The Heroine of Lake Erie

The dark, stormy close of November, 1854, found many vessels on Lake Erie, but the fortunes of one alone have special interest to us. About that time the schooner Conductor, owned by John McLeod of the Provincial Parliament, a resident of Amherstburg, at the mouth of the Detroit River, entered the lake from that river for Port Dalhousie, at the mouth of the Welland Canal. She was heavily loaded with grain. Her crew consisted of Captain Hackett, a Highlander by birth, and a skillful and experienced navigator, and six sailors. At nightfall, shortly after leaving the head of the lake, one of those terrific storms, with which the late autumnal navigators of that “Sea of the Woods” are all too familiar, overtook them.

The weather was intensely cold for the season; the air was filled with snow and sleet; the chilled water made ice rapidly, encumbering the schooner, and loading down her decks and rigging. As the gale increased, the topmost of the waves were shorn off by the fierce blasts, clouding the whole atmosphere with frozen spray, or what the sailors call “spoon drift,”rendering it impossible to see any object a few rods distant. Driving helplessly before the wind, yet in the direction of the place of its destination the schooner sped through the darkness.

At last near midnight, running closer than her crew supposed to the Canadian shore, she struck on the outer bar off Long Point Island, beat heavily across it and sunk in the deeper water between it and the inner bar. The hull was entirely submerged, the waves rolling in heavily and dashing over the rigging, to which the crew betook themselves. Lashed there, numb with cold, drenched by the pitiless waves, scourged by the showers of sleet driven before the wind, they waited for morning. The slow, dreadful hours wore away, and at length the dubious and doubtful gray of morning of tempest succeeded to the utter darkness of the night.

Abigail Becker chanced at the time to be in her hut with none but her young children, Her husband was absent on the Canadian shore, and she was left the sole occupant of the island, save the lightkeeper at its lower end, some fifteen miles off. Looking out at day-light on the beach in front of the door, she saw the shattered boat of the Conductor, cast up by the waves. Her experience of storm and disaster on that dangerous coast needed nothing more to convince her that somewhere in her neighborhood human life had been, or still was in peril, She followed the southwesterly trend of the island for a little distance, and, peering through the gloom of the stormy morning, discerned the spars of the sunken schooner, with what seemed to be human forms clinging to the rigging.

The heart of the strong woman sunk with in her, as she gazed upon those helpless fellow-creatures, so near, yet so unapproachable. She had no boat and none could have lived on that water. After a moment's reflection she went back to her dwelling, put the smaller children in charge of the eldest, took with her an iron kettle, tin teapot, and matches, and returned to the beach, at the nearest point to the vessel; and gathering up the logs and drift-wood, always abundant on the coast, kindled great fire, and, constantly walking back and forth between it and the water, strove to intimate to the sufferers that they were at least not beyond human sympathy.

As the wrecked sailors looked shoreward, and saw, through the thick haze of snow and sleet, the red light of the fire, and the tall figure of the woman passing to and fro before it, a faint hope took the place of the utter despair which had prompted them to let go their hold, and drop into the seething waters, that opened and closed about them like the jaws of death. But the day wore on, bringing no abatement of the storm that tore through the frail spars, and clutched at and tossed them as it passed, and drenched them with ice-cold spray- a pitiless, unrelenting horror of sight, sound and touch! At last a deepening gloom told them that night was approaching, and night under such circumstances was death.

All day long Abigail Becker had fed her fire, and sought to induce the sailors by signals-for even her strong voice could not reach them- to throw themselves into the surf, and trust to Providence and her for succor. In anticipation of this, she had her tea ready for restoring warmth and life to the half frozen survivors. But either they did not understand her, or the chance of rescue seemed to small to induce them to leave the temporary safety of the wreck. They clung to it with the desperate instinct of life brought face to face with death.

Just at nightfall there was a slight break in the west; a red light glared across the thick air, as if for one instant the eye of the storm looked out upon the ruin it had wrought and closed again under lids of cloud. Taking advantage of this, the solitary watcher ashore made one more effort. She waded out into the water, every drop of which as it struck the beach, became a particle of ice, and stretching out and drawing in her arms, invited by her gestures the sailors to throw themselves into the waves, and strive to reach her Captain Hackett understood her. He called to his mate in the rigging of the other mast; “It is our last chance. I will try! If I live, follow me; if I drown, stay where you are!”

With a great effort he got off his frozen overcoat, paused for one moment in silent commendation of his soul to God, and, throwing himself into the waves, struck out for the shore. Abigail Becker, breast deep in the surf, awaited him. He was almost within her reach when the undertow swept him back. By a mighty exertion she caught hold of him, bore him in her strong arms out of the water, and laying him down by her fire, warmed his chilled blood with copious draughts of hot tea. The mate, who had watched the rescue, now followed, and the captain partially restored, insisted upon aiding him. As the former neared the shore, the recoiling water baffled him.

Captain Hackett caught hold of him, but the undertow swept them both away, locked in each other's arms. The brave woman plunged after them and with the strength of a giantess, bore them, clinging to each other, to the shore, and up to the fire. The five sailors followed in succession, and were all saved in the same way.

A few days after, Captain Hackett and his crew were taken off Long Point by a passing vessel, and Abigail Becker resumed her simple daily duties without dreaming that she had done anything extraordinary enough to win for her the world's notice. In her struggle every day for food and warmth for her children, she had no leisure for the indulgence of self-congratulation. Like the woman of Scripture, she had only done what she could, in the terrible exigency that had broken the dreary monotony of her life.