Intro

Music

Jake:
[0:05] Welcome to hub history where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 47, Sailing alone around the world, Part one.
Hi, I’m jake. This week, I’m going to talk about an adventure that began in boston and took captain Joshua slocum to nearly every corner of the world.
It nearly cost him his life on multiple occasions and it probably did cost him his marriage.
But in the end it earned him a place in history as the first person to circumnavigate the globe completely alone,
covering about 46,000 miles in three years, two months and two days without so much as a dog or even a ship’s rat for company.

[0:52] The Saga begins long before that legendary 1895 voyage when the growing and very seafaring slocum family lived at sea for 13 years until they were visited by unspeakable tragedy.
It follows them as they attempt to pick up the pieces, only to encounter further misfortunes that drove a wedge into the family and drove the captain out to sea in his handmade slope on what seemed like an impossible mission sailing alone around the world.

[1:22] But before we talk about the slocum’s and the solo voyage around the world, I just want to pause and thank Vicky G of Hyde Park for a recent generous gift of $60 on paypal.
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[2:24] And now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

Sailing Alone Around The World

[2:28] It was a perfect spring morning in boston. The sun was shining in an almost cloudless sky, and a steady offshore breeze blew over boston harbor as Joshua, Slocum pushed off from his dock on Lewis Street, at the foot of Maverick Square in East boston,
alone at the tiller of his little slope named the spray.
He pointed the bow down the harbor towards the open ocean.
As he would later write in his memoir, I had resolved on a voyage around the world and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair at noon. I weighed anchor, set sail and filled away from Boston.
A short board was made up in the harbor on the port tack. Then, coming about she stood seaward with her boom well off to ports, and swung past the fairies with lively heels.
A photographer on the outer purity. East boston got a picture of her as she swept by her flag at the peak, throwing its folds clear.
I haven’t found a copy of that picture the photographer took, but the graphics department at the boston globe turned it into an etching that later became pretty famous moments before Slocum cast off his lines.
A globe reporter visited him at National War near the South Ferry dock to see if the sailor still felt up to the task before him, writing courage. Still good?
Inquired the reporter, just as good as ever, was the hearty reply, as the captain cleared away everything forward and prepared to hoist the jib.

[3:56] Good luck to you then, and May we hear nothing but good news from you?
I, I was the cheery response, and the captain sprang after the wheel, trimmed in his jib sheet, and was off up the harbor as smoothly as a yard.

[4:10] Tacking to windward of a big four master lying at anchor, he eased his sheets and came flying by the end of the pier with the wind beam, so that the globe snapshot artist might have a fair chance.
Click went the camera.
Is it alright? Hailed the captain. Alright, was sent back,
and then with a wave of his hand in farewell, the captain turned his attention to his boat and swung her by the south ferry and down the harbor with everything, a rap full and a white wake trailing out a stern.

[4:42] Waving farewell.
Captain Slocum could feel his heart beating with excitement, writing in his book, thrilling pulse beat high in me.
My step was light on deck in the chris bear.
I felt that there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure.
The meaning of which I thoroughly understood in this tiny slope that many didn’t believe was large enough to withstand the fury of the open sea Joshua! Slocum was attempting a feat that no person had lived to complete.
374 years after Ferdinand Magellan was killed in the first circumnavigation of the globe.
This salty old sailor was going to attempt to follow in his footsteps.
Unlike Magellan, however, Slocum was planning to live through his adventure.
And unlike the old spanish captain, the american was going alone.
He was setting out from boston harbor to circle the globe without a crew, a dog, a cat or even a lowly ship’s rat for company.

[5:43] Slocum announced his intention to the world Just a week before, though he had been quietly planning the voyage for much longer.
A week before the voyage began, the captain announced his intent to sail alone around the world to the globe.
Unless that is his wife changed her mind about staying home, but that seemed unlikely.
The Globe reporter pointed out to circumnavigate the globe in a boat which at first sight seems hardly large enough for a long boat for the big square Riggers, or the still larger ocean steamers which lie near her,
is an adventure from even the prospect of which many a hardy mariner might be excused from shrinking.
But Captain Slocum apparently regards it with no feelings of misgiving, and talks about it in a matter of fact way, which shows confidence not only in his determination, but also in his ability to bring the adventure to a successful conclusion.
A more careful look at the boat to shows that she has much better fitted for sailing and for riding out a gale than even the best of longboats.
So that after a talk with the captain and an examination of his boat, something of his own confidence communicates itself to the Enquirer, and the adventure does not seem so strange or so impossible of successful issue, as many less promising ones which have had a happy termination.

[7:01] Although the idea of sailing alone around the world and living to tell of it was a bit of a long shot.
Captain Slocum had every reason to be confident.
By 1895, he had commanded nearly every type of vessel and sailed to nearly every corner of the globe.
Now in his early 50s, Joshua, Slocum had been at sea since he ran away from home at the age of 14.

[7:24] A descendant of Boston loyalists who evacuated alongside the British in 1776.
He had been raised on a farm in rural Nova Scotia Until his father moved the family into town and took up boot making as an occupation. When Joshua was eight years old.
His grandmother worked as a local lighthouse keeper, and Joshua seems to have inherited the salt that ran through her veins, writing later as for myself, The Wonderful See charmed me from the first.

[7:53] He enlisted 1st as a cook and cabin boy on a Canadian coastal fishermen.
Then as an ordinary seaman on a merchant vessel bound for Ireland From there he went on to Liverpool, then china Indonesia and the Philippines working his way up through the ranks as he went,
He spent 12 years sailing out of San Francisco for the first time, a captain in his own right, but commanding vessels that were owned by others.
It was on one of these voyages, out of San Francisco, that Joshua, Slocum now a 26 year old captain happened to meet Virginia walker. In Sydney, Australia Virginia was the daughter of an American.
A New Yorker who had gone west to the California gold fields in the 1850s and eventually just kept going west until the family landed in Australia chasing a gold rush there after a whirlwind six week courtship.
The pair was married on january 31st 18 71 Slocum many volumes of memoir never mentioned how he met Virginia, but his biographer, walter magnus teller tracked down their Australian marriage certificate.

[9:00] I. James Greenwood being minister of the Bathurst ST baptist church.
Sydney do hereby certify that I have this day, at 56 Upper fourth street in Sydney Duly celebrated marriage between Joshua Slocum Bachelor, Master Mariner of Massachusetts, United States and Virginia.
Albertina Walker, Spinster of 19 Buckingham Street, Strawberry Hill. Sydney after declaration duly made is by law required, Dated this 31st day of January 1871.
The consent of Mr William Henry Walker. Also of 19 Buckingham Street Strawberry Hill. Sydney was given to the marriage of Virginia. Albertina Walker with Joshua. Slocum The said Virginia. Albertina Walker being under the age of 21 years.

[9:47] For the next 13 years the couple would be inseparable. Joshua was in command of the bark Washington at the time,
and Virginia moved into the cramped stateroom at the back of the ship with him,
neatly, storing her few belongings in the chests and nets alongside his, and squeezing what she could under the shelves with the many volumes of literature, history, and practical navigation that helped make the dark and airless cabin feel more like a home.
Later the couple would add a piano and other comforts of home when they could afford them, because unlike many captains, wives Virginia, Slocum lived at sea with her husband, with Teller writing.
It was a rarely courageous wife who accompanied her husband on more than one voyage, but Virginia for the rest of her life sailed wherever Joshua went.

[10:34] Their honeymoon took them from Australia to the coastal waters of Alaska, where they picked up a cargo of salmon.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go smoothly on their first cruise, together with biographer teller writing as Slocum oldest son later put it.
The fishing was carried out successfully, except for the loss of the vessel.

[10:56] It was only four years since Russia had sold Alaska to the United States, and the waters were not well known to american masters.
The charts were still very sketchy.
The Washington dragged her anchors in a gale, and was stranded on the shoals, and the unrelenting wind.
The ship broke up under Slocum direction. However, the crew was taken off safely and open whale boat was constructed of wood from the wreck, and nearly the entire cargo was salvaged.
A revenue cutter happened by and offered to take Virginia to porting Kodiak.
While Joshua made the same crossing in a 35-foot open boat among the late winter ice of the Arctic.
He may have lost the ship, but its owners were impressed with the ingenuity and courage that their captain, Slocum had displayed in saving the cargo after he and Virginia hitched a ride back to san Francisco with some Russians.
The owners put Joshua, Slocum in charge of the Constitution, not the USS Constitution that we know so well in boston, but another ship of the same name that served as a package carrying mail packages and passengers back and forth between san Francisco and Honolulu.
Not a bad gig if you can get it.

[12:09] Almost exactly a year after they were married, Joshua and Virginia welcomed their first child victor, who was born on board the Constitution in san Francisco bay.
They would go on to have a total of seven Children, all of whom were born on board whatever ship Joshua was captaining at the time and four of whom lived to adulthood.

[12:31] Their second son Benjamin was named after the ship. He was born on the B.
Aimar and their first daughter Jessie was also born on board the B. M. R. In Philippine waters in june 18 75.
While jesse was still an infant. The ship’s owner sold the um are out from under the slocum’s stranding them outside Manila.
Somehow Joshua managed to arrange a deal by which he spent the next year building a large wooden steamship for a british naval architect, in exchange for which he was given a 45 ton schooner called the patio that have been designed by the same architect,
for the first time, Joshua, Slocum would own the ship he commanded.
The growing family soon shipped out again, trying their hands first at marine salvage, then fishing and then undertaking a trip from Manila to Hong kong Yokohama, Japan Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula and finally on to Oregon.

[13:30] On this long voyage, thousands of miles from shore, Virginia gave birth to twins, both of whom died a few weeks later.

[13:41] Virginia and Joshua’s letters didn’t mention much about how the couple grieved the twins.
The only record of this period comes from letters. The older Children later wrote to walter teller and their focus stayed on happier memories Like this one intelligent biography,
Virginia sewed, played the piano and reared her Children.
She also displayed some unusual and curiously fortunate abilities to spend a few hours with sharks in mid ocean. When they were present, mother and I teamed up. BMR recollected.
It was my job to get the shark interested in coming close up.
I used a new tin can with a string on it to attract the shark close under the stern, where mother dispatched it with her 32 caliber revolver with which she never needed. But one shot.
How I love to see her do it without any signs on her part of showing a superior skill, rather unusual memories for a boy to have of his mother and unusual even for captain’s wives.

[14:42] A few years later, having sold the Schooner Patio and bought a 350 ton ship.
Another daughter was born at sea somewhere between Manila and Shanghai.
This time. The only known letter from Virginia records our grief.
She wrote to her mother from the Philippines on July 17, 1879.
Dearest mother and all You must excuse for writing so short a letter.
I have been very sick ever since the 15th of last month.
I feel a little better now. It’s such a strange sickness. I have not been able to eat anything until lately.
Dear josh has got me everything you can think of. My hand shakes, so now I can hardly right.
Dear Mother! My dear little baby died the other day. And I expect that it is partly the cause.
Every time her teeth would start to come she would cry all night if I would cut them through. The gum would grow together again the night she died she had one convulsion after another.
I gave her a hot bath and some medicine, and she was quite quiet.
In fact, I thought she was going to come around when she gave a quiet sigh and was gone.
Dear josh embalmed her and Brandi, for we would not leave her in this horrid place.
She did look so pretty after she died. Dearest mother! I cannot write anymore, signed Virginia.

[16:11] Finally, in the spring of 1881, the couple’s last child was born in Hong Kong Harbor on March three.
They named him James a Garfield Slocum after the new american president who was inaugurated the next day and halfway around the world.
A few weeks later, Virginia Joshua, and therefore living Children moved onto the Northern Light.
At almost 1900 tons rating. She was five times the size of the next largest ship that Joshua Slocum had commanded.
This 220 ft long vessel finally provided the space for the family to feel truly at home.
The idea of an entire family joining a captain at sea was still such a novelty that a reporter for the new york tribune reported on them under the headline, an american home afloat describing their need quarters.

[17:02] The captain state room is a commodious apartment, furnished with a double birth, which one might mistake for a black walnut bedstead,
a transom upholstered like a lounge, a library, chairs, carpets, wardrobe, and the chronometer tres This room is a bath, the main cabin, which is furnished like a parlor.
In this latter apartment of the square piano, center table, sofa, easy chairs and carpets, while on the walls hang several oil paintings,
in front of the parlor is the dining room, which, together with the other rooms exhibited neatness of which only a woman’s hand is capable.

[17:42] As their fortunes grew, so did the collection of books the family kept on board with some estimates suggesting that it topped 500 volumes,
from this library, Virginia Slocum taught the Children during weekday downtime and led a sunday school for the family and crew alike.
She could play piano, harp, guitar and had a fine singing voice.
She was skilled in cooking and needlework, and along with dispatching sharks with a single shot, she learned the practical art of navigation in an incredible understatement.
Jesse Slocum would later write.
Mother was a remarkable woman.

[18:23] On the family’s last voyage on the northern light Virginia had to add a new skills or incredible repertoire facing down mutineers.
The family shipped out of New York Harbor in August 1882, but had to put into new London Connecticut a few days later for repairs.
While they were there, most of the crew who had been paid in advance for a journey across the pacific to Asia and back across the atlantic attempted to jump ship,
Joshua and his first mate ended up in a brawl with the enlisted seamen and the mate was stabbed to death.
When the blades came out, Virginia sprang to her husband’s assistance, guns drawn.
I saw her covering father with a revolver in each hand, middle son, BMR later told walter teller that was enough to cause the crew to back down the coast Guard arrested the main mutineer and took the first mate’s body to shore.

[19:20] Unfortunately, there was as much of a labor shortage in 1882 as there is today.
So the slocum were forced to start the voyage with a new first mate and the same mutinous crew.

[19:32] The cruise was fairly uneventful as they made their way from new york to japan and from there to the Philippines with the most noteworthy part of the voyage being they’re passing by Krakatoa a few days before the famous volcanoes, massive eruption.
Then in south africa, they had to take on their 3rd 1st mate of the voyage after the replacement got too sick to continue soon after getting underway.
The second mate Mitchell overheard the new first mate, Henry slater plotting with some of the crew to murder the Slocum’s and take over the ship themselves.
The Slocum responded by clapping Slater and irons.
The record doesn’t specify how they accomplished this citizen’s arrest in the face of a hostile crew, but I have to imagine that Virginia and are matching revolvers played an important part.

[20:23] The captain ordered Slater to be held in irons all the way back to new york.
A journey of 53 more days when they arrived a year and a half.
After starting their journey, Henry slater pressed charges against Joshua.
Slocum with the december 22nd, 18 83 boston globe reporting,
the jury in the case of Captain Joshua Slocum master of the ship Northern Light, who has tried in the United States Circuit Court criminal branch on a charge of cruelly treating one of his sailors named slater on a voyage from South Africa found the prisoner guilty Today,
Captain Slocum was admitted to bail pending an argument for a new trial.
The penalty for the offense was $1,000 fine or five years imprisonment or both in the discretion of the court.
In the end, Joshua, Slocum would be fined $500 for his alleged cruelty in keeping slater and irons.
For so long slater filed a civil suit asking for damages, but later dropped it while he was tied up with his court cases. Captain Slocum was forced to sell his shares in the Northern Light.

[21:30] Eventually, he used the last of his savings to purchase a 326 ton fast sailing bark called the equip neck, which needed extensive repairs before she was seaworthy,
while Joshua was overseeing work on the bark, Virginia and the Children stayed with one of his sisters.
In boston, the almost two years the family spent in the hub was the longest they had stayed in one place since Virginia and Joshua were married and it was the first time the Children had experienced life on land.

[22:00] Having established roots in Boston, that they would later rely on the family left again.
In the spring of 1884, when the equipment was Seaworthy Joshua had contracted to deliver a cargo of flour to Pernambuco brazil.
Little did he know that for Virginia who had delivered seven babies aboard ship and buried three of them who had faced down sharks and mutineers, equally Cooley Who had lived at sea for most of 13 years because she and Joshua couldn’t bear to be apart.
Little did he know that this would be Virginia’s last voyage.

[22:35] The trip to brazil passed without incident and after offloading the flower in Pernambuco the Slocum and the equipment sailed on to Buenos Aires in search of a return cargo somewhere along the way. However Virginia began feeling sick.
Within a few days she had stopped working on her embroidery. Then she stopped playing piano and then school for the Children ceased Before long she was bedridden, but after a few days anchored outside Buenos Aires, she started feeling better.
On July 25, 1884, she was out of bed and salting butter for the return trip, but it didn’t last.
Hours later a message was sent to Joshua onshore to return to the ship with all haste.
Be a mar who was 12 years old at the time. Later wrote father returned about noon and I was called. My father at about eight pm to kneel at her bedside as she breathed her last, her eyes closed and motionless.

[23:34] Virginia. The great love of Joshua. Slocum’s life is buried in english cemetery outside Buenos Aires.
The rest of the family made haste for boston, where the Children stayed with Joshua’s sisters in natick and be a marvel to never go to sea again.
The captain drifted youngest son Garfield said that his father was like a ship without a rudder.
He made three quick trips back to Pernambuco on the acquit nick carrying potbelly stoves, lumber and pianos.
The eldest boy victor went along his first mate keeping his father from sinking into depression as his father kept the family from sinking into debt.
It was a living but not much more.

[24:22] About 18 months after his dear Virginia died, it began to look like the tide was turning for Joshua, Slocum While he was important boston, visiting his Children.
Henrietta Elliot, the captain’s distant cousin was also in town, Steady as she was known, was 24 years old and pretty Joshua was 42 and had a reputation as a highly successful captain.
He was also desperately lonely and out of his depth trying to raise his Children.
The Boston Globe reported that on February 22, 1886, married in this city by reverend N. B. Jones, Joshua Slocum and Heady M. Elliott of boston.

[25:06] Captain Joshua. Slocum had only one model and one mental image of what a marriage looked like.
So six days after the wedding. Heady victor and Garfield joined the captain on the equipped nick, on another run to brazil carrying a cargo of five gallon kerosene cans.
It would be the last voyage of the equipment like the last time Joshua. Slocum commanded a merchant vessel, and the last time he went to see in almost every way it was a disaster.
But this voyage set the stage for most of the rest of Joshua Slocum’s life.
On the third day of the trip, they sailed straight through a hurricane and started leaking badly.
The crew had to pump for much of the rest of the 66 day trip to Brazil while spending the next several months taking small jobs on the coast of South America.
The family was exposed to cholera in Argentina, and the ship was quarantined in brazil.

[26:03] On this voyage. The slocum is again faced mutiny on July 23, 1887 biographer walter teller described how they were once again saved by a quick thinking wife, and some gunplay,
disturbed by the threatening attitude of some of the men earlier in the day. Have you been unable to sleep?
She heard someone whispering and moving quietly on the deck near the cabin, alarmed. She wakened Slocum and urged him not to go on deck by the forward companion way?
Her advice may well have saved his life. Nothing Slocum Road Afterwards justifies a visit on the poop deck after working hours except a call to relief sickness or for some other emergency,
and then secrecy or stealth is non permissible arming myself.
Therefore, with a stout carbine repeater with eight ball cartridges in the magazine.
I stepped on deck. A bath instead of forward, where evidently I had been expected as Slocum came on deck, for the crew were waiting, greeting them with oaths.
They challenged them to order them back forward. He did so.
The men, instead of obeying, attacked him with knives. Slocum managed to shoot two of his assailants, killing one of them.
It is idle to say what I would or would not have given to have the calamity averted, He wrote.
A man will defend himself, and his family to the last, for life is sweet, after all.

[27:32] Joshua was arrested and charged with murder. He was found to have acted in self defense, but not until he had spent two months in a Brazilian jail.
He rejoined the ship just in time for almost the entire crew to come down with smallpox, and once he was down to just victor and two seamen able to work, they were forced to return to port again.
Then, just after christmas, their luck seemed to have turned. Slocum had a healthy crew and a lucrative cargo of hardwood timber for shipbuilding,
heading out to see the master mariner and his vessel were caught in a bad combination of crosswinds and unexpected currents and wound up grounded on a sandbar along the Brazilian coast.
Captain Slocum later wrote stranded broadside, on where open to the CIA strong swell came in that rake her fore and aft.
For three days, the waves dashing over a groaning hull. The while, until at last her back was broke, and why not at heart as well, for she lay now undone.

[28:35] He managed to sell the wreck where it lay, and began casting around for a way to get himself and his family back to the States.
Having been engaged in shipbuilding and tropical climates back in the Philippines a decade before Slocum resolved to build his own ship and sail at home.
Nothing fancy just something big enough for the four of them, and not so big that they need a crew.
The design he came up with was essentially an oversized canoe, 35 ft long, five ft wide and drawing three ft of water.
It was so unusual and noteworthy that Joshua, Slocum started to think that people might pay to read about it.
So we started taking notes that eventually became the book Voyage of the libertad.
In it, he described the challenges they encountered in securing materials and building the boat, and he described how the miniature ship, as he referred to it, was constructed.

[29:30] To begin with. We had an ax and ads and two saws, one half inch auger, 13 quarter and 1 3/8 inch auger bit,
two large sail needles, which we converted into nailing bits, one roper that answered for a punch, and most precious of all, a file that we found in an old sail bag washed up on the beach.
A square. We readily made two splints of bamboo wood, served as compass is charcoal pounded.
His finest flour and mixed in water, took the place of chalk for the line The ladder we had on hand in cases where holes larger than the three quarter bit were required.
A small piece of jack stay iron was heated, and with this we could burn a hole to any size required, so we had, after all quite a kit to go on with clamps, such as are used by boat builders.
We had not but made substitutes from the crooked guava tree.

[30:30] The planks for the bottom were of Ironwood, one and a quarter by 10 for the sides and top.
Red cedar was used, each plank, with the exception of two reaching the whole length of the boat.
This arrangement of exceedingly heavy wood in the bottom and the light on top contributed much to the stability of the craft.
The fastenings we gathered up in various places, some from the bulwarks of the wreck, some from the hinges of doors and skylights, and some were made for the ship’s metal sheathing, which the natives melted and cast into nails.
Pure copper nails also were procured from the natives, some 10 kg for which I paid in copper coins at the rate of two kg of coin for one kg of nails over the top of the midship stores.
A floor was made which housed over by a tarpaulin roof reaching three ft above the deck of the canoe, gave us a sitting space of four ft from the florida roof And 12 ft long amidships, supported by a frame of bamboo made storeroom in cabin.
My builders bulked at nothing on the 13th day of May, the day on which the slaves in Brazil were set free. Our craft was launched.
I was named libertad.

[31:48] When it came time to outfit the oversized canoe, it was hard to know what to plan for with favorable winds.
They might complete the journey back to the US east Coast in as little as six weeks, but things could also drag on, Not knowing if the trip would take two months or six. The family had to stock up on supplies.
Slocum is book records their inventory.
Sea biscuits, £120 flour, £25.
Sugar, £30 Coffee,
which roasted black and pounded finest wheat and flour was equal to double the amount is prepared in North America and afforded us a much more delicious cup of tea.
We had £3 pork, £20 dried beef, £100 dried codfish, £20.02 bottles of honey, 200 oranges, six bunches of bananas, 120 gallons of water.
Also a small basket of yams and a dozen sticks of sugar cane by way of vegetables.

[32:51] Our medicine chest contained brazil nuts, pepper and cinnamon.
No other medicines or condiments were required on the voyage, except table salt, which we also had one musket in a carbine, which had already stood us in good stead together with ammunition and three Cutlasses were stowed away.
Precautionary measures were taken in everything so far as our resources and skill could reach.
Springy and buoyant bamboo was used wherever stick of any kind was required,
such as the frame and braces for the cabin yards for the sales, and finally for gardiner top sides, making the canoe altogether a self righting one in case of a capsize,
each joint in the bamboo was an air chamber of several pounds buoyant capacity, and we had 1000 joints.

[33:39] The most important of our stores, particularly the flour, bread and coffee, were hermetically sealed, so that it actually turned over at C.
R. Craft would not only write herself, but would bring her stores right side up in good order, and then it would only be a question of bailing her out and of setting her again on the course when we would come on as right as ever to make things official.
Captain Slocum went to the local Custom House and talk to the officials.
Friendly officer complemented the little vessel, and said that he wished he had one like it.
With a nod and a wink, he issued a license to catch fish inside and outside the bar, when Joshua asked how far outside the sand bar at the mouth of the harbor, his license was good for the official shrugged, and wished him good luck.

[34:28] On june 24th 18 88 deliver dot cut through the thundering breakers cross the bar and stood for the open ocean.
After tearing their sales in a storm. The Slocum accepted a tow from a steamship that took them as far as rio.
After some repairs, they left again on July 23.

[34:49] They survived aggressive swordfish and took in the majesty of curious whales, and they supplemented their supplies with flying fish that landed in the boat as they sailed along, and a passing american ship gave them a barrel of fresh potatoes,
from rio.
They sailed to bahia and then up the coast of Pernambuco their original destination in brazil, then pointed the little boat out onto the open ocean,
Where they charted a 2150 mile course to Barbados, and completed the journey in 19 days From Barbados, they made Puerto Rico in five days stocking in Mayaguez.
After a three day layover, they sailed out on October 15 following the Cuban coast, then navigating the tricky channels and reefs of the Bahamas.

[35:37] After sailing 1300 miles in 13 days, they dropped anchor about two miles offshore from Cape Roman South Carolina, just up the coast from Charleston on November 28.
It was the first time the family had seen the US in 2.5 years.
The New York Times reported on November 4, 1888,
To travel a distance of nearly 4500 miles in a canoe, only 30 ft long, with a woman and two Children, is an undertaking that the most experienced and stout hearted Mariners would hesitate to attempt.
Yet. This is what Captain Joshua slocum of the wrecked barka Quick Nick undertook to do about four months ago, and, judging by success so far, he will soon be at his journey’s end.

[36:22] With the help of a series of knowledgeable local pilots, the family steered their little craft through the inland waters of the Carolinas Landing in Beaufort North Carolina on November 28, two days after christmas, they reached Washington, D.
C, where they furl the sails, batten down the hatches, and found a cozy apartment where they could wait out. The winner, Joshua, Slocum wrote having more the libertad and weather bit of their cables.
It remains only to be said that after bringing us safely through the dangers of a tropical voyage,
clearing reefs, shoals, breakers, and all storms without a serious accident of any kind, we learned to love the little canoe as well as anything that could be loved that is made by hands.

[37:06] Hetty was perhaps less taken with the libertad in its voyage than Joshua when the weather started getting warm again in april the family loaded up the sailing canoe once more and hopscotch their way up the coast from D.
C. To Baltimore, Baltimore to Philly and Philly to new york, Where the May 12, Boston Globe reported the three ton boat Liberdade in which Captain Joshua slocum with his wife and two Children, left.
Pernambuco brazil on june 24th arrived at Staten Island this evening after a voyage of over 7000 miles.
Captain Slocum says the trip on the whole was a most enjoyable one.
During the long voyage. Many severe storms were encountered. But the little boat, he says weathered them all like a dauntless seabird.
The liver dot We’ll come up to the barge office about noon monday with the flood tide.
Then it was on to New London Newports and finally taunton.
There they loaded their miniature ship onto a railcar and had the experience of sailing over land.
As Slocum put it for the final leg of their journey back to boston.

[38:14] When they got their head, he took a page from B A mars book and vowed to never go to sea again.
A reporter for the New York World, interviewed her when they were passing through in May 1889.
Are you going on another voyage? Mrs Slocum Oh, I hope not.
I haven’t been home in over three years. And this was my wedding journey.
Mrs Slocum said she was going from here to boston for a visit, adding I shall travel by rail.
I’ve had enough sailing to last me a long time, after all that, who can blame her?

[38:50] Joshua, however, was getting ideas. He was able to turn the disastrous loss of the equip nick into the book, Voyage of the liver dod, which eventually made the family of fine living.
In the meantime, Heady moved in with her sister in east boston, taking jesse and little Garfield with her victor, and BMR were old enough to start making their own way in the world.
Biographer Teller quotes the youngest Slocum Father did not come to that house.
Garfield wrote me apparently he had gone back to the relations who had not approved of her marriage in the first place.

[39:27] He also notes that Captain Slocum had difficulty finding another command.
The age of sail was waning. There weren’t that many jobs for a sailing master in the first place, and especially not for one who had lost as many ships as Slocum had over the years.
At 45 years old, he moved in with an aging and on Saratoga Street in East E.
He wasn’t living with his wife and Children, but he wasn’t far away and he spent the next several months getting his logs from the acquit nick and the liver dot in a good enough shape to publish.
The first edition was released by the Printers. Robinson and Stevenson in Boston in July 1890 and Joshua, Slocum got right to work on his next adventure in his next book, Captain Slocum wrote,
mine was not the sort of life to make one long to coil up one’s ropes on land, the customs and ways of which I had finally almost forgotten,
and so when times for freighters got bad as they at last did, and I tried to quit the sea what was there for an old sailor to do.

[40:32] After for so long, valuing books and education.
Having fitted out his past ships with enviable libraries, he was now a published author himself.
He was also quite taken with the idea of small boat navigation. Whether it was because his family was slowly turning away from the sea or because you don’t have to worry about mutineers when there’s no crew on board,
while the captain would take on more commercial voyages in the coming years.
An idea was taking root in his mind.
Maybe he could combine his interests in navigation, boat building, small craft and authorship by building a small ship, outfitting it thoughtfully and sailing it alone around the world,
and maybe he could pay for the adventure and more by writing another book about it.

[41:21] Then, in 1892, an old whaling captain, he was friends with told Captain Slocum about an old fishing so that he could have for free, as long as he was willing to come down to the new Bedford area to pick it up.
And that’s where we’ll leave it for this week. I hadn’t originally intended for this to be a two part episode, but I thought that Virginia Slocum was a really fascinating woman and I ended up including a lot more about the family’s life before her death than I meant to,
in the next episode.
We’ll pick up Joshua, Slocum story as he renovates the sleep spray and then follow him on his solo circumnavigation of the globe.

[42:00] To learn more about the seagoing Slocum family Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 247.
I’ll include the famous etching of the spray leaving Boston Harbor in 1895 as well as a map showing the location of the East Boston Duck.
She left from also linked to the text of Joshua. Slocum’s narrative of the voyage of the liver dad and a number of contemporaneous news accounts of the Slocum families exploits.

Listener Feedback

[42:29] Before I let you go, I have listener feedback to share our friends over at the one mike black history podcast recorded an episode about Plessy V Ferguson, the Supreme Court decision that implemented separate but equal in the U. S.
So I sent the host country boy our podcast about the local roots of the separate but equal doctrine in episode 1 62 and he responded, this is great.

[42:54] When the U. S. Senate passed a bill back in March that may lead to permanent daylight savings. There was a lot of discussion on twitter and our neighbors at the paul revere house said, Gosh, daylight saving time sure has been a hot topic this week, hasn’t it?
We’re still feeling the effects. No doubt our tired eyes love to see the sky stay bright later.
We recommend hub history’s classic podcast on the subject And they linked to episode 158 about the role Boston played in establishing time zones.

[43:26] Mike from the north shore wrote in to suggest a podcast about how the McCarthy Ite communist witch hunt affected boston.
Thanks for the suggestion Mike. I’ll get around to it eventually. Maybe.

[43:42] Mary spelled M E R R Y wrote in from Arizona and asked about primary sources for one of our episodes.
Just discovered your podcast. It’s fascinating. I’m especially interested in the Dread Pirate Rachel Episode 1 47.
Do you know if any of the primary sources about Rachel walls, various arrests, trials, imprisonments, executions, et cetera are available digitally.
I’m researching from Arizona. So combing through records in person is alas, not an option.

[44:15] I pointed married to some online resources and thanked her for listening from so far away.
Her email raises a good point. I have a day job so I can almost never get to the public library or the local archives and they’re open much less to any archives farther away.
So you can expect that almost all the sources I cite are found online.
That’s why when wayne from the 11 Names Project recommended our episode 2 29 about two enslaved painters to his followers. He added Jake always brings the heat with good show notes too.
When in doubt check the show notes for the episode and see what I linked to.

Outro

[44:55] We love getting listener feedback whether you love the episode or just liked it a lot.
We’re happy to hear your episode suggestions and requests for source information if you want to leave us some feedback on this show or any other.
You can email us at podcast at hub history dot com.
We’re hub history on twitter, facebook and instagram. Or you can go to hub history dot com and click on the Contact us link while you’re on the site, Hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode.
If you subscribe on apple podcasts, please consider leaving us a brief review and if you do drop me a line and I’ll send you a hub history sticker as a token of appreciation.

Music

Jake:
[45:38] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.