Alone at Sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum (9780385674072)

by Spencer, Ann

  Though Slocum had added his eccentric touches to the farmhouse, his boat was the true reflection of who he was and what his life was about. Joseph Chase Allen visited the Spray around 1904 and remembered how exotic it appeared to the eyes of an eight-year-old. Slocum “carried a small round bottom boat in the alleyway and it was chock full of all kinds of junk. A beautiful Chinese gong hung alongside the companionway, black with gold and red figures and hanging beside it on a silk rope was a wood hammer. It made a beautiful sound. I remember, too, his topping lift was a native grass rope. Looked as though it were made out of leaves. A coil of the same stuff was on top of one of the houses and looked as though it were used for a heaving line. It was whiter than flax bottom chairs … Captain Slocum had a panful of wild cherries on the transom. I remember him saying if he could get one more panful he’d be ready for a trip.”

  Slocum must have picked that “one more panful” quite soon afterwards, because his life was more and more on the waters. He had been “hustling a dollar,” as he saw his business of receiving visitors aboard his boat, taking parties out for day trips, selling books and giving lectures. The boat itself was a floating story. Pictures and autographed books from that time have since turned up in harbors all along the New England coast. His world trip stayed alive in his mind as long as he kept telling the story. The books continued to sell, but interest in the lectures was dropping off. A local paper reported that the captain “lectured to a small but appreciative audience at the Theatre on Saturday night on his adventurous voyage around the world in his little boat alone.” Later, the New Bedford Standard noted that “the audience was miserably small and was composed entirely of tourists and a few members of the local yachting clubs.” The decline in interest was explained by Major James B. Pond in his book Eccentricities of Genius. Pond had been Slocum’s booking agent for a short time and felt that Slocum’s story was being told too late: “Had all this occurred twenty years ago, it would have meant a fortune for Captain Slocum, and a stimulant for the Lyceum.” Pond regretted the changes taking place in lecture circuits, the result of agents who presented lecture courses as package deals to communities and did not make allowances for independent ventures such as the captain’s. Pond felt that Slocum “absolutely charms and fascinates his hearers as few ever did or ever could do … I have listened for hours to these seeming tournaments in navigator’s skill, and never yet did the captain hesitate for an instant for a reply that went straight to the mark like a bullet.”

  If this was all a disappointment to Pond, one can only imagine how Slocum was feeling at age sixty. His stories were uniquely courageous accounts of great navigational skill, but few ears were still willing to listen. Children who stopped by to see him on the Spray were told the stories, often learning them to retell while helping the captain sell his tropical shells, sponges and curios. Carol W. Saley was one of the children who helped Slocum out, and she and her friend were spellbound by his stories. The captain taught them the tales behind each object they helped sell and “how to blow the shells for customers as the captain did when he needed a foghorn. We did well and he was much pleased with our work, paid us well for youngsters and was kind to us always.”

  Slocum was fast losing his sense of purpose, and there was another Cape Cod reality that was driving him back to sea. From West Tisbury he wrote to his friend William Tripp on March 18, 1904, “I became so interested in trying to keep warm these winter days that I forgot all, except the woodpile. I have an oak grove, fortunately, near my house.” Slocum started going south in the cold months. A local paper reported, “He is now on a cruise of the Caribbean for the benefit of his health. After touring the world he settled down to farming; but having lost money in growing hops, he ‘chucked’ it.”

  On October 15, 1905, the Providence Journal reported that Captain Slocum “was bound west to pick up Mrs. Slocum for a winter in southern waters, and then sailed away again, after renewing his license as a master mariner. His boat is his house and he spends most of his time in her.” The statement was true, except for Hettie coming along. That never was to happen. The pattern was set: the Spray was once again his solitary home. Every winter he sailed south to Miami, then to the Bahamas, Grand Cayman, Jamaica or somewhere else in the West Indies to stock up with tropical shells and coral, which he returned in the late spring to sell. The West Tisbury “Miscellanies” and the island social columns from 1905 to 1908 are a sad comment on Hettie and the captain’s life together. Their comings and goings tell the story of a couple seldom in the same place at the same time:

  August 31, 1905 — “Capt. Joshua Slocum has returned home after an absence of about six months.”

  October 5, 1905 — “Capt. Joshua Slocum has gone to Boston.”

  October 12, 1905 — “Capt. Joshua Slocum was among the arrivals on Monday’s boat.”

  October 26, 1905 — “Mrs. Joshua Slocum has returned from her trip to Boston.”

  November 9, 1905 — “Mrs. Joshua Slocum has gone to Boston and expects to remain there most of the winter.”

  January 11, 1906 — “Captain Joshua Slocum is cruising among the West Indies.”

  After the 1906 winter trip, Slocum’s life took a troubled turn. He left the Cayman Islands with his usual load of seashells and coral for resale as souvenirs. But that spring he had a cargo some of whose unusual contents excited him: a specimen of the lace tree and some rare forest orchids. He had half a dozen of these exotic plants, and he decided to present them to President Theodore Roosevelt. On his way to Sagamore Hill, he stopped as a guest at the Riverton Yacht Club in New Jersey. As was his usual routine, he presented a lecture, and friends arranged for a social event afterwards in his honor. Slocum, as always, extended an open invitation to look around the Spray. A twelve-year-old girl, Elsie Wright, came aboard the next day with a young male companion. Slocum was bewildered by the story she told her parents when she got home. Within hours Slocum was arrested on a charge of rape, and the next day the whole town of Riverton heard the story. The scandal was front page news in the Riverton New Era:

  CAPT. SLOCUM IN TROUBLE

  Accused of Maltreating a Girl on His Famous Yacht, the Spray

  Riverton, N.J. May 26 — Capt. Joshua Slocum, formerly a commander of clippers, who has been in trouble several times for alleged ill treatment of his crews, and who for several years has been living off the glory and the story of sailing around the world alone in the little sloop Spray, was sent to jail here this morning on a charge of maltreating twelve-year-old Elsie Wright, daughter of Charles D. Wright … When Elsie got home she told her parents and they called in Dr. C.S. Mills, who said that she was not much injured, but was suffering from shock. Capt. Slocum had left Philadelphia, which is about eight miles from this place, and was arrested on his return last night as he stepped off a trolley car. Captain Slocum asked that nothing should be said about his arrest. He said tonight in his defence that he was suffering from mental aberration.

  The friend that Slocum had been visiting in Philadelphia prior to the arrest thought at the time that Slocum was “lean and hungry looking and gaunt. But he looked as though he could take care of himself. I never was disappointed in his appearance or behavior, though I am quite sure he was a little cracked.” He also described him as “a little dippy.” The pitiful-looking sixty-two-year-old captain with his boatload of orchids seemed confused by the charge. All he could say was that he did not remember the incident occurring; perhaps it was one of his “mental lapses” was his sole attempt at an explanation. He claimed that he had suffered from these since one day in Newcastle, New South Wales, on his round-the-world trip. His story was that a heaving line had swung around and struck him on the side of the head. One newspaper implied that Slocum’s word might not always be trusted, noting that the captain was “a good hand at spinning a yarn.” Press accounts portrayed Slocum as protesting his innocence. The local newspaper reported, “The old sailor was indignant at his arrest. He ridiculed the charge against him and when being
taken to the jail said he would be vindicated.” Bail was set at one thousand dollars, and Slocum was jailed in Mount Holly to await trial.

  Elsie Wright was examined by a doctor, who determined — much to her family’s relief — that there could be no charge of rape. Even so, his daughter had suffered, and Mr. Wright wanted him held publicly accountable. The father wrote to the Riverton weekly paper, “There was no attempt at rape for the child is not physically injured although greatly agitated by the indecent action and exposure of this creature now posing in the limelight of cheap notoriety.” He added that he and his wife “regret exceedingly the necessity of publicity for the child’s sake but feel assured that the exposure of such a fiend will be regarded as a service rendered the public.”

  The girl’s father may have suspected the offense was not as serious as first thought, and made it known that he did not wish to see an old man punished severely. While Slocum awaited trial, he was placed in a small cell with a fireplace, a narrow window at eye level and access to an enclosed exercise yard. After forty-two days in the Mount Holly jail, Slocum had his day in court. The Burlington County Prison Register for 1904–1906 has the following entry:

  Name: Capt. Joshua Slocum

  Charge: rape

  When received: May 26—06

  When discharged: dis July-06

  Name of committing officer: Silas J. Coddington

  Number of days: 42

  The charge of rape was reduced to indecent assault, and Wright recommended leniency. The Mount Holly News for Tuesday, July 10, 1906, reported on the captain’s day in court. It noted that Slocum had signed a waiver allowing for his case to be heard without a jury, and stated, “Senator John G. Horner, private counsel for Mr. Wright, with permission of Prosecutor Atkinson, said there had been considerable exaggeration both in the newspapers and the community as to what actually took place on the boat. Slocum was a seafaring man with no home … The captain was certainly guilty of great indiscretion. He did not violate the person of the child acquainted with matters unknown to one of her tender years. Slocum had been struck by a boom which brought on occasional aberrations of mind, and he has no recollection of the crime. The Senator asked the court to be lenient. There was no desire to have him harshly dealt with. He had been in jail six weeks and that was probably punishment enough … The family wanted his absence more than his retention in prison.”

  Slocum pleaded “non vult contendre,” meaning “I will not contest,” which in the state of New Jersey at the turn of the century was the same as a guilty plea but did not invoke the mandatory penalties. His counsel, Samuel W. Shinn, noted the captain’s “enviable reputation” from his famous circumnavigation and let the court know there had been no intention to do bodily harm to the person of the girl. Presiding Judge Gaskill brought the matter to a close with these words to the old sailor: “I am very sorry to be obliged to administer reproof to a man of your experience and years, and I am glad, and no doubt you are, too, that in this case there was no attempt made to injure the person of the girl. Upon request of the family I can deal leniently with you. You must never return to Riverton either by rail or water. By payment of all costs you are discharged.”

  What happened to Elsie Wright cannot be known. We do know that the episode marked the low point in Slocum’s steady descent. One theory about what actually happened was based on Slocum’s pitiful and bewildered behavior after the arrest. It was supposed that the only crime the old man had committed was exposing himself, and then probably not on purpose. It may have been that he had left his trousers negligently unbuttoned and, having lived in solitude aboard for so long, was unfamiliar with the advisability of always wearing underwear. Perhaps what had made the young adolescent so distraught was merely getting an unexpected peek at Slocum’s private parts.

  When Walter Teller was researching this part of the captain’s story in the 1950s, he interviewed a woman who had met up with Slocum around the time of the incident. She had been fifteen at the time and had been delivering a pail of milk from her father’s farm to the captain, who was living aboard the Spray in Menemsha. She claimed that the captain had not only taken the milk but had grabbed her by the arm. Teller wrote that she had been “scared to death of the old codger because he was so fresh with the girls.” But Teller did not use this anecdote in the biography “because on further investigation I found out that my informant in her younger years had not a very good reputation. I wondered if she might not have been one of those provocative adolescents who can do so much mischief among unhappy old men? Wasn’t sure of her trustworthiness, neither was I sure there was nothing to what she said.” He agreed with a friend that there may have been a hint of the Salem Witch Trials about young Elsie Wright’s hysteria. In the end, Teller concluded that the “pitiful” affair rendered Slocum’s life “almost a Greek tragedy.”

  The Riverton affair was Slocum’s third serious tangle with the law. He boarded the Spray a confused, tired and disgraced old man. His days of glory seemed long ago. But true to his nature, he had a plan that was keeping him afloat for the present moment. All of the orchids but one had died while Slocum was behind bars. Fresh out of jail, he sailed away to Oyster Bay to give the lone survivor to President Roosevelt.

  He looked like the typical beachcomber — wore a battered old felt hat — originally a black hat bleached out irregularly from sun and rain, a collarless shirt open at the neck, a vest, unbuttoned trousers that would disgrace a clamdigger and a pair of high lace-up shoes badly in need of a polish …. Spray was dirty — not just a little dirty but very very dirty.

  — H.S. Smith, in The Rudder, March 1968

  13

  Seaworthy for the Last Time

  I can patch up the Spray, but who will patch up Captain Slocum?

  — J.S., comment to reporter Louise Ward, 1907

  The old captain was to have one last moment of glory. He sailed into Oyster Bay, Long Island, early in August 1906 with the one surviving orchid, planning to send the plant ashore to Sagamore Hill with a note attached for the president’s secretary. But the messenger that day on the docks was none other than Archie Roosevelt, the young son of the president, who, recognizing the Spray, immediately jumped aboard. Archie shook the captain’s hand and told him his father wanted to meet him. So Slocum, barely cleaned up from over a month in jail, was on his way to meet the President of the United States. That meeting led to a poignant friendship between a young boy and an old sailor. Roosevelt asked Slocum to take Archie sailing. On August 6, 1906, the president wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge, “Archie is off for a week’s cruise with Captain Joshua Slocum — that man who takes his little boat, without any crew but himself, all around the world.” Over five days, Slocum and Archie sailed from Oyster Bay to Newport.

  That voyage was the start of Archie’s apprenticeship with a master navigator. According to a local newspaper, Slocum complimented the lad, declaring him to be “the best young sailor who had ever stepped aboard his craft.” He added that if the Spray ever needed a mate, Archie would be given the berth: “Archie is one of the cleverest boys I have ever known. He has learned to sail the Spray almost as well as I can myself. I like him because he always does what I tell him to. You wouldn’t believe, but he knows how to set the sails at their proper balance and to lash the helm so that it skims along by itself. That is a trick which excites admiration wherever I go, and which few sailors understand. Archie learned the trick last year, and he did wonders with the boat.” Archie later recalled their relationship as one of mutual admiration, noting the great skills of the old navigator: “Of course we [Archie and Obie, a sailor on the presidential yacht, the Sylph] saw the famous alarm clock, which had to be boiled before it would run. Beyond my comprehension were his sheets of calculations for the lunar observations he had made single-handedly — a feat, I believe which is supposed to require three people to work out.”

  Slocum also showed Archie the finer points of nautical salesmanship. He showed the boy how to file the points o
ff shells to make foghorns. And he showed him how to sell finished goods, be they foghorns, coral or books. The boy was eager to learn, and during their time together Slocum must have gained back the hope and courage to pull himself up after a devastating debacle. His skills were appreciated once more, and by none other than the president himself. That Roosevelt had entrusted his son to the old captain could only have felt like a pardon — a second chance for respectability after disgrace. The president wrote him a note thanking him for the copy of Sailing Alone Around the World that Slocum had given him before sailing home to Martha’s Vineyard.

  My dear Captain Slocum:

  I thank you for your interesting volume, which you know I prize. By the way, I entirely sympathize with your feeling of delight in the sheer loneliness and vastness of the ocean. It was just my feeling in the wilderness of the west.

  Sincerely yours,

  Theodore Roosevelt

  No doubt the Vineyarders had heard about his time in jail. Grace Brown recalled the family whisperings concerning the Riverton incident, and wrote to Walter Teller, “That yellow journalism was so awful at the time and our family’s so shocked over it that they soft pedalled whenever we younger ones were around. As I recall it was something that happened or was reported to have happened … The matter was aired in the papers and there it died out … We who had known the Captain had found him affectionate to a degree with young things just as I know my own dad was. We never heard of any dalliance with the fair sex. When you recall as I do hearing of ministers, doctors, and dentists being nothing but Don Juans in their home town’s estimation, one wonders how this all comes about?”