Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1858 — An Adventurous Navigator. [ARTICLE]

An Adventurous Navigator.

In the early part of last year, a resident of Stanford, Connecticut, by the name of Charles R. Webb, who has spent a part of his life in a seafaring capacity, went to work and built himself a yatcht, twenty-two feel long, which he christened the Charter Oak, and in which he, accompanied by a man and a boy, started from New York, on the 22d of June last, for Liverpool. When only about a day out, his right-hand man, an old salt, was accidentally knocked overboard and drowned; and, fearing that he would not be able to find another sailor equally venturesome, and that he might possibly lose the lad also by desertion, should he return to port, he concluded to proceed on t he voyage without any other companion to assist to keep watch and steer the frail bark during his own occasional brief opportunities to obtain repose, than the boy referred to, who had never before been at sea. Although without the aid of a chronometer or chart of the English coast, Captain arrived safely at Liverpool, without a pilot, on the 27th of July, after a voyage of thirty-six days, in the smallest-vessel that ever crossed the ocean. The adventure was considered by nautical men the most skillful and daring exploit ot the age. Thousands rushed to see the»ChaTter Oak and its intrepid comma nder. The little craft was soon disposed ol for two hundred pounds, which amount, together with a passage ticket home for the Yankee sailor in one of the Collin’s line of steamships, was handed over to him by a number of strangers, who thus desired’to manifest their admiration of his courage and skill. Mr. Webb, not content, however, with what he has already achieved, about Christmas last, commenced building another yutcht, the Christopher Columbus, fortvfour feet keel and sixteen feet beam, which is now rapidly approaching completion by his own hands alone, and on board of which he contemplates embarking, in the course of a few months, for Southampton, the Isle of Wight and St Petersburg, with a view of giving the British Queen, the Czar of Russia, and probably the Emperor of France, a favorable opportunity of seeing what the Yankees can do in the way of boat-building, as well as in navigating the Atlantic.— New York Tribune.