Captain Thomas A. Scott, master diver, one who was not afraid and who spoke the truth

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CAPTAIN
THOMAS A. SCOTT

MASTER DIVER

"TRUE AMERICAN TYPES"

Vol. I. JOHN GILLEY: Maine Farmer and
Fisherman, by Charles W. Eliot.

Vol. II. AUGUSTUS CONANT : Illinois
Pioneer and Preacher, by Robert

COLLYER.

Vol. III. CAP'N CHADW^ICK: Marble-
head Skipper and Shoemaker, by John
W. Chadwick.

Vol. IV. DAVID LIBBEY : Penobscot
Woodsman and River-driver, by Fannie

H. ECKSTORM.

Vol. V. CAPTAIN THOMAS A. SCOTT:
Master Diver, by F. Hopkinson Smith.

Price, each, 60 cents, net; by mail, 65 cents.

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts

CAPTAIN

THOMAS A. SCOTT

MASTER DIVER

ONE WHO WAS NOT AFRAID
AND WHO SPOKE THE TRUTH

BY

F. HOPKINSON SMITH

BOSTON

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION

1908

Copyright 1908
F. HoPKiNsoN Smith

Presswork by The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

0X9-15

CAPTAIN
THOMAS A. SCOTT

MASTER DIVER

M2937S9

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CAPTAIN SCOTT

SOME sixty years ago — sixty-two,
to be exact — there sailed out of
a harbor on the Chesapeake, near the
town of Snow Hill, Maryland, a craft
carrying eight cords of wood — all
on deck. She was what was known as
a " bay pungy," drawing but four feet
of water, with a mast forward and a
boom swinging loose. Aft of the
stump of a bowsprit was a foVastle
the size of a dry goods box, in which
slept the captain and crew.

The captain was Tommy Scott, a
lad of fifteen, — strong, well-built,
I

CAPTAIN SCOTT

and springy, with a look in his face of
one who was not afraid, and who
spoke the truth ; the crew was a negro
boy of twelve. These two supplied
the neighboring towns with wood in
exchange for oysters and clams.

Some years later a straight, clear-
eyed young fellow, with a chest of
iron — arms like cant hooks and
thighs lashed with whip-cord and steel,
shipped as common sailor aboard the
schooner John Wllletts, — Captain
Wever, Master. He was seven years
older than when he commanded the
pungy, but the look on his face was
still the same, — the look of a man
who was not afraid and who spoke
the truth.

A leaf torn from the log of the Wil-
letts — yellow stained and frayed at

CAPTAIN SCOTT

the corners — a fragment hidden in
an old trunk in the garret all these
years — furnishes a further record.
From this fragment it appears that a
certain Thomas Scott was hired at
fifteen dollars a month, paid at inter-
vals, as follows:

To cash at Port Richmond $ 2.00

To cash at New York i.oo

To cash for shirt 1.50

To cash for trunk off Barnegat. . . . 2.00

Cash a dollar gold piece 1. 00

At the bottom are the words, '* All
settled with T. Scott up to May ist,
1852," and then the signature, " T. A.
Scott.''

Three years later (1855 now), an-
other vessel loomed into view ; this was
the schooner Thomas Nelson, Capt.

3

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Thomas A. Scott master and part-
owner, loaded to the scuppers with a
cargo of staves bound for Barbadoes.
She carried but one passenger, — a slen-
der Maryland girl with a wedding
ring on her finger which the Captain
himself had placed there three weeks
before. The voyage took eighteen
days, the sea being smooth and the
wind kindly — so kindly that the slen-
der girl sometimes held the tiller.
On the voyage back a gale from the
northwest swept the deck and split
the foresail Into ribbons. On the
tenth day the navigator and half the
crew were taken down with fever, the
navigator dying as he reached port.
Again the slender girl held the tiller,
standing beside the man who was not
afraid, — this time with her heart in

CAPTAIN SCOTT

her mouth: the Atlantic was an un-
known sea to her husband, but the
wife and all he had in the world was
aboard. Forty-eight hours the two
stood on deck taking turns at the
pumps and tiller. On the twenty-
fifth day they sighted the Capes
and the next morning dropped anchor
In the Roanoke. Many a storm have
these two ridden out together since
that blind rush from the Barbadoes —
storms of poverty, of death, of sor-
row— many a bright morning too,
and welcoming harbor, have glad-
dened their eyes, but there were al-
ways four hands on the tiller, two big
and strong and two warm and help-
ing.

The children began to come now.
The schooner was sold and the Cap-

5

CAPTAIN SCOTT

tain and his wife moved to Coytes-
vllle, N. J., where he opened a gen-
eral store. Two years later a burning
steamer sank near Fort Lee. The
Captain was asked to make a survey of
the wreck, with the result that the
store was abandoned and a contract
entered Into between himself and the
owners to bring the cargo to the sur-
face. This experience fitted him for
more Important work along similar
lines, and In 1869 he entered the em-
ploy of a sub-marine company In New
York, and was at once placed In
charge of the wrecked steamer Scot-
land, sunk In six fathoms of water off
Sandy Hook, Its site marked for many
years by the U. S. Government with
the Scotland Lightship. The steamer
was an Iron vessel, lay Immediately
6

CAPTAIN SCOTT

in the channel and was a menace to
navigation. The government paid a
lump sum for its complete removal
and a percentage of the value of any
cargo saved. Up to the time Cap-
tain Scott was put in charge of this
work, all attempts at breaking the
iron hulk had failed; explosives of
to-day were unknown then; the bat-
tery was In use, but a water-proof
cartridge of high power was lacking.
Captain Scott crawled over every foot
of the vessel In his diving dress, made
up his mind Instantly what to do,
bought thirty new wine casks holding
sixty gallons each, filled them with
powder, sunk and placed each cask
himself — some under her lower
deck, others back of her boilers —
two In the forecastle, five behind her

CAPTAIN SCOTT

engines — wherever the force would
tell, connected the thirty giant bombs
by rubber-coated copper wire, twisted
the strands into one rope, placed his
battery In a rowboat, fell back some
hundred yards and made the connec-
tion. There was an upheaval, a col-
umn of water straight In the air, and
the Scotland was split like a melon
dashed on a sidewalk.

The fight for a clear channel being
won, the work of salvage was begun.
This occupied 585 working hours,
Scott breaking the record at that time
by remaining seven hours and forty-
eight minutes under water. The
Company's share of the property
saved amounted to $110,000; Scott's
pay and percentage to $11,000.

The following year (1870) he laid
8

CAPTAIN SCOTT

the under-water foundation for the
first dock built by the Dock Depart-
ment of New York, the plan being a
novel one, and his own.

Between 1871 and 1878 he was in
charge, at my request, of the subma-
rine work of the Race Rock Light-
house off New London Harbor, to
which city he moved his plant and
family, and where they still reside.

Not much of a record, the forego-
ing — unless you knew the man and
were familiar with the difficulties over-
come. Hundreds of men In similar
walks of life have done as much, you
might say many have done more; I
admit It, but few with so little book
education. For there had been no
time during all these years for study;

9

CAPTAIN SCOTT

he had had practically no schooling —
only what his mother had taught him
and what he could thumb from the
primers of the day — just a plain,
American sailor-man — bom of in-
dustrious, honest people. His only
capital, his courage, his clear head, his
willingness to tackle any job that came
his way, and his mastery of details.

My own acquaintance with him be-
gins now, — one of the greatest bless-
ings that ever came Into my life.
This is easily understood when my
own unfitness for a task of the magni-
tude I had contracted to do is con-
sidered. I was young, inexperienced,
with little money and with practically
no plant for a work of the kind. The
problem was the building of a light-
house exposed to the full rake of the

10

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Atlantic, situated eight miles from a
harbor, two miles from any shore, my
first work of any magnitude, and In
a " race " that ran six miles an hour.
The success of work of this kind does
not always depend on the skill of the
engineer, but upon the nerve, pluck
and loyalty of the men who handle
the material. These men are diffi-
cult to obtain, for there are no reg-
ular working gangs from which to
choose them, there not being enough
lighthouses built in any one year on
our coasts to educate and retain them.
Moreover, every structure presents a
different problem in itself. Besides
experience in any branch such as div-
ing, handling and erecting derricks is
really less important than the willing-
ness to get wet and stay wet, hours at
II

CAPTAIN SCOTT

a time; to endanger one's life almost
dally without caring or knowing the
risk; to go hungry when shut off from
supplies by rough weather, during
which no landing can be made; to
sleep in a water cask for three days,
if you will, lashed to the derricks, be-
cause every other movable thing, —
shanty and all, — has been swept away
by a southeaster (and this was one of
our experiences). To do this cheer-
fully, patiently and continuously, year
after year, battling with the sea as an
enemy, only looking forward to vic-
tory, is what crowns any submarine
work with success.

More difficult still Is the finding of
a man to lead and command such men.

One morning, In answer to my ad-
vertisement, a forceful, straightfor-

12

CAPTAIN SCOTT

ward man, — strong as a bull, clear-
eyed, honest looking, competent and
fearless, walked into my office, a
stranger, and thirty minutes later
walked out again as foreman of con-
struction. He was about forty-two
years of age at the time, in the prime
of his manhood and at the beginning
of an experience now so widely
known. References usually consid-
ered necessary in a first interview, and
generally confirmed by subsequent in-
quiries or written recommendations,
did not enter into the negotiations be-
tween ^is. No man or child could look
Captain Thomas A. Scott in the face
without instantly believing in him, and
no act of his in after life would shake
that belief.

The reader must forgive the use

13

CAPTAIN SCOTT

of the personal pronoun in this part
of the Captain's life. I cannot tell
it In any other way and do him justice.
This will be the better appreciated
when it is remembered that during the
seven years the Lighthouse was build-
ing, we slept side by side in the same
shanty, ate the same food and were
often wet by the smash of the same
sea, and that during that time and for
years thereafter, he was the brains
and force of all subsequent work con-
tracted for in my office. Our friend-
ship began gradually, step by step, in-
creasing in intensity as I watched him
develop, noted his instantaneous com-
mand of resources, his indomitable
courage, knowing no fear, and his mar-
velous control over his men. The sen-
timent deepened into love, — the love
u

CAPTAIN SCOTT

a younger brother has for an older
one, whom he looks up to and depends
upon as one difficulty after another,
insurmountable to me, arose, and it
became permanent and life-long when
his first great calamity overtook him
— the blowing up of his own working
boat, the Wallace, she proving a total
wreck with heavy loss in killed and
wounded, and a heavy money loss to
him of some $10,000.

The hands that could wrench a sea-
jammed rock from its bed in thirty
feet of water were those of a woman
now as he sat night after night
in the improvised hospital we had
fitted up for the men's comfort, or
stood by their graves with uncovered
head.

Nor can this story be properly and

IS

V

CAPTAIN SCOTT

truthfully told without a slight de-
scription of the work his heroism and
brains brought to completion. The
problem presented was the throwing
overboard of thousands of tons of
stone from sloops, to form an artifi-
cial Island upon which, when leveled
to low water, there was to be built a
granite cone some sixty feet in diam-
eter, and on this was to be placed the
dwelling house, topped by the lantern
and lens.

This turtle Island, — It was In the
form of an ellipse, — was to be lev-
eled so smooth that the first course
of masonry could be laid true. This
was exceedingly difficult for the rocks
over this area weighed from three to
seven tons, and were, of course, jagged,
with their points projecting sometimes
i6

CAPTAIN SCOTT

several feet above the requisite level
of mean low water, and so covered
with sea-slime and kelp as to make a
slippery foothold. The current of
the race, too, was swift, — so much so
that, should the men pull away from
the island in small boats far enough
to escape the falling fragments of a
blast to break these projections, they
could not regain the island again ex-
cept in slack water. As a protection
against these fragments Captain Scott
made trap doors of heavy oak plank
spliced together three or four feet
square. The men crouched up to
their necks in water between the rocks
before the blasts were fired, and
pulled these skids, or trap doors, over
their heads. Owing to Scott's watch-
fulness no skulls were cracked nor

17

CAPTAIN SCOTT

bones broken, and a general thanks-
giving took place in consequence.

At this stage of the work an Im-
portant discovery was made; in fact
we had been making it ever since
work began. Many of the loose
rocks forming the artificial island and
which, in obedience to the Govern-
ment's plan, had been thrown into the
sea; to find their own bottom, were
found to have altered their position.
Soundings showed that the depth of
water outside the edge of the island,
instead of being but twelve feet, as
shown on the plan, was really thirty
feet. We were, therefore, building
the Island on a pyramid, and not on a
level surface. These facts, of course,
were known and thoroughly discussed
by the Government, and were as fully
i8

CAPTAIN SCOTT

known to us. But the department
had decided to try the experiment of
their not settling, rather than incur the
additional expense of leveling the
whole shoal. The impossibility of
placing a granite cone weighing thou-
sands of tons on such a foundation
now became apparent. The Govern-
ment was notified, and after some
weeks of investigation, we were asked
for a modified plan which would util-
ize, as far as possible, the work al-
ready completed and paid for.

I recall now the days and nights
Captain Scott spent over this new
problem and the number of models
made and abandoned by us as new
difficulties and obstacles presented
themselves. At last a plan, upon
which the lighthouse was finally built,

19

CAPTAIN SCOTT

was submitted to the board and ap-
proved. It was as follows : —

To chain and drag from the center
of the turtle's back by means of heavy
derricks erected in a square on four
points of the island, all the three to
five ton rock that had been dumped in,
to replace these rocks outside the cir-
cle of the proposed excavation, piling
them up as a breakwater until we had
reached the original bottom and had
uncovered the original Race Rock, a
huge boulder weighing some twenty
tons, and then to fill this water space
with concrete in the form of a great
disk up to the level of low water.
Upon this concrete disk, in reality one
solid stone — the shape of a huge
cheese — was to be built the granite
cone.

20

CAPTAIN SCOTT

I recall, too, the months of labor
devoted to the chaining and dragging
from its bed these submerged rocks,
jammed together as they were by suc-
ceeding winter's storms, — the work
becoming more and more difficult as
the water deepened. Problems like
these are outside a manual; the time
must come when a human body and a
pair of human hands, backed by cour-
age and brains, must take sea after sea
upon his back when working above
water, or while breathing through an
inch hose when grappling them below
the wave break. No money can pay
for such labor ; — nothing but loyalty
to the work and his associates.

With the water space cleared, the
iron bands to circle the concrete were
sunk and laid flat on the sandy bot-

21

CAPTAIN SCOTT

torn, filled with concrete mixed in a
soft state, packed into buckets with
drop bottoms and thus lowered to the
divers below. This was continued
until four successive circles of filled
iron bands, one on top of the other,

— a process occupying m©nths —
were laid and the disk struck smooth.
The first base stone of the lighthouse,

— a mill-stone sixty feet in diameter
and three feet thick, hard as an obe-
lisk, and like it of one solid stone, —
was now complete.

No other problem confronted us.
The succeeding years of work were
like those always attending work of
this class; there were storms, of
course, with high surf, so that the
Rock could not be reached and there
were set backs of one kind or another,

22

CAPTAIN SCOTT

such as loss of shanties, platforms and
every movable fixture. But the Cap-
tain's work was over, and one of the
lasting monuments of his skill and
loyalty complete in all Its details.

A digression here Is permissible —
one that is illuminating. It is but a
few years back since this same old
sea-dog — he was gray by this time,
with a bald spot on the back of his
head and a trifle larger around the
middle — boarded his tug in East
London harbor — he owned half a
dozen of them then — took the
younger brother with him and pointed
the tug's nose for the Race Rock light,
finished twenty-five years before.

" Good many holes out here," the
sea-dog said, as he plunged her nose
head-foremost into the recurrent

23

CAPTAIN SCOTT

waves surging In from Montauk,
" and it git worse before it gits bet-
ter."

As we neared the Isolated pile of
masonry, a spot In the waste of waters
that all these years had withstood the
attacks of the merciless sea, and still
holds Its light aloft — the figure of a
man slid down the Iron ladder of the
cone and ran to the end of the wharf.
Then came a voice.

"Anything the matter? Anybody
sick?"

It was something out of the ordi-
nary for a New London tug to head
for the Rock In the teeth of a south-
easter.

" No, — just come out to see If we
could land," the Captain cried.

" Gosh ! — how you skeered me, —

CAPTAIN SCOTT

thought some of the folks was tuk
bad."

Then another man dropped down
the ladder and springing to the boat's
davits, began lowering a lifeboat.

" What d'yer think, sir, shall we try
it?" asked the Captain.

"Can we land?" I asked dubi-
ously.

" Land ! — of course," he replied
with positive emphasis. " It won't
make no difference to me " (he was
seventy-four then), — "but there
won't be a dry rag on you."

I picked up the glass and looked
over the joints of the masonry and
followed the lines of the wharf and
the angle of the cone. They were
still as true as when Captain Tom had
laid them with his own hands.

25

CAPTAIN SCOTT

" Never mind, Captain," I said —
" I guess you needn't bother."

What a difference twenty-five years
makes in some of us I

And It was not only In the building
of the light that his Indomitable cour-
age showed itself. The human side
of the man — the woman side of him,
the side In which his tender nature
showed Itself — was even more lov-
able. Lovable Is the word. You ad-
mire some men, you respect and fear
others. Scott you loved.

What I am about to relate is not
fiction. I stood by and saw It all, —
it Is true, word for word. There
are half a dozen men yet alive who
held their breath, as I did, in fear.
26

CAPTAIN SCOTT

They have never forgotten what they
saw, — and never will.

" Hung on like a terrier to a rat I "
one old salt told me last winter In
speaking of the event. " Seemed to
shake 'er too, same's If he had his
teeth in 'er. Gosh ! — but I was
skeered till I saw him come up an'
get his wind after that big sea hit
him I Beat all what Captain Tom
would do In them days ! "

It all occurred years before; when
the old salt now bent and grizzled
was as hale and hearty as Captain
Scott himself.

We were at the time, the old salt
Included, watching the movements of
a sloop loaded with stone for the
Light, — the property of an old man

^7

CAPTAIN SCOTT

and his wife who could ill afford its
loss. Owing to the bad seamanship
of her captain, a man by the name
of Baxter, the sloop had slipped her
moorings from a safety buoy anchored
within a hundred yards of the Rock,
had been sucked in by the eddy of
the Race, and with sail up was plung-
ing bow on toward the lighthouse
foundation. The error meant the
sinking of the sloop and perhaps the
drowning of some of her crew. It
meant too hopeless poverty for the old
man and his wife.

The weather had puzzled some of
us since sunrise; little lumpy clouds
showed near the horizon line and sail-
ing above these was a dirt spot of va-
por, while aloft glowed some pris-
matic sun-dogs, shimmering like opals.
28

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Etched against the distance, with a
tether line fastened to the safety buoy,
lay Baxter's sloop; her sails furled,
her boom swinging loose and ready,
the smoke from her holster curling
from the end of her smoke-pipe thrust
up out of the forward hatch.

Below us on the concrete platform
rested our big air-pump, and beside
It stood Captain Scott. He was in
his diving dress, and at the moment
was adjusting the breast-plates of lead
weighing twenty-five pounds each, to
his chest and back. His leaden shoes
were already on his feet. With the
exception of his copper helmet, the
signal line around his wrist and the
life-line about his waist he was ready
to go below.

This meant that pretty soon he

29

CAPTAIN SCOTT

would don his helmet, and with a last
word to his tender, would tuck his
chin whisker inside the opening, wait
until the face plate was screwed on,
and then with a nod behind the glass,
denoting that the air was coming all
right, would step down his rude lad-
der into the sea: to his place among
the crabs and the sea-weed.

Suddenly my ears became conscious
of a conversation carried on in a low
tone around the corner of the shanty.

" Old Moon-face (Baxter) '11 have
to git up and git in a minute,'* said a
derrick-man to a shoveler — born
sailors these — " there'll be a hell-
uver a time 'round here 'fore night."

" Well, there ain't no wind."

" Ain't no wind, — ain't there 1
See that bobble waltzing in?" Sea-
30

CAPTAIN SCOTT

ward ran a ragged line of silver, edg-
ing the horizon towards Montauk.

"Does look soapy, don't it?" an-
swered the shoveler. " Wonder if
the Cap'n sees it."

The Captain had seen it — fifteen
minutes ahead of anybody else — had
been watching it to the exclusion of
any other object. That was why he
hadn't screwed on his face-plate. He
knew the sea — knew every move of
the merciless, cunning beast. The
game here would be to lift the sloop
on the back of a smooth under-roller
and with mighty lunge hurl it like a
battering ram against the shore rocks,
shattering its timbers into kindling
wood.

The Captain called to one of his
men — another shoveler.

31

CAPTAIN SCOTT

" Billy, go down to the edge of the
stone pile and holler to the sloop to
cast off and make for home. And
say — " this to his pump tender —
" unhook this breast-plate ; there won't
be no divin' to-day. IVe been mls-
trustin' the wind would haul ever since
I got up this mornin'."

The shoveler sprang from the plat-
form and began clambering over the
slippery, slimy rocks like a crab, his
red shirt marked with the white X of
his suspenders in relief against the
blue water. When he reached the
outermost edge of the stone pile,
where the ten-ton blocks lay, he made
a megaphone of his fingers and re-
peated the Captain's orders to the
sloop.

32

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Baxter listened with his hands
cupped to his ears.

"Who says so?" came back the
reply.

" Cap'n Scott."

"What fur?"

" Goin' to blow — don*t ye see It? "

Baxter stepped gingerly along the
sloop's rail ; when he reached the foot
of the bowsprit this answer came over
the water:

" Let her blow ! This sloop's char-
tered to deliver this stone. We've
got steam up and the stuff's going
over the side: git your divers ready.
I ain't shovin' no baby carriage and
don't you forgit it. I'm comin' on!
Cast off that buoy-line, you — " this
to one of his men.

33

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Captain Scott continued stripping
off his leaden breast-plate. He had
heard his order repeated and knew
that It had been given correctly, —
and the subsequent proceedings did not
interest him. If Baxter had anything
to say In answer It was of no moment
to him. His word was law on the
Ledge; first, because the men daily
trusted their lives to his guidance, and
second, because they all loved him
with a love hard for a landsman to
understand, especially to-day, when
the boss and the gang never, by any
possibility, pull together.

" Baxter says he's comin' on, sir,"
said the shoveler when he reached the
Captain's side, the grin on his sun-
burnt face widening until Its two ends
hooked over his ears. The shoveler

34

CAPTAIN SCOTT

had heard nothing so funny for
weeks.

"Comin' on!"

" That's what he hollered. Wants
you to git ready to take his stuff, sir."

I was out of the shanty now. I
came in two jumps. With that squall
whirling in from the eastward and the
tide making flood, any man who would
leave the protection of the spar-buoy
for the purpose of unloading was fit
for a lunatic asylum.

The Captain had straightened up
and was screening his eyes with his
hand when I reached his side, his gaze
riveted on the sloop, which had now
hauled in her tether line, and was
now drifting clear of the buoy. He
was still incredulous.

" No, — he ain't comin'. Baxter's

35

CAPTAIN SCOTT

all right, — he'll port his helm in a
minute, — but he'd better send up his
jib — " and he swept his eye around,
— " and that quick, too."

At that Instant the sloop wavered
and lurched heavily. The outer edge
of the inn-suck had caught her bow.

Minds work quickly in times of
great danger, — minds like Captain
Scott's. In a flash he had taken in
the fast approaching roller, froth-
capped by the sudden squall ; the surg-
ing vessel and the scared face of Bax-
ter who, having now realized his mis-
take, was clutching wildly at the tiller
and shouting orders to his men, none
of which could be carried out. The
Captain knew what would happen —
what had happened before, and what
would happen again with fools like
36

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Baxter — now — In a minute — be-
fore he could reach the edge of the
stone pile, hampered as he was In a
rubber suit that bound his arms and
tied his great legs together. And he
understood the sea's game, and that
the only way to outwit It would be to
use the beast's own tactics. When It
gathered Itself for the thrust and
started In to hurl the doomed vessel
the full length of Its mighty arms, the
sloop's safety lay In widening the
space. A cushion of backwater would
then receive the sloop's forefoot in
place of the snarling teeth of the low
crunching rocks.

He had kicked off both leaden-
soled shoes now and was shouting out
directions to Baxter, who was slowly
and surely being sucked Into the swirl :

37

CAPTAIN SCOTT

'*Up with your jib! No, — No/
— let that mainsail alone! UP!
Do ye want to git her on the
stone pile you — Port your helm !
PORT!! GOD! — LOOK AT
HIM ! ! ''

Captain Scott had slid from the
platform now and was flopping his
great body over the slimy, slippery
rocks like a seal, falling into water
holes every other step, crawling out on
his belly, rolling from one slanting
stone to another, shouting to his men
every time he had the breath : —

" Man that yawl and run a line as
quick as GodUl let ye, out to the buoy !
Do ye hear! Pull that fall off the
drum of the h'ister and git the end
of a line on it ! She'll be on top of us
38

CAPTAIN SCOTT

in a minute, and the mast out of her I
QUICK!!''

The shoveler sprang for a coll of
rope. The others threw themselves
after him, while half a dozen men
working around the small eddy in the
lea of the diminutive island caught up
the oars to man the yawl.

All this time the sloop, under the
up-lift of the first big Montauk roller
— the skirmish line of the attack —
surged bow on to destruction. Bax-
ter, although shaking with fear, had
sense enough left to keep her nose
pointed to the stone pile. The mast
might come out of her, but that was
better than being gashed amidships
and sunk In thirty fathoms of water.

The Captain, his rubber suit gllsten-

39

CAPTAIN SCOTT

ing like a tumbling porpoise, his hair
matted to his head, had now reached
the outermost rock opposite the
doomed craft, and stood near enough
to catch every expression that crossed
Baxter's face, who, as white as chalk,
was holding the tiller with all his
strength, cap off, his blowsy hair fly-
ing in the increasing gale, his mouth
tight shut — no orders now would
have done any good. Go ashore she
must and would, and nothing could
help her. It would be every man for
himself then: no help would come, —
no help could come. Captain Scott
and his men would run for shelter as
soon as the blow fell and leave them to
their fate. Pea-nut men like Baxter
are built to think that way.

All these minutes — seconds really
40

CAPTAIN SCOTT

— the Captain stood bending for-
ward, watching where the sloop would
strike, his hands out-stretched in the
attitude of a ball player awaiting a
ball. If her nose should hit on the
sharp, square edges of one of the ten-
ton blocks, God help her ! She would
split wide open, like a gourd. If by
any chance her fore-foot should be
thrust into one of the many gaps be-
tween the enrockment blocks —
spaces from two to three feet wide —
and her bow timbers thus take the
shock, there was a living chance to
save her.

A cry from Baxter, who had
dropped the tiller and was scrambling
over the stone-covered deck to the
bowsprit, now reached the Captain's
ears, but he never altered his posi-

41

CAPTAIN SCOTT

tion. What he was to do must be
done surely. Baxter didn't count —
wasn't in the back of his head; there
were plenty of willing hands to pick
Baxter and his men out of the suds.

Then a thing happened, which, if I
had not seen it, I would never have
believed possible. The water cushion
of the out-suck helped — so did the
huge roller which in its blind rage had
under-estimated the distance between
its lift and the wide-open jaws of the
rock — as a maddened bull often un-
der-estimates the length of its thrust,
its horns falling short of the matador.

Whatever the cause. Captain Scott
saw his chance, sprung to the outer-
most rock, and bracing his great snub-
bing posts of legs against Its edge, re-
versed his body, caught the wavering
42

CAPTAIN SCOTT

sloop on his broad shoulders, close un-
der her bow-sprit chains, and pushed
with all his might.

Now began a struggle between the
strength of the man and the lunge of
the sea. With every succeeding on-
slaught, and before the savage roller
could fully lift the staggering craft to
hurl her to destruction. Captain Tom,
with the help of the out-suck, would
shove her back from the waiting rocks.
This was repeated again and again, —
the men in the rescuing yawl mean-
while bending every muscle to carry
out the Captain's commands. Some-
times his head was free enough to
shout his orders, and sometimes both
man and bow were smothered in suds.

" Keep that fall clear! " would come
the order — " Stand ready to catch the

43

CAPTAIN SCOTT

yawl! Shut that — " here a souse
would stop his breath. *' Shut that
furnace door ! Do ye want the steam
out of the b'iler — " etc., etc.

That the slightest misstep on the
slimy rocks on which his feet were
braced meant sending him under the
sloop's bow where he would be caught
between her " fore- foot " and the
rocks and ground into pulp concerned
him as little as did the fact that Baxter
and his men had crawled along the
bowsprit over his head and dropped
to the island without wetting their
shoes, or that his diving suit was full
of water and he soaked to the skin.
Little things like these made no more
difference to him than they would have
done to a Newfoundland dog saving
a child. His thoughts were on other

44

CAPTAIN SCOTT

things — on the rescuing yawl speed-
ing towards the spar buoy, on the
stout hands and knowing ones who
were pulling for all they were worth
to that anchor of safety, on two of his
own men who, seeing Baxter's cow-
ardly desertion, had sprung like cats
at the bowsprit of the sloop in one of
her dives, and were then on the stem
ready to pay out a line to the yawl.
No, — he'd hold on " till hell froze
over."

A hawser now ripped suddenly from
out the crest of a roller. The two
cats, despite the increasing gale, had
succeeded in paying out a stern line to
the men in the yawl; who in turn had
slipped it through the snatch block fas-
tened in the spar buoy, and had then
connected it with the line they had

45

CAPTAIN SCOTT

brought with them from the island,
its far end being around the drum of
our holster.

A shrill cry now came from one of
the crew in the yawl alongside the spar
buoy, followed instantly by the clear,
ringing order—" GO AHEAD I "

A burst of feathery steam plumed
skyward, and then the slow chuggity-
chug of the shore drum cogs rose in
the air. The stern lines straightened
until it was as rigid as a bar of iron —
sagged for an instant under the slump
of the staggering sloop, straightened,
and then slowly, foot by foot, the
sloop, held by the stern line, crept back
to safety.

And this to save a friend and his
old wife from loss and, perhaps, pov-
erty I

46

CAPTAIN SCOTT

This love for his fellow men and
willingness to risk his life for their
safety was not confined to his experi-
ence on the Rock. He never referred
to any of these deeds thereafter;
— never believed really that he had
done anything out of the ordinary. I
myself had been with him for two
years before I learned of the partic-
ular act of heroism which I am now
about to relate — and only then from
one of his men — an act which was the
talk of the country for days, and the
subject of many of the illustrations of
the time. I give it as it was told me,
and word for word as I have given it
before. I do so the more willingly and
without excuse for its repetition here
because it not only illustrates the
courageous but the tender, human side

47

CAPTAIN SCOTT

of the man. I give it gladly, because
the reading and rereading of such
deeds helps to keep alive in the hearts
of our people that reverence for hero-
ism which of late seems to be on the
wane among us. Our so-called up-
to-date literature is responsible for
some of it ; the absorption of our peo-
ple in the material things of life for
much of it. Our heroes of to-day
are often the targets of the mor-
row. The thrill that sent the blood
of our young men rushing through
their veins when the oft told story of
Valley Forge, Bunker Hill, or Gettys-
burg was poured into their ears, is
nothing to the breathless interest with
which many of them read the head
lines of a newspaper that tell of ruined
homes, wrecked reputations, and
48

CAPTAIN SCOTT

the misery and suffering Involved.
Now and then, It is true, when some
brave fireman crawls along a burning
ledge, or the gateman on a ferry-boat
risks his life to save a would-be sui-
cide, with the result that some official
pins a medal on his chest, the heroic
act wins a place, but the record rarely
covers more than ten lines of the is-
sue, and even then with the most im-
portant facts left out.

Of this Incident It can be safely said
that nothing has been left out. Best
of all — it has been confirmed in all
its details by the hero himself, after
a corkscrewing on my part that lasted
for hours.

But to the story :

One morning In January, when the
ice in the Hudson River ran unusually

49

CAPTAIN SCOTT

heavy, a Hoboken ferry-boat slowly
crunched her way through the floating
floes, until the thickness of the pack
choked her paddles In mid-rlver.
The weather had been bitterly cold
for weeks, and the keen northwest
wind had blown the great fields of
floating ice into a hard pack along the
New York Shore. It was an early
morning trip, and the decks were
crowded with laboring men and the
driveways choked with teams; the
women and the children standing in-
side the cabins, a solid mass up to the
swinging doors. While she was gath-
ering strength for a further effort an
ocean tug sheered to avoid her,
veered a point, and crashed into her
side, cutting her below the water-line
in a great V-shaped gash. The next
50

CAPTAIN SCOTT

instant a shriek went up from hun-
dreds of throats. Women, with
blanched faces, caught terror-stricken
children in their arms, while men,
crazed with fear, scaled the rails and
upper decks to escape the plunging of
the overthrown horses. A moment
more, and the disabled boat careened
from the shock and fell over on her
beam helpless. Into the V-shaped
gash the water poured a torrent. It
seemed but a question of minutes be-
fore she would lunge headlong below
the ice.

Within two hundred yards of both
boats, and free of the heaviest ice,
steamed the wrecking tug Reliance of
the Off-shore Wrecking Company,
making her way cautiously up the
New Jersey shore to coal at Wee-

51

CAPTAIN SCOTT

hawken. On her deck forward, sight-
ing the heavy cakes, and calling out
cautionary orders to the mate In the
pilot-house, stood Captain Scott.
When the ocean tug reversed her en-
gines after the collision and backed
clear of the shattered wheel-house of
the ferry-boat, he sprang forward,
stooped down, ran his eye along the
water-line, noted In a flash every shat-
tered plank, climbed Into the pilot-
house of his own boat, and before the
astonished pilot could catch his breath
ran the nose of the Reliance along the
rail of the ferry-boat and dropped
upon the latter's deck like a cat.

If he had fallen from a passing

cloud the effect could not have been

more startling. Men crowded about

him and caught his hands. Women

52

CAPTAIN SCOTT

sank on their knees and hugged their
children, and a sudden peace and still-
ness possessed every soul on board.
Tearing a life-preserver from the man
nearest him and throwing it over-
board, he backed the coward ahead
of him through the swaying mob, or-
dering the people to stand clear, and
forcing the whole mass to the star-
board side. The Increased weight
gradually righted the stricken boat
until she regained a nearly even
keel.

With a threat to throw overboard
any man who stirred, he dropped into
the engine-room, met the engineer
halfway up the ladder, compelled him
to return, dragged the mattresses
from the crew's bunks, stripped off
blankets, racks of clothes, overalls,

53

CAPTAIN SCOTT

cotton waste and rags of carpet,
cramming them into the great rent left
by the tug's cutwater, until the space
of each broken plank was replaced,
except one. Through and over this
space the water still combed, deluging
the floors and swashing down between
the gratings Into the hold below.

** Another mattress,'' he cried,
" quick ! All gone ? — A blanket
then — carpet — anything — five
minutes more and she'll right herself.
Quick, for God's sake I "

It was useless. Everything, even
to the oil rags, had been used.

" Your coat, then. Think of the
babies, man; — do you hear them?"

Coats and vests were off In an in-
stant; the engineer on his knees brac-
ing the shattered planking. Captain

54

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Scott forcing the garments into the
splintered openings.

It was useless. Little by little the
water gained, bursting out first be-
low, then on one side, only to be re-
caulked, and only to rush in again.

Captain Scott stood a moment as
if undecided, ran his eye searchingly
over the engine-room, saw that for his
needs it was empty, then deliberately
tore down the top wall of caulking he
had so carefuly built up, and, before
the engineer could protest, had forced
his own body into the gap with his
arm outside level with the drifting
ice.

An hour later the disabled ferry-
boat, with every soul on board, was
towed into the Hoboken slip.

When they lifted the Captain from

55

CAPTAIN SCOTT

the wreck he was unconscious and
barely alive. The water had frozen
his blood, and the floating ice had
torn the flesh from his protruding arm
from shoulder to wrist. When the
color began to creep back to his
cheeks, he opened his eyes, and said
to the doctor who was winding the
bandages : —

" Wuz any of them babies hurt? "
A month passed before he regained
his strength, and another week be-
fore the arm had healed so that he
could get his coat on. Then he went
back to his work on board the Re-
liance.

In the meantime the Wrecking

Company had presented a bill to the

ferry company for salvage, claiming

that the safety of the ferry-boat was

56

CAPTAIN SCOTT

due to one of the employees of the
Wrecking Company. Payment had
been refused, resulting In legal pro-
ceedings, which had already begun.
The morning following this action
Captain Scott was called Into the presi-
dent's office.

" Captain," said the official, " we're
going to have some trouble getting
our pay for that ferry job. Here's
an affidavit for you to swear to."

The Captain took the paper to the
window and read It through without
a comment, then laid it back on the
president's desk, picked up his hat
and moved to the door.

" Did you sign It?"

" No; and I ain't a-goln' to."

"Why?"

" 'Cause I ain't so durned mean as

57

CAPTAIN SCOTT

you be. Look at this arm. Do you
think rd got into that hell-hole if it
hadn't been for them women cryin'
and the babies a-hollerin' ? And you
want 'em to pay for it. Damn yel
If your head wasn't white I'd mash
it."

Then he walked out, cursing like
a pirate; the next day he answered
my advertisement and the following
week took charge of the work at Race
Rock.

Another hour of corkscrewing made
him remember the log of the Reliance,
locked up in that same old trunk in
the garret from which the log of the
Willetts was taken after his death.
When the old well-thumbed book was
found, he perched his glasses on his
nose, and began turning the leaves
58

CAPTAIN SCOTT

with his rough thole-pin of a finger,
stopping at every page to remoisten it,
and adding a running commentary of
his own over the long-forgotten rec-
ords.

" Yes, — here it Is," he said at last.
" Knowed I hadn't forgot it. You
can read it yourself; my eyes ain't so
good as they wuz."

It read as follows: —

"January 30, 1870. Left Jersey
City 7 a. m. Ice running heavy.
Captain Scott stopped leak in ferry-
boat."

But to continue:

The ending of the work on the
Rock found him a little over fifty
years of age but still strong, muscular

59

CAPTAIN SCOTT

and with an experience in submarine
work second to no man on our coast.
Soon the docks In front of his home
on Pequot Avenue, New London, be-
gan to be enlarged: sheds were built,
new tugs bought and equipped,
dredging machines constructed and
heavy scows, barges and lighters car-
rying cargoes of two hundred tons or
more, were equipped with the best
modern machinery. He was ready
now for any heavy work, no matter
how large the steamer, how danger-
ous her position, or how serious the
problem of refloating her. The tele-
phone was within reach of his bedside,
and no matter what the hour or how
hard a gale was blowing, he was out
and aboard his fastest tug, often with
a quart of raw oil dashed into the fur-
60

CAPTAIN SCOTT

nace and everything wide open. It
will be just as well to follow some
of these experiences : — The steamer
Columbia, for instance, wrecked off
Gay Head — this in 1 884.

The wreck lay three-quarters of a
mile from the promontory and the sea
broke violently over it. Around the
wreck were the steamers Storm King,
Conkling, Vincent, Hunter and Hunt,
the latter having on board Captain
Townsend, the New Bedford diver,
who was there in the interests of
the Boston Underwriters. Captain
Baker, of the Baker Wrecking Com-
pany of Boston, was also there, wait-
ing more favorable conditions to go
below. Captain Scott recognized
Captain Baker as having charge of
the wreck, and the latter said after a
61

CAPTAIN SCOTT

cursory survey that in his opinion a
diver could not stay under water in
such weather, and that he would not
send a man down. The New London
diver characteristically replied that he
would send no man down either, but
would go himself. It was then re-
solved that an attempt should be made
about 3 p.m. if possible. Captain
Scott kept by the wreck, noting the
condition of the water closely and
made up his mind that if he waited
Captain Baker's return he would lose
the best chance for going under. He
therefore began his preparations at
I p.m. and shortly before 2 o'clock
dropped over the starboard side and
made a thorough examination. He
found a hole three feet square for-
ward about twenty feet from the stem
62

CAPTAIN SCOTT

and several smaller holes forward and
abaft; also a perpendicular crack near
the foremast, while on the bottom
were fragments of jagged rock evi-
dently broken from the larger boul-
ders on which the ship struck. After
completing the survey of the star-
board side along the bottom, Captain
Scott came up and made an attempt
to examine the deck. He went un-
der at the forward hatch where he
found the deck uninjured, but he had
no time to do more when he was
caught in the crest of an immense
breaker and hurled feet foremost into
the air. The heavy seas breaking
over the vessel prevented any further
work that day.

On Friday morning Captain Scott
went out to the wreck in the Alert, but
63

CAPTAIN SCOTT

found a stiff breeze blowing and the
water too rough to admit of resuming
operations. The Alert, however,
picked up three cases of boots and
shoes, a portion of the cargo of the
City of Columbus, near Wood's Holl.
On Saturday the wind blew fresh
from the northwest, but the sea was
moderate, the weather clear, and Cap-
tain Scott was able to remain two
hours under water and to complete his
survey. He went down well aft on
the port side and examined along the
bottom; he found portions of the
smokestack and machinery, lines, sails
and other wreckage strewed along the
port quarter by the main rigging.
There was no material Injury to the
hull aft of the boilers near the bot-
tom, but there were numerous cracks
64

CAPTAIN SCOTT

and several holes forward. Further
towards the bow the extent of the dam-
age Increased, the hull being cracked
and pierced with holes Innumerable.
The diver then went ahead of the
wreck forty or fifty feet and found
himself In a submarine channel or
sluiceway, making It evident that the
vessel struck a considerable distance
ahead of her present position, and
kept dropping back by the Influence of
gravitation and the action of the tide,
leaving the Imprint of her keel on the
sandy bottom.

And again on January 12, 1890,
when the magnificent passenger steam-
er City of Worcester went ashore on
the rocks Inside Bartlett's Reef Light-
ship. Within an hour of the receipt
of the news of the disaster, Captain

65

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Scott was speeding to her assistance
in his tug T. A. Scott, Jr., and was
soon alongside the big, helpless steam-
er. The officers reported that the
Worcester was fast on the rocks with
the water pouring into her second,
third and fourth compartments and
her fires out. Life preservers were
distributed, the boats made ready,
passengers landed without a single ac-
cident; most of the cargo — 1,250
bales of cotton being part — was
transferred to lighters. Twenty-
four hours thereafter the endangered
steamer was hauled from the rocks,
towed into New London harbor, and
anchored within a stone's throw of
Captain Scott's residence.

This list could be continued in-
definitely. Hardly a day or a night
66

CAPTAIN SCOTT

was the crew idle, and Is not now, for
his sons and associates still carry on
the business. Sometimes a diversion
in the customary work of recovering
sunken property would occur. It was
a locomotive on one occasion ; she had
attempted to cross a trestle and had
toppled over in thirty feet of water,
bottomed by mud.

" Get her up? — " rejoined Captain
Scott, — "certainly; — where'U I put
her?"

" Back on the rails," said the gen-
eral manager, with a laugh at the im-
possibility of the task.

" All right, — she'll be there in the
mornin' — " and she was.

It was but the work of half a day
for Captain Scott to rig up a pair of
sheer poles, drop beside her in his

67

CAPTAIN SCOTT

diving dress, pass some heavy chains
under the boiler and between her
axles, hook a block Into a ring, take
a turn on a hoisting engine aboard his
wrecking tug, open a steam cylinder
and up she came. To lower her
gently to the rails and wash her clean
of the mud with a nozzle attached to
the hose of his steam pump was the
last service.

" There — ^" he said when she was
scrubbed clean — " now git a fire un-
der her and pull her out ; — she's in
my way."

These instances, as I have said, can
be multiplied indefinitely, — enough,
however, has been told to show the
fundamental incentive of his charac-
ter— his determination to do his
68

CAPTAIN SCOTT

work right, — so right that no man
need ever perfect It after him. His
superb constitution helped, but his in-
domitable will helped more.

He never drank nor smoked, and
he neither had time nor desire to play
cards. He would go for forty-eight
hours in wet clothes and think nothing
of sleeping in them. He absolutely
did not know what fear was for him-
self, yet he feared for his men. He
would never send a man where he
would not go himself, yet he'd go
where he wouldn't send the men.
He never swore except in times
of danger, and then the oaths that
came from his deep chest meant
something " IVe got to do it," he'd
say to me. "They won't listen if I
don't." So he'd swear at the men to

69

CAPTAIN SCOTT

get out of the way of danger, to keep
out of this place or that, to let him
go down instead of one of them.
The result was that they obeyed him
implicitly. If he said " Don't go I "
they didn't. If he said " Go 1 " they
went, though It might be into a boil-
ing surf or apparent death. They
trusted his judgment in the face of
everything; and they were never de-
ceived. When a piece of work in-
volved an extra hazardous risk he
would say, " No that ain't no place
for you. ni go."

And the harder the job, and the
more hopeless it seemed, the more
cheerily he rose to the emergency, tak-
ing full command and invariably do-
ing the critical part himself. When
mounting our system of derricks for
70

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Race Rock, the crucial cable was the
outboard stay for the fourth derrick
mast. At the end of the stay was a
hook, and this hook had to be slipped
into a ring which was made fast to
a great block of stone out in the surf.
When it came time to windlass the
last mast into position and adjust this
hook, of course somebody had to go
into the surf to do it. The sea was
rising fast under a southeast wind,
which always kicks up trouble at Race
Rock, and it demanded a man of great
strength. So, of course, the Captain
went himself. Up to his waist in a
boiling surf, buried under the incom-
ing rollers, he hung on to that hook
like grim death, swearing between
mouthfuls of salt water to the men
on the rocks, and in spite of every

71

CAPTAIN SCOTT

effort of wind and tide to thwart us,
he got the hook into the ring and com-
pleted the derrick system that made
possible the building of the Race
Rock Light.

In fact, just here lay his unique
value. Whenever a situation con-
fronted us — one that the engineers
in their offices could not solve, a situa-
tion where theories and precedent
counted for nothing and the only so-
lution lay in the workman himself, the
Captain was the man who rose to the
emergency. For he could in any
situation unite his great strength and
manual skill to his keen wits and in-
ventive genius. Engineering feats
that would have been given up as
hopeless he made possible by combin-
ing his brain with his muscle. He
72

CAPTAIN SCOTT

thought like lightening too. Time
and again I have seen him rescue his
men when it didn't seem possible that
they could be saved. And the small-
est job received just as much attention
and disinterested devotion from him
as the largest; nothing was ever
shirked.

During the later years of his life
when he grew too stout to be in daily
active service (he weighed over three
hundred pounds a few months before
he died) the pent-up energy of the
man seemed to have found its outlet
in the help he gave others. His
charity was so extensive, and he was
so much beloved by every one, that
at his funeral there were six hundred
people gathered in and about the
house. Until the very day of his

73

CAPTAIN SCOTT

death he was busy distributing boun-
ties, sending children to school, look-
ing after poor families up and down
the coast. One of the New London
papers remarked that it was hard to
see how New London was going to
live without Captain Scott. Only
three days before his death he ordered
a ton of coal sent to a woman who
scrubbed the floors of his house, and
nearly his last act was to call up the
coal dealer on the telephone and up-
braid him for delivering a cheaper
grade than he ordered, demanding
that he take it out of the bin and sub-
stitute the better.

On the night of February 17th,
1907, when he had reached his
seventy-seven years, the end came in

74

CAPTAIN SCOTT

the fine new home he had built next
his old cottage. It had been a short
time before that he had taken that
same slender hand in his — the one
that had helped hold the tiller on their
wedding journey — and the two
crossed the intervening lawn together.
All the sons and daughters and grand-
children were awaiting them in the
spacious hall and adjoining rooms.

When the two dear old people en-
tered the house Captain Scott turned
to his wife and said in that vibrant
voice of his which all who loved him
knew so well:

" This is all yours, Mrs. Scott. I
guess our troubles are all over now,'*
and he dropped into a chair and cried
like a child.

75

CAPTAIN SCOTT

Summing him up in the thirty-
seven years I knew and loved him,
he has always been, and will always
be, to those who had his confidence,
one of nature's noblemen. — Brave
modest, capable and tender-hearted.
The record of his life, imperfectly as
I have given it, must be of value to
his fellow countrymen. Nor can I
think of any higher tribute to pay him
than to repeat the refrain with which
these pages were opened : —

" One who was not afraid, and
who spoke the truth ! "

76

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