The Idler

By Rusty Watson

Jeremiah Watts, in a drunken stupor, signs a seaman certificate and suddenly finds himself aboard the Ann Alexander, a rickety whaling ship. While aboard this ship, he begins a transformation as he gains maturity and begins to resolve his authority figure issues. This story is drawn from his journal and love letters covering the years he spent aboard the Ann Alexander.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Casa de Snapdragon
• Release date: Nov 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781937240448

Book preview

Chapter One

Voyage to the New World

I attempt to turn my ancient, silver-gray head to the left to gaze out the window pane one last time before I slip back again into unconsciousness. It is hard to move my head and open my eyes at the same time, I am so weak, but I must will myself to do this one, final movement. My cherished grandson Frank tiptoes into the guest room at his house in St. Louis, Missouri, where I now reside, to check on my comfort. His father George Arthur, my eldest son, has persuaded me to stay with him until the Good Lord chooses to take me home. Perhaps now, if I push myself upward in bed, I can catch a glimpse of the mighty Mississippi River, flexing its muscles and churning the waves just as the oceans did when I sailed on them so long ago. It has been a terribly long time since I saw the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, but their siren like voices have never been silent for long within my soul. Their beckoning call haunts me even now as I lay on my deathbed. Ah yes, the adventures that I had in my youth have warmed my heart many times over the eighty-seven years that I have been allowed to walk upon this Earth. The memories are alive and well within me now. I must conjure up the strength and resolve to warn my grandson of the perils that are lurking in the world that could endeavor to steal him away from his loving family as they once did to me. Perhaps I can conquer the feebleness in my brain and coax the thoughts into a cohesive whole.

Dear one, I quietly and tentatively begin to push out the words, I want you to lean in close so you can hear the story of my adventure on the open seas.

Grandpa, my grandson Frank cooed, don’t trouble yourself with thoughts that tax your strength. There will be plenty of time for us to talk when you have rested a bit.

No, there is no more time, I managed to push out with more breath and vigor than I thought I had left. Listen well and take heed, dear Frank, for I was one of the last mariners to sail around the world, tracking and slaughtering that leviathan monster of the deep, the whale. Why, if Herman Melville had known me, he may have immortalized my story as well! I gingerly fingered the tarnished skeleton key that I still wore around my old, wrinkled neck. Here Son, I implored, take this key to the basement and use it to unlock the sailor’s chest you will find hidden beneath the stairs. After you lift up the wooden lid, look under the bottom of the first compartment. There you will spy a sailor’s log that I wrote while I was at sea, sixty-seven years ago. I had hidden it from your Grandma because she never wanted to be reminded of those tumultuous days. Fetch it and bring it back up to me, I demanded. I noticed that Frank was reticent to oblige me so I added, And wrapped in tissue beside it are some scrimshaw stamps of whales as well as a whalebone corset stay that I had once foolishly carved for the woman I loved. I knew the artifacts would pique the interest in my artistic grandson. Hurry now, I implored wholly out of breath, hurry and get them for me. I inwardly prayed that I could sustain my strength long enough to recount my life and whaling adventures to my grandson. Wasn’t it worth a try?

While Frank was on his mission to reclaim my past, I began to rummage around in my feeble brain to find the proper beginning to my story. I thought it should commence with the start of my adventures upon the Atlantic Ocean.

I am not sure that I recall the exact date when I first stepped foot upon the loading plank of the ship they christened the Washington, nor do I remember all the social and political reasons why my family and I decided to emigrate from our native England in 1832. However, I do vividly recall the smell of the frothy and salty waves that came splashing across the wooden decks of our huge and cumbersome cargo ship on the worrisome way over. Our packet creaked and groaned loaded down with the masses of impoverished families who were emigrating away from a hard life and perhaps an early death working in the numerous factories and coal mines of our native land.

My parents gave me the Christian name of Jeremiah and I was duly proud to admit that I came from a lineage of sturdy farming stock, but the many crop failures that we had endured over the years may well have decided our fate. Land and job shortages, as well as rising taxes, were thrust upon us by the politics of the time. My father Caleb was a somewhat literate man and he told me he had once read a book, by a wise man named Thomas Malthus, claiming dire predictions about how the English population would soon outgrow the food being produced. As a result of his raised alarm, the government decided to count all the people living in Britain. The very first population census was taken in 1801 and the fourth in 1831 which, unfortunately, showed that the population had indeed doubled in the past 30 years. To counteract, the government began to put further efforts into using scientific farming methods to increase production. England in the 1800’s was a nation in transition. The Industrial Revolution had begun. Farm workers like my father Caleb, who worked for low enough wages, were replaced by the inventions and use of new machines called threshers. The threshers did the work of ten men and soon became indispensable. My father witnessed the Swing Riots of 1830 in which the men classified as machine wreckers were hung by the neck. While my father did not condone this sort of rowdy behavior, he sympathized with the men who feared the loss of their jobs due to modernized machinery.

In 1830, many in our farming community of Dorset, Southern England lost their jobs. My hardworking father lost his own job and position as well. This descent into poverty forced my parents, Anna and Caleb Watts, to make the harsh decision to leave their familiar roots and England’s many worries behind them. Starvation and famine had become constant companions to us and our large family. We had heard that America was a land of economic opportunity and so my Father proudly proclaimed, We were going to have some of that good fortune, for once and for all!

If we could have seen clearly into the future we might have decided to stay in Critchell-Moore, our little parish of 267 inhabitants. I don’t know if our lives would have become better but we had already chosen our course. Our ship was destined to sail and there was absolutely no turning back!

We embarked on the road to our Atlantic adventure in 1832 when I was just a small, rambunctious seven year old boy. My family and I wearily traveled by horse and cart from our sweet-smelling countryside of Dorsetshire to the sour-looking atmosphere of London, England. It was the first leg of our long exodus from England to the new world of America. I watched as dry dirt spewed up between the spokes of the cart wheels and gagged at the dust that choked my lungs. As we trekked along the road, we all felt the ache in our hearts from the longing to feel the soft, emerald green grass between our toes, once again. When we finally arrived we discovered that the town of London was nothing but a sooty bed made up of an unhealthy mass of humans. As we were passing through town we discovered, to our disgust, that most people threw their rubbish out into the streets where it rotted and decayed. How could these city dwellers stand the stench of it? My mother Anna muttered beneath her breath,

No doubt many people have died of sickness and disease brought on by this filth. Being a very tidy and clean housekeeper, she could see that the moldy and cramped housing conditions could become the breeding grounds for sickly children as well as places of contamination that gave rise to awful diseases like typhus, smallpox and dysentery. We were overwhelmed and tired from our pilgrimage across town, so we rested and took shelter for a while, leaning against a doorway to a doctor’s office. The harried and overworked doctor came out admonishing my father for detaining his family in such a hell hole.

Cholera claims the lives of the innocent as well as the wicked he exclaimed. Gather up your children and be gone before they become the next victims of this plague. My parents heeded his advice and quickly pulled us up on our feet. We set out on the road immediately while my mother Anna squeezed and twisted her hands with worry over our dreaded fate.

What is to become of us? she moaned. She had been so eager to leave all she knew and loved behind in Critchell-Moore just to secure her family’s future. But in London there seemed to be a new enemy casting its long sticky fingers toward our good health and so our welfare was compromised once again. In order to protect her cherished family, my mother insisted that we should leave London immediately and begin the second leg of our journey. We booked a train as soon as one was available and gratefully traveled the 213 miles from London north to Liverpool. The rail ride took us all day and I can still feel the pungent sting of coal dust in my eyes.

Once we arrived in Liverpool we had to wait several more long days for our transatlantic vessel to depart from the port. The first day, while we were languishing about, my father wandered up and down the docks, gathering information about the town and its role in the sea trade. Why Jeremiah, he intoned after his walk, I learned that the town of Liverpool has become the most popular port in Europe. Can you imagine Son, my Father gleefully reported, the dock workers say that approximately 15,000 people have departed from it to sail across the wide ocean seeking asylum elsewhere! My Father might have been awed by the sheer numbers of emigrants but I was only interested in learning when my next meal would be and where we could find a warm bed for the night. Since we had spent most of our money on the passage, my parents had very little left to pay for fine rooms to sleep in. We wandered to the dock area, along the Mersey Estuary, and commenced to find a place of refuge for a few days. Cotton was the most important commodity imported there so we found a soft pallet to lie down on for a few nights. My mother carefully strapped all our extra clothing and goods to each of us. The few coins that we had managed to save were hidden and sewn into the linings of our coats. She and Father took turns staying awake while we slept for fear that crooks would steal the sorry treasures we still had left. I believe it took admirable courage for my mother to leave her own home for a life so far away in America but she was anxious to put the worst behind her. Little did she know then, that this forlorn and rickety voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was going to eventually lead me, her third oldest son, on a dangerous journey around the World and back again, setting me squarely in the middle of living history.

When our sailing ship, the Washington, arrived in port, we scrambled aboard as fast as we could to find a comfortable, but not so confined, area to make our new berth among the steerage. The Atlantic crossing from Liverpool to the United States would take a treacherous 35 days. I don’t recollect much about the voyage to America, but I do distinctly remember the salty smell of the sea air and the turquoise-green color of the sea walls which continually broke against the ship and flowed over the floorboards on deck. My mother spent most of her time bent over a slop bucket, retching from the sea sickness that claimed her, so I often found myself escaping my parents’ ever watchful eyes and exploring all the nooks and crannies to be found on such a vast ship. I would wander off to the top deck only to be mesmerized by the roll and lull of the swaying movement of our ship. I would carefully study the attitudes of the sailors and the many movements of their hands and arms as they strove to control the billowy sails. I even dared to dream that someday that might be me challenging the mighty wind to roar through the sails. Oh, to be a grand mariner and captain of my destiny!

When I was feeling obedient and dutiful, Mother and Father called me Jemmie-boy. They bounced me on their laps and enclosed me in their arms in a loving embrace. But more often than not, I would try to wiggle free and take off on my own aboard the ship. When they could not locate me, I would hear my mother frantically shout, Jeremiah Watts, you had best be where we can see you! Once, I mistakenly strayed into the interior of the bilge well where it was dangerous and dark. The bilge smelled like rotting wood and rancid refuse with numerous rats scurrying about, spreading the dreaded ship fever. My parents had an honest right to be concerned for my safety as many a child had been crushed among the cargo or simply washed overboard because they had not been securely fastened to a mast head while on deck. The decks were salty and slippery if not swabbed often. Looking back, I believe I was truly lucky not to have met a disastrous fate. I was a brazen child, but secure enough in my parents’ unconditional love to venture forth on my own volition and explore uncharted territories among the ships’ secret coves. Oh, these were exciting times for me! I soon learned to relish discovery and adventure. It was these attributes that most likely set the stage for my future path into the realms of oceanic exploration. While I was busy chasing young boys’ dreams, my father was thinking about my future. You see, my father’s long ago uncle, Sir Isaac Watts, had enriched our family name by penning many hymns and poems. A poem that my Father often recited to me was called Against Idleness and Mischief and even though Sir Watts had never met me or even was alive when I was born, my father was sure that his poem had been meant for me.

Jeremiah, my Father would sternly say, do you know what it means to work hard?

Why yes, Sir, I would reply with all the best intentions in the world for doing just that. Knowing how I loved to day dream and piddle the hours away, he would then quote the text to me by heart.

How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour and gather honey all the day from every opening flower! How skillfully she builds her cell! How neat she spreads the wax! And labours hard to store it well with the sweet food she makes. In works of labour or of skill, I would be busy too; for Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do. In books, or work, or healthful play, let my first years be passed, that I may give for every day some good account at last.

I felt the crush of his words echo in my mind and I would resolve, right there and then, to honor those refrains and become a better boy, but the call of the sea would lure me back on deck and mischief and mayhem took their reign over me again and again. Raised in a religiously observant family of four siblings, I knew, in my heart, that Our Lord carefully watched over us, keeping us safe and sound. My father made us faithfully pray each night that He would meet our needs as a family, if not our wants. However, I don’t actually think even the Good Lord would know the extent that I would try my Father’s patience and my Mother’s sanity over the next fifteen years.

Chapter Two

Settling in New York

It took us over a month to sail the Atlantic to our final destination of New York, the city that would be our Golden Door of opportunity. We stepped foot on American soil, the 7th day of May, 1832, a day full of sunshine and hope for our weary immigrant family. The Dutch had first settled along the Hudson River as early as 1624 and established the colony of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. My father learned that New York was divided up into three counties; King’s county, Queen’s county and the county of Suffolk. These counties were divided into townships, with the municipal government of the Justices of the Peace, the Sheriffs and Constables, all dividing up the work of keeping order in the English manner. We felt more at home here than we had in the grimy towns of London and Liverpool but our family still longed to continue farming therefore we began a search westward for outlying towns to settle in.

Our family crossed the Hudson River through the newly formed Erie Canal. It was indeed an engineering marvel, connecting the Hudson with Lake Erie and enabling passengers to travel by packet boats up and down the canal. It carried us west to Chenango County. Chenango County was a breath of fresh air and ripe with possibilities! We encountered verdant hillsides and what the Americans call ponds, which we called lakes in England. As we traveled further, we glimpsed farms scooped out of the woods. Father named the many trees for us as we passed them.

See there, he would eagerly exclaim, those are Hickory and Chestnut trees, tall Tulip, Cedar, and Sassafras. See the strength of the Wild Cherry and Oak!

I just named them "beautiful." We encountered orchards of apples and pears that were ripe for the picking and held promise of another great harvest in the future. The whole of each farmer’s grain field, (what we proud English called corn), house and properties, were contained within fences of rail and post. In my unlearned mind, I felt that there was such an abundance of timber that the people did not simply know what to do with the supply. But I knew what I would build; a sturdy boat to sail back and forth across the seas! The dizzy thoughts raced through my head until I fell asleep, lulled into contentment, sprawling across my mothers’ rocking lap as she sat upon the seat of the wagon.

We stopped to rest at a wayside store and my father went in to inquire about property for sale. He was directed by the general store owner, Mr. Wales, to keep traveling to the southwest and look for land in Otsego County.

There, Mr. Wales went on, at the confluence of two rivers, the Susquehanna and the Unadilla, is ample enough space for raising a young family but you must be willing to work hard and live thriftily.

Oh aye, my father replied. Our family is not afraid of hardship. The kind store owner told us that the village dated from about 1790 and was important due to the construction of the Catskill and Susquehanna turnpike in 1802. The village terminated at the point the locals called, Wattles Ferry, so named for Sluman Wattles, a leading pioneer in that region.

Mr. Wales continued, The town of Unadilla boasts of encompassing approximately 28,000 acres and includes at least 2,000 good souls inhabiting it.

Since Unadilla was an important stop over for many immigrants traveling west, my mother and father decided to journey there and inquire if anyone needed hired help in carpentry and if there were land holdings available for purchase.

Luck was with us as we made good traveling time and met numerous kind and generous strangers along the way. When we reached Unadilla, my parents gathered information on land holding claims. In due time, our family became the proud landowners of a small, but sturdy, home and several acres of farmable land. My father Caleb found ample work as a carpenter and when I was not at school, taught me the reliable carpenter’s 3-4-5 Rule of finding a square. I can recite it even now.

On one side of a corner, measure three inches from the corner and make a mark. On the opposite side of the corner, measure four inches from the corner and make a mark. Next, measure between the two marks. If the distance is five inches, your corner is square! This was the Pythagorean Theorem at work in the simple world of a practical carpenter. Little did I know how this basic premise of measurement would hold me in such good stead on the rolling seas years later.

My formal education was a blur of activities and action, but not always ones that my parents desired. I was lucky that my family had the means to pay for my schooling, but being contained in a room full of younger, as well as older students, only made my head swim with dreams of escape. There were very few textbooks and most of our learning amounted to monotonous and tedious repetition of facts. I wanted to burst out of the unpainted and overcrowded classroom to dream about the amazing things I could accomplish if I were only given half the chance! But between the hours of nine a.m. and one p.m., I was held captive and compelled to learn the basic rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. When I was eight, and was sent to school along with my older brothers, I woefully pulled on my gathered bodice with buttoned-on trousers. My mother had hand sewn my school outfit from an itchy wool cloth and had skillfully basted a small white collar to the neckline of my bodice. Whenever the collar became dirty, she could change it for a clean one, which, unfortunately, she did as often as I took a breath! Oh, how I suffered through the indignation of it all! I labored through nine more long years as a reluctant and idle student while learning the carpentry trade, on the weekends and days off of school, from my father. While I daydreamed and created distractions in my mind at school, I instinctively learned much of what I was taught and soaked up information vicariously. I was a quick wit, but I yearned to be outside soaking up the sunshine instead! When not at school, I wandered far and wide, getting to know the dirt roads and ditches that traveled to other towns. I met many other young men who were addicted to the same wanderlust that I had succumbed to and we made a merry band roaming the countryside looking for foolhardy times. When I was sixteen, I parted my hair on the side and combed it around my face to show the world that I was mature and able-bodied. Since my father thought that beards and