was being carried off the Jersey, another prisoner named Spicer from Providence told the guards that Young was inside the chest. Young suffered mightily at the hands of the violent guards, who were eager to make an example of him. However, the angry prisoners attacked Spicer, one of them pulling out a confiscated knife and holding it to the rat’s throat. As the prisoner was about to dispatch Spicer, the guards intervened and drove the prisoners belowdecks.
The prisoners remained in an agitated state and it appears that Spicer got what was coming to him later that night. In the throes of disease and depression, Andros drew comfort from reciting a verse: “When helpers fail and foes invade, God is our all-sufficient aid.” Sure enough, the aid materialized the next day in the form of a new opportunity to escape: the guards were selecting prisoners to join a work party charged with getting water and carrying it back to the Jersey.
Andros believed it was the work of God, “who had something more for me to do than to perish in that ship.” The sailing master, a man named Emery, was taking the launch ashore. “Without really considering what I said and without the least expectation of success,” Andros stood and yelled, “Mr. Emery may I go on shore with you after water?” Emery agreed, and Andros clambered into the small boat. As they were about to shove off, however, a prisoner on the upper deck hollered, “What is that sick man going on shore for?” To his horror, Andros was ordered back aboard the Jersey by the guards. But he had been called back because he had forgotten his “great coat,” without which he would freeze in the chilly October wind.
Once more in the rowboat, Andros grabbed an oar and tried to be useful. He did not want to be kicked off the boat. He was nearly taken off the work detail again when one of the guards ordered, “Give me the oar, you are not able to use it, you are too unwell.” The oar was yanked out of his hands but, surprisingly, the guard allowed Andros to remain on the launch.
On land, some men in the small work party were given baskets and told to collect apples. Others were sent to fetch water. Because he was so weak, Andros was initially instructed to remain in the launch, but Emery said loudly, “This fresh air will be of service to you.” The guards then told Andros to go get apples.
Andros had to climb a slope roughly thirty feet high to get to the apple orchard. “My state of health was such,” he admitted, that he almost “did not make it.” They walked past a “dense swamp of young maples and other bushes” a half mile away. While the other prisoners went ahead of him, Andros hid in the swamp. He was not sure what to do next. He had not thought that far ahead. In every direction there were villages full of loyalists, and a British sentry patrolled the edge of the orchard. Fortunately for Andros, it appeared that the sentry’s job was to protect the apples rather than look for runaway prisoners. There in the swamp, Andros found a “huge log, twenty feet in length, having lain there for many years.” He believed the log was a godsend, “spread over on both sides with such a dense covering of green running briars as to be impervious to the eye.” He hid under it.
The work party returned to the launch and, after a short wait, sailed back to the Jersey without Andros. Years later he learned that when the guards had questioned why one of the prisoners was not present to return to the Jersey, another guard dismissed the concern, saying Andros was so sick and weak that “he will never live to go a mile.”
Andros remained hidden for several hours. A storm blew in and it began to rain, but the old log offered him some protection. As he waited, he felt guilty for abandoning his fellow prisoners and worried that his escape might result in punishment for Emery and the others in the work party. He vowed then and there that if he lived, he would write a letter to Emery apologizing and explaining that the sailing master had been “God’s chosen instrument to save me.” Presumably, a correspondence with Emery after the war explains how Andros learned of the guards’ conversation about him. After the rain subsided, he headed away from the bay and to freedom, looking back one last time at the old, black ship with “greatest horror.” What he saw motivated him to keep moving.
That first night on the run was difficult. Andros recalled that it “rained in torrents,” which made walking difficult. But under cover of darkness he headed to the east end of Long Island. It was a difficult trek in the moonless night. He tripped often, became entangled in bushes, and was shivering from the cold, wet night. He was thankful he was wearing his greatcoat; it most likely kept him alive. Again, Andros interpreted it as divine intervention.
Andros found a road and followed it through the night, ready if need be to duck into the woods that lined the path. In the predawn hours he saw another person on the road and barely had time to seek cover until the person passed. Andros vowed to be more careful. One precaution he adopted was to cover his head with a handkerchief (he had lost his hat in the swamp) in order to hide his sickly appearance.
In the morning, Andros arrived at a village. He heard the fife and drums of soldiers but was fortunate that the poor weather kept most people inside. It also gave him an excuse to hide his gaunt body and his face under the coat. Near collapse, suffering from the lingering effects of yellow fever and hunger, he stumbled through town, close to giving up. But he saw a barn. As he was about to go inside, Andros heard voices in the barn. He mustered the strength to turn and run away. Good fortune remained, and Andros found another barn outside of the village that was empty. Hay was stacked high in the surrounding f
ields and he found enough of it inside to make himself a bed in the upper loft. Exhausted, Andros sank into the comfortable, warm hay and quickly fell asleep.
The next morning he awoke stiff, hungry, and still wet. He also awoke with a cold to go along with the yellow fever. It had stopped raining, but cold northern winds blew into the barn and across the fields. Andros knew he had to be on his way, but opted to rest a bit longer in the barn. As he was about to shut his eyes, a young woman entered the barn to milk a cow. Fortunately, she did not go up into the loft. When the woman finished, Andros came down from the loft and snuck out of the barn. Only a half mile away, he saw a sight that nearly brought him to his knees in fear and repulsion: a group of escaped prisoners from the floating dungeons had been caught and were being marched back to Wallabout Bay.
Andros melted into the thick woods, reminding himself once again to be more careful. There he stripped off his coat and clothing and laid them out in the sun to dry. He rested an entire day. Happily, it had stopped raining and his cold did not worsen. Before sunset, Andros dressed and headed back out to the road. As he did, two British units marched around the corner. Rather than run, which would have aroused suspicion, he simply pulled the collar of his coat up around his face and walked casually past them.
The routine of traveling by night, hiding by day, and resting in barns or woods continued for days. An unexpected incident nearly ended his escape when he was chased by a pack of dogs. There were more close calls, but he kept walking. Every few days he managed to find apples and vegetables in barns, and once he came upon an orchard of pear trees. His gleanings kept him alive, but they were never enough to quell his hunger, and the pangs eventually prompted Andros to risk capture.
Driven by hunger and frustration, one night he approached a house lit by candles, and he knocked at the door. A woman appeared. She seemed to know immediately that he had been a prisoner, but revealed to him that she was a patriot and not a loyalist. Andros asked the woman for milk, but she replied that British soldiers in the area had consumed all of it. However, she gave him food and told him how to avoid British soldiers stationed in the area. Andros saw the gesture as another act of providence.
The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn Page 18