Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1875 — Female Sailors. [ARTICLE]

Female Sailors.

It is no new thing for women to become sailors. We are informed in ancient history that Artemesia, Queen of Halicarnassus, commanded five ships at the defeat of the Persians at Salamis, and made a brave resistance, distinguishing herself by undaunted courage and ability and a perfect knowledge of strategy. Toward the end of the battle, seeing herself in great danger of being taken she lowered her flag and attacked a Persian war-vessel with terrible fury. Her stratagem had the desired effect, for the conquerors, believing the vessel to be one of their own, failed to pursue her. There are several instances on record of American women, wives of deceased Captains, navigating their vessels into port after the death of their husbands. “ ? = In the reign of George in. of Great Britain an irishwoman named Hannah Whitney served for five years in the Royal British navy and kept her secret so well that she was not known to be a woman until she retired from the service. A few years later a young Yorkshire girl walked from Hull to London in search of her lover. She found him enlisted on His Majesty’s man-of-war Oxford, and thereupon she donned a sailor’s suit, assumed the name of Charlie Waddell and enlisted on the same ship. Her lover, not being as faithful to her as she to him, deserted the ship, and in attempting to follow his example she was arrested and her sex detected. The officers raised a contribution for her and she was dismissed from the service and sent home. In 1782 a Mrs. Cola became somewhat famous by serving on board a man-of-war as a common sailor. She afterward resumed her proper attire' and opened a coffee-house for sailors. In 1800 a girl of fifteen tried to ship at London on board a South Sea whaler, and being refused she put on boy’s clothes and hired herself to a waterman and became very skillful in rowing. She did not learn to swim, however, and one day, the boat capsizing, she was nearly drowned. In the crisis her sex was discovered and she ceased to be “ a jolly young waterman” and became a domestic servant in her own apparel. Another girl, aged fourteen, named Elizabeth Bowden, being left an orphan, went up to London in 1807, from a village in Cornwall, in search of employment. She did not succeed in finding such work as she desired and, putting on male attire, she walked to Falmouth and there enlisted as a “ bov” on board His Majesty’s ship-of-war Hazard, and did good service aloft and below. Her sex was finally discovered, however, and by the kindness of the officers the poor girl was placed in a propqr position. Still another, named Rebecca Ann Johnson, had a cruel father, who dressed her as a boy when she w r as thirteen years old and apprenticed her to a collier ship, on which she served four years and (hen left the service because a brutal mate gave her a severe beating lor being slow when called on watch. In 1815, when the British war vessel Queep Charlotte was paid off, a negro woman was found among the crew, who had served eleven years at sea under the name of William Brown, and had become so expert a sailor that she was promoted to be a captain of the foretop. She had all the peculiarities of a good sailor and bad kept her * secret so well that no one suspected her real sex. This woman had been married and had adopted a sailor’s life to escape the abuse of a cruel husband.— Chicago Tribune..