Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1874 — Paul Boyton's Adventure at Sea. [ARTICLE]

Paul Boyton's Adventure at Sea.

Waen at «u announced la the city this ■toning that an American seaman had l» the gale of Tuesday night jumped overboard from a transatlantic liner and, after swimming for seven hours, had landed on the Skibbereen ooast, people, while qqite prepared to give Americans credit for doing big things, were yet unprepared for such a demand on their credulity as this. The thing, however, was done, and the hero of it was Capt. Paul Boyton, of the New Jersey Lifeguards, Atlantic Oity. This gentleman, a professional diver of wellknown daring, left New York about a fortnight age in the National Company’s steamer Queen, taking with him a patent swimming costume. It was Capt. Boy ton’s intention when from two ,to three hundred miles distant from New York to Jump overboard and swim back, but the commander of the steamer was a man of little faith, and vetoed the experiment. Capt. Boyton had therefore to remain an involuntary passenger until the vessel approached the Irish coast on Tuesday evening, when the commander, having been repeatedly importuned, gave his permission. Capt. Boyton drew on his india-rubber air-tight suit and inflated the aif-cham-bens; in his air-tight sack he placed food for three days, a compass, a bull’s-eye lantern, some books (just to beguile the time on the water), some signal rockets and a United States flag. In his inside pocket he placed a mail which the passengers had given him to post; he strapped his bowie-knife and ax to his side, and grasping his paddle wasjlowered into the water amid the cheers of the passengers, at 9:30 o’clock p. m. It was a wild, dark night, he was close to the Fastnet Rock, with Cape Clear three miles from him, and Baltimore, toward which he intended to make, was in a direct line seven miles away. He lay on his back, paddling vigorously, and now the lights of the vessel were lost in the night. In a quarter of an hour more his spirit almost quailed w hen, tossed Ugh on the crest of a wave, he could no longer see the coas t line or any lights. The wind blew, the rain poured down, and the tide set dead against him. He was drifting out to sea and, to add to the awful loneliness of his situation, and to increase the dreadful peril, a violent gale commenced. That night for "many hours no mail-boat crossed the Irish Channel, and great destruction was done on the coast. And through these awful hours of darkness this man was tossing about at the mercy of the waves, some fifteen miles from land. The wind was so violent that he had to give over paddling, and with one hand to shade his face (the only part of his body exposed) from the" cutting blast. Once his paddie was wrenched away by a heavy sea, but it fortunately came into his hand again. For several seconds a wave would completely'submerge him, then he would shoot on to the crest and take breath before he again was hurled down asloping mass of water which seemed 160 feet to the bottom. As a result of his tossing be became sea-sick, a thing, he say s, which never happened to him before. His Indomitable spirit, however, conquered everything, and about one o’clock the wind began to blow directly on shore. His paddle was plied vigorously, and at three o’clock on Wednesday morning he perceived he was near breakers, and the rock-bound coast west of Skibbereen loomed up before him. His danger now was not less than it was during the height of the gale, for as a wave would raise him almost on a level with the cliff-tops he could discern nothing but a threatening wall of rock. He made his way along parallel to the coast, and fortunately lighted upon almost the only safe landing place for miles around. He saw an opening in the cliffs and propelled himself cautiously toward it. While hesitatingly examining the entrance a sea struck him, carrying him on; another and another followed in quick succession, and in an almost senseless slate he was hurled high and dry upon the beach. It was then four o'clock in the morning, and he had been nearly seven hours on the water, traversing a distance of nearly thirtymiles. 't he apparatus had behaved admirably, and, having divested himself of it he stood quite dry in his navy uniform, which he wore beneath. That having been done he let off one of his rockets, without effect It showed him, a narrow path in the rocks. Up this he ciambered and got on the mountain road, which brought him to the coastguard station. He was hospitably received there, and discovered that the place he had landed at was Trefaska Bight, some miles east and south of Baltimore. During the morning he reached Skibbereen, ana posted the letters intrusted to his care, and arrived in Cork on Wednesday night, where he ilf now the hero of the hour. On Monday he intends to swim out of Queenstown harbor some distance; that will be followed the week after by a little swim across the Straits of Dover and Calais, towed by a kite ;and to cap all, on his return to the States he intends to carry out his original idea of jumping overboard 250 miles from land and swimming to New York or Long Island. After his achievements in the gale on Tuesday mghtihese last-named experiments, startling as they seem at first, cannot be regarded as impossible. —Cork Cor. H. Y. Herald.