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STORY OF ANOTHER PIONEER BY C. B. STEBBINS
June 7, 1882.
Going on deck we found the wind blowing a hurricane from the west. Had we then the science of to-day, we should not have left Sandusky, though to the senses no weather could look. more propitious. We were running against a head wind, and in a little while the waves were occasionally dashing over the deck. It soon began to freeze, and by morning the ice on deck was in some places three inches thick. About midnight we ran aground in Maumee bay, about five miles from land. In the morning we floated, but the water was so full of ice, that when we started ahead half the length of the boat, the bow seemed to be lying on the ice, and considerably out of the water. The wind cut our faces as though it had been fine sand. All day Friday and Saturday we tried in vain to work the boat out. The water did. not "freeze over, " but the waves seemed, as fast as they rose, to freeze and fall back into the water and sink.
It was to be the last trip of the boat for the season, and no provision had been made for feeding over a hundred persons after Thursday. It was deemed expedient to economize our commissary department; and I remember we had for one meal, a cup of tea and a potato. However, a peddler had a horse on board, and we knew we could confiscate that, if worse came to worst. The captain had a few apples he had bought for winter use, and they were given the horse to eat, till we should need to eat him. (Several years after, I was walking on the highway, when I was overtaken by a peddler, and he asked me to ride. It was the same man with the same horse.
Michigan
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