Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1875 — Sailor Heroism. [ARTICLE]

Sailor Heroism.

The latest story of heroism and suffering performed and endured on the part of those who go down to the sea in ships is one of great interest. In December last the bark Mendota left the island of Java with a full cargo for New York. The Captain and one seaman were suffering from Java fever when the ship sailed. Of the two mates but one understood navigation, and to him fell the command. In a few days the second mate, the cook and the steward were down with the fever, which, in its insatiable progress, had left the Captain nearly a skeleton, and would soon waste the rest of the crew. It was not long before but five of the seamen were in a condition to work the vessel. The second mate died. The first, Frederick Adams, held nobly to his post and so impressed the seamen with zeal, activity and endurance that they felt the safety of ship and crew depended on his successfully fighting off the fever should it attack him. He was attacked, but he refused to succumb. Daily he crawled out of his cabin on hands and knees in order to ascertain the ship’s position and work her. He kept the bark on her course, intending to make no diversion, but as man after man died of the fever, and as it so filled the ship that it could be smelled, he made for St. Helena in order to obtain medical assistance. It took six long and weary days to reach the island, but, though almost dead, the mate was on deck daily directing the movements of the ship, which, without his guiding knowledge, might as well have been rudderless. Finally the fever was banished from the vessel, and, after what the mate modestly characterized as the toughest voyage he ever made, it reached New York in safety.