Most of his family, sans his father, were seaman, and Slocum would follow in those footsteps. Though according to Slocum, his father “was the sort of man who, if wrecked on a desolate island, would find his way home, if he had a jack-knife and could find a tree.” That ability apparently transferred to him. He began his maritime career as a fisherman’s cook after running from home at age 12. His skill at cooking, however, was abysmal. He humorously recalled that “the crew mutinied at the appearance of my first duff, and ‘chucked me out’ before I had a chance to shine as a culinary artist.”
Love and Ships
In 1869, Slocum became an American citizen. A year later he was given command of a barque―a three-masted, square-rigged ship―called Washington. He then sailed for Australia where he incidentally met a beautiful New Yorker by the name of Virginia Walker. The two were an instant match and practically an instant marriage, their wedding taking place merely weeks after meeting. Virginia would indeed be the love of his life, and they would have seven children together (four of which would survive to adulthood).Virginia had always been an adventurer and proved a constant companion who preferred to sail along with her husband rather than stay behind. She joined him in places like Alaska, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Argentina.
Tragedy Upon Tragedy
Northern Light would not last long. By 1884, she required repairs that were too costly, and was henceforth sold off as a barge. This maritime tragedy, however, would pale in comparison to what would happen shortly thereafter. Slocum purchased the 325-ton barque, Aquidneck. He found this ship favorable, stating that “of all man’s handiwork [the Aquidneck] seemed to me the nearest to perfection of beauty, and which in speed, when the wind blew, asked no favors of steamers.”His real beauty, however, would leave him. While in Buenos Aires, Virginia died suddenly at the age of 34, seemingly from heart failure. The loss was crushing for Slocum. According to Slocum’s son, Ben, “Father’s days were done with the passing of mother.” His youngest son, Garfield, recalled that his father became “like a ship with a broken rudder.” A few years later, Slocum would marry a cousin, Henrietta, but would not have any more children, and the marriage appears polar opposite of the one with Virginia.
The Aquidneck, with its six-man crew, made several merchant voyages. While in harbor at Antonina, Brazil, several members of the crew (four were known criminals) tried to rob the ship late one night. Henrietta alerted Slocum, who went above with his repeating carbine. Demanding the members come forward. One member grabbed him by the neck and tried to stab him, but Slocum got a shot off in time to wound him. Another member came forward with a knife, but Slocum shot him dead. Slocum was arrested for murder, but was acquitted on the basis of self-defense.
What to Do Now?
Slocum had made a career of being a man of sail. The future of steam, however, had long arrived, and the demand for sailing ships floundered. Now that he was back in America, where steam ruled the commercial waves, he pondered his next move.Slocum began considering life in the shipyard as a shipbuilder, a career for which he was extremely qualified. One Boston winter day in 1892, Slocum was approached by an old friend and whaling captain. “Come to Fairhaven and I'll give you a ship. But, she wants some repairs,” Slocum recalled his friend saying. It would be the beginning of Slocum’s greatest adventure.
On April 24, 1895, Slocum and Spray began the grand adventure. The Spray sailed from Boston to Nova Scotia where Slocum revisited his hometown for the first time in 35 years. Along with overhauling the boat, purchasing food, and meeting up with old friends, Slocum purchased a “tin clock, the only timepiece I carried on the whole voyage … on account of the face being smashed the merchant let me have it for a dollar.”
Slocum would use the clock with the smashed face and dead reckoning to guide him. “If I doubted my reckoning after a long time at sea I verified it by reading the clock aloft made by the Great Architect, and it was right,” he recalled, referencing the sun, moon, and stars.
An Unthinkable Accomplishment
Slocum spent more than three years on his navigation around the globe, covering approximately 46,000 miles. He endured storms, sickness, hallucinations (one being the pilot of Christopher Columbus’s Pinta), and weariness. He visited Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, sailed through the Strait of Magellan and across the Pacific Ocean to reach Samoa. He made his way to Australia, where he visited Virginia’s family. He sailed through the Torres Strait to the Cocos Islands to Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope, stopping for a while in Cape Town. Noticing “a speck in the sea,” he stopped at Saint Helena where Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile. From Saint Helena he sailed to the volcanic Ascension Island and then to Grenada before silently coasting into the harbor of Newport, Rhode Island “at 1 a.m. on June 27, 1898.”
Slocum had accomplished what seemed unthinkable. The following year, he serialized his adventure, which was then turned into his bestselling book “Sailing Alone Around the World,” published in 1900. Money from book sales and lectures enabled him to purchase a farm in Martha’s Vineyard where Henrietta would reside, mostly alone, as Slocum preferred the sea to land.
The merchant-captain-turned-maritime-adventurer was now a household name. His fame acquainted him with some of the most famous people in the world, including Theodore Roosevelt. A decade after his circumnavigation of the globe, Slocum prepared for another long and lone voyage. On Nov. 14, 1909, he launched from the shores of Massachusetts. He would never be seen again.
