Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1893 — Longest Swim on Record. [ARTICLE]

Longest Swim on Record.

The longest swim ever made without the aid of artificial help, such as life preservers, life suits, etc., was made by Samuel Brook, a Yarmouth (England) beachman. the night of Oct. 14, 1815, says the St. Louis Republic. On the afternoon of the 14th Brock had noticed a ship at sea signaling for a pilot. He, in company with nine other seamen, started for the vessel in the yawl Increase. At 4 o’clock they came up alongside the ship, which proved to be the Spanish brig Paquette de Bilboa. A pilot and three beachmen were put on board and the Increase then headed for shore, which was twelve miles distant. At 6:30 o’clock, when the nearest land was six miles off, a squall sunk the Increase and drowned all on board except Brock. From the way that flood-tide was beating off shore it became evident to the man in the water that if he ever did manage to reach the land alive he would have to swim about fifteen miles in a roundabout way. A swell sea drove him out over Cross-sand ridge before the 9 o’clock bell tolled at St. Nicholas’ gate, and it was a long two hours and a half later before the nearly exhausted swimmer caught sight of the bell and light buoys themselves. It was now nearly midnight, and Brock had been in the chilly water about five hours. Within the next hour he sighted a vessel at anchor, and by an almost superhuman effort managed to get within about two hundred yards, when he hailed the lookout. A boat was immediately lowered,and the half-drowned man takan on board. The vessel proved to be the Betsy, of Sunderland, and her place of anchorase about sixteen and three-quarter miles from where the Increase capsized. Thus it was proved that Brock had made the remarkable distanoe of nearly seventeen miles in seven and a half hours on that chilly October n'gkt.