In the following pages, it is proposed to record the personal history of an American hero whose fortune it was, at the sacrifice of his life, to visit and explore the utmost limit in the Arctic regions ever attained by human skill and enterprise. Aside from the information communicated to me by his family, the materials placed in my hands consist of his private correspondence and various journals which he faithfully kept while serving his country on the Western frontiers, as well as in the inhospitable domain of the North. As the poet Fitz-Greene Halleck wrote about a kindred character—
leaving a name that will long be honored in every civilized land as that of a martyr in the cause of geographical exploration.
Many of those connected with the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, before the civil war, will remember a playful and mischievous boy, whose ready smile and cheerful ways beguiled them in their hours of relaxation. Others who were at that school after the war will remember the same boy, grown into a youth of sixteen years, rugged in aspect, devoted to manly sports, and assiduous in all his duties. It is the story of his brief but eventful life to which this volume is devoted, written for the information of his friends and all those who admire true heroism and rare abilities when allied to sufferings for the public weal.
James Booth Lockwood was the second son and third child of General Henry H. Lockwood and Anna Booth Lockwood. He was born at the Naval Academy, Annapolis, on the 9th of October, 1852, at which time and place his father—a Professor of Mathematics in the Navy—instructed the midshipmen in the military branches, as he had done for many years before. Both his parents were from the State of Delaware, and came from the best stock of that State; and, as his father taught his students “how to shoot,” and prepare themselves for the conflicts of life, it was quite natural that the son should have acquired a love of noble deeds and adventure.
Like many boys, he had his narrow escapes from death, one of which occurred in April, 1860, when, having fallen into the river from the dock, he was rescued in an insensible condition, and restored to life with great difficulty. This escape must have been recalled by him with special emotion in after-years amid his struggles with the ice of Smith’s Sound.
His innate love of fun had been one of his characteristics from childhood, nor was it subdued even when recovering from the accident which nearly cost him his life; for, while lying in his bed, he peered into his father’s face with a quizzical smile, and remarked, “I was drowned, but not drowned dead.”
When the Naval Academy was occupied by a general of the army, in 1861, and the students and professors were transferred to Newport, Rhode Island, young Lockwood accompanied his father and family, and was placed at a public school in that place. After a brief residence in Newport, his father, being a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, was called upon to command a volunteer regiment of Delaware troops, and having been subsequently commissioned a brigadier-general of volunteers, he was placed in charge of the Eastern Shore counties of Virginia and returned to the region of hostilities, making his headquarters at Drummondtown, in Accomac County. In this quaint and quiet place, and while a mere stripling of ten years, young Lockwood displayed his love of adventure and active life by forming a company of all the colored boys in the village, erecting earthworks in a vacant lot, and, all armed with corn-stalks and broom-handles, meeting a company of white boys in mimic war—noisy, if not dangerous to life or limb. The vanity of personal strife, however, soon becoming irksome to his mind, he turned his attention to horsemanship, and explored the surrounding shores of Accomac on a Chincoteague pony belonging to his father. He also spent many quiet hours conversing about horses and their habits with the soldiers in the garrison, with whom he was a special favorite. After a while, his father was transferred to the command of troops at Harper’s Ferry, and there a new field of adventure occupied the attention of the incipient hero. He was foremost in climbing the neighboring mountain-heights and scaling precipices, and always on the lookout for adventure along the waters of the Potomac. Afterward, when living with his family near the city of Baltimore, he displayed his activity and energy in other ways. When neighboring boys were wont to trespass on his father’s grounds and fruit-trees, he was quite as ready to defend his home as he had been in Accomac to maintain the national struggle then rending the land. And here it was that he often accompanied his father on his rounds among the military works near Baltimore, and always attracted the attention of the troops by his skill in riding. But these experiences were not deemed satisfactory for molding the character of a boy, and then it was that his father sent him to a boarding-school at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, kept by a Mr. Schwartz, a good scholar and strict disciplinarian. Of course, like those of all boys, his letters teemed with complaints. He was very homesick—a mere child separated from all he loved. In one letter he spoke of praying to God to make him satisfied. In after-years, and when suffering all the horrors of the Arctic, his mother’s prayer was that his childhood’s star might again arise, and lead his sorrowing heart to that comfort found only above. His chief grievances were a Dutch dish regularly given to the boys, called scrapul, and the discipline of powers administered to those who failed in their studies. In this latter punishment, the delinquent was required to raise to the fortieth, fiftieth, or one hundredth power any number given him. However distasteful to him at the time, he seems to have changed his mind upon the subjects of food and discipline afterward; for he became, after his return home, a strong advocate of scrapul as a physical, and of “powers” as a mental diet. Returning, in 1866, with his father to Annapolis, he was sent to St. John’s College in that place, and at that time in a flourishing condition, under the able administration of James C. Welling, now the accomplished President of Columbian College. Although his mental abilities were acknowledged as superior, he preferred action to books, and his success there was not satisfactory to his father. Others known to be his mental inferiors took a higher stand. He, however, read some Latin, and made considerable progress in mathematics. Here we come to a new illustration of his character. During his residence within the walls of the Academy, a species of tyranny existed among the sons of naval officers of his own age with whom he associated, which he could not endure. Rank in the father was supposed to give rank or prestige to the son. This theory young Lockwood was unwilling to acknowledge, and the consequence was that he soon found himself beset by those whom he opposed. But then, as always with the free and brave, right prevailed, and the aggressors were sent to the wall, while the fearless victor very soon became the peer of his associates. The situation of the Academy offering peculiar facilities for boating, fishing, swimming, etc., the professor’s son became an expert in all these exercises, making pets of his sail and row boats, as he had done with the ponies of Chincoteague. Many of the Annapolis students, now high officers in the navy, have spoken of his frolicsome pranks at that time within the grounds of the Academy—for example, how he mimicked the strut of the drum-major, how he teased the watchman by hiding among the trees and bushes, personating an intruder on the grounds, and how he alarmed the servant-maids and the children by appearing suddenly before them like a phantom. He was more fond of reading than of study, and among his favorite books were those of De Foe, Mayne Reid, and others of that class. To what extent he was familiar with the histories of John Ledyard and Joseph R. Bellot can not be stated, but there is a striking similarity in their characters, and indeed it was the fate of the latter, like Lockwood, to lose his life in the Arctic regions. They form a trio of remarkable explorers, whose fame will be perennial, but it was the fate of the last one mentioned to reach the highest success. During the latter part of his residence at Annapolis, he spent many of his spare hours on his father’s farm. By way of encouragement, his father assigned to him a patch of ground for his special cultivation, with fertilizers and the use of a team. To the surprise of all, his success seemed amazing, and his crops were good and profitable. With the money thus secured he purchased for himself a watch and a sporting gun. He had a special fondness for dogs, and exerted over them great influence. His favorite in this direction was a short-legged, long-bodied, common rat-terrier. In the purity of this dog’s blood, he was a decided believer, which faith he maintained with many hot arguments, and exemplified by teaching the animal a great variety of tricks. Indeed, the high degree of training to which he brought the dog Jack was remarkable. He was always quiet and positive toward the animal, and Jack gave his commands a serious and implicit obedience. One of the feats performed by the dog was to carry a candlestick with a lighted candle wherever ordered to do so. Another was to this effect: the boy would place a small scrap of paper on the parlor wall at a height which Jack was hardly able to reach. Jack’s attention would then be called to the paper, and the dog and master would retire up-stairs. Some time afterward, Jack, in obedience to a mere word, would proceed to the parlor, and, to the amusement of those congregated there, launch his body at the paper until he finally secured it, and then would carry it to his master. Although this dog had a special dislike for fire, he would, under orders, pull chestnuts out of the hot coals, even if it took him an hour to perform the task; and it is also related of him that on one occasion, when he slipped his muzzle on the Academy grounds, he picked it up and took it to his master. When the lad’s father was ordered to the National Observatory, the family removing to Washington, the pet dog accompanied them, and the intimacy between the dog and his master was unabated. They often rambled through the streets together, and it was during one of their walks along Pennsylvania Avenue that the dog disappeared, and was never recovered by his owner, whose grief was most sincere and manifest. He published an advertisement, and, true to his regard for the departed, he spoke of it as a pure-blooded animal; which statement was probably the reason why the dog was never returned, as no stranger could have believed in the alleged pedigree of such an ungainly creature.
After young Lockwood’s father and family had become settled in Washington, it was decided that he should return to Annapolis and take charge of the farm until some more suitable or congenial employment should come into view. In looking over the home letters which he wrote at that time, I find a few developments of character which are worthy of mention. For example, in February, 1872, he writes as follows:
“I find Annapolis the same as ever. It would hardly do for Rip Van Winkle to go to sleep here, for, when he awoke, he would find no change, not even by death.”
After speaking in the same letter of a man going to purchase implements in Baltimore, he says: “I think it would pay one capable of judging of such things, or one endowed with ‘Lockwood Common Sense,’” this allusion being to an imaginary manual which the children had attributed to their father. The quiet humor of the youthful farmer is manifested in another letter after this fashion: “I have been suffering all the week from the effects of a poison most probably communicated from some vine. It manifests itself pretty much as Job’s troubles showed themselves, and no position of body except standing affords relief. I haven’t yet got down into the ashes. If tartar emetic produced these eruptions, they might be attributed in some way to the evil agency of Mrs. W——.”
The person here alluded to was the one who became notorious for the alleged poisoning of General W. S. Ketcham, in Baltimore. Young Lockwood had met her at a boarding-house in Annapolis after her release from prison, and was agreeably impressed by her conversation and manners. On a subsequent occasion, when visiting his family in Washington, and some severe remark had been made against the lady in question, he demanded that the company present should not abuse an absent friend in his presence. Being of a sensitive nature in regard to the weather, as is proved by several of his Annapolis letters, and by such passages as the one now to be quoted, it seems surprising that he should ever have decided to visit the icy regions of the North.
“This gloomy weather,” he says, “is by no means calculated to elate one’s spirits, but, on the contrary, makes everything appear in its most dreary and desolate light, especially on a farm like this, and, though the spring will bring more work and attention, yet I shall hail its appearance with joy. I must confess that I can not prevent a feeling of loneliness from coming over me, particularly in the daytime, for at night my lamp and open wood-fire make things more cheerful, or rather less dreary.”
As these letters were written from a farm, and by a mere boy, they are chiefly devoted to asking for advice as to how he should manage affairs, and to reporting the condition of the crops; but, in their way, they prove that there was much solid manhood in the lad, and that he looked upon life as something substantial, and not as a kind of dreamland.
On one occasion, when visiting his home, he noticed that one of his sisters was manifesting what he thought an unreasonable excitement about the advent of cockroaches in the kitchen, whereupon he drew the figure of a vessel under full sail, beneath which he wrote the following: “The brig Anna Baby, bound to the north pole for a load of cockroaches.”
On another occasion, after consulting the family copy of Webster’s Dictionary, he wrote upon one of the fly-leaves, opposite the indorsements of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and other distinguished men, these words: “I regard this dictionary as very good, especially when you can not get any other.”
These incidents, though unimportant, help us to appreciate the character of the critical and independent youth.
The following example of the boy’s ingenuity is also worth mentioning:
In 1870 a brother-in-law gave him a small, cheap clock, about four and a half inches in diameter, which he at once adapted to the purpose of waking himself in the morning. After joining the slats of his bed together with battens, he sawed them through in the middle and hinged the parts. That half of the arrangement which was at the head of the bed was supported only by a single prop. A minute collar of lead was supported by one of the hands of the clock. At the proper time the lead slipped from the hand automatically, and, in falling, set in motion a system of levers which were connected with the prop by a string. Thus, with unfailing regularity, the prop was jerked from its place, and the young occupant of the bed was pitched headlong to the floor among his pillows and bolster. When he tired of this apparatus, it became his custom at night to hitch a string around his foot, the end of the string being passed out of the window and allowed to trail down to the kitchen-door. At a definite time in the morning, previously ordered, the colored cook pulled the string until she received intimation of a successful result.
In the hope of finding more congenial employment, young Lockwood now fixed his mind on engineer work in connection with railroads. He joined a corps on the Texas and Pacific Railroad line, and went to the northeastern corner of the State of Texas, where, for four months, he drove pegs and cut down bushes in the virgin wilderness, which employment was only terminated by the failure of the company to go on with its enterprise. What with the rough people with whom he was compelled to associate, the hard fare at the rude taverns, and a severe attack of sickness, he had a very disagreeable experience, which was enhanced by the non-payment of wages by the company, and by the temporary loss of the spare money furnished by his father, which was taken from him by the rascality of a pretended friend, an employÉ of the railroad company. By careful financial engineering, he managed to leave the wilderness of Texas, went to Shreveport, and thence to New Orleans, where he took a steamer for Cincinnati, and on this trip he met with one small bit of good fortune. Owing to his limited means he contracted with the captain of the steamer that he should be carried to Cincinnati, O., for a specific sum, all his meals to be included in the passage-money. It so happened, however, that the steamer was detained by floating ice for three weeks, but this caused no detriment to the traveler’s pocket, as time was not “nominated in the bond.” About eleven years after that experience, the same traveler was fighting his way through the ice of the Arctic seas and enduring the horrors of Cape Sabine, finding it difficult to secure necessary rations at any price or of any quality.
On reaching home, he began the study of bookkeeping with a view to the civil service. With others, he was examined for a position in the Treasury Department. He passed the examination with credit, and received a mark much above the number required for passing, but, when the office-mark was thrown in, as was then the custom, his average was reduced, and those who had personal influence and understood the “tricks of the trade” became the successful applicants.
