Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1875 — Hew James Nesbit Made His Will. [ARTICLE]

Hew James Nesbit Made His Will.

The wreck of the Pacific serves as a reminder ot another terrible disaster which, in July, 1855, befell the steamer Brother Jonathan at a point near that where the former vessel met her fate. The Brother Jonathan was a sister ship of the Pacific, and while working in a heavy sea plunged on a sunken rock, tore a hole in her bottom, through which the foremast dropped until stopped by a yard crossing the deck, and in a few minutes went to the bottom. Ot the 152 passengers on board only sixteen survived. One incident which served to render that catastrophe memorable is recalled by the Troy Timet. Among the lost passengers of the Brother Jonathan was James Nesbit, editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, a Scotchman by birth, whose coolness in the presence of inevitable death placed him in the rank of heroes. After the doomed steamer began to give' signs that efforts to save her were futile, amid the warring of the elements, the confusion of the crew and the wild terror of the passengers, he calmly wrote his last will and testament in a small pocket-diary, and proved his entire nonchalance by omitting not one item of his property, and by appending a request to the authorities to probate the document, notwithstanding the. fact that it was written with a pencil and unwitnessed. The chirography of the will and the firm, bold signature were remarkably well executed. When his body was found on the beach, some twenty days afterward, it was discovered that Hie had wrapped the little book in a bandanna handkerchief, folded cornerwise, tied it next his skin across his breast, and afterward tied his handkerchief around his waist outside his shirt, the more securely to confine the will to his body, that every chance should exist of finding both together. -The will was admitted to probate. * The man who doesn’t read the advertisements in a newspaper is like the traveler who passes ajpng a strange road without consulting the guide-boards.