PART II
NORWEST JOHN AND THE VOYAGE OF THE JUNO
1—NORWEST JOHN
John De Wolf was born in Bristol on September 6, 1779. His father, Simon, the third son of Mark Anthony, founder of the Bristol family, was lost at sea with his older brother, Mark, in 1779 or ’80, when his only child was but an infant in arms. He was forced by poverty to begin a seafaring life at the age of thirteen. His great ability quickly manifested itself and at the age of twenty-four he was placed in command of a vessel bound on one of the most fascinating as well as one of the most hazardous voyages known to the commerce of that time, a voyage to the Northwest Coast. The story of his experiences he tells in the pages that follow. For some years after his return to his native town he continued in the Russian-American trade for which the knowledge of the language gained during his stay in Russian territory well qualified him. Having attained the age of forty-eight he retired from the sea and for some years lived, like many retired captains, the life of a farmer, upon the farm occupied for years as a summer home by his relative, the late Bishop Howe of Central Pennsylvania. Thence he moved to a farm at Brighton, Massachusetts, and, leaving that, spent the last years of his life with his daughter, Mrs. Downing, at Dorchester. Very delightful must have been those last years. The daring sailor whose nerves had never failed him in moments of greatest peril on the ocean was a man of tender nature and of a most lovable disposition.
Of him his granddaughter penned this beautiful picture:[23]
“I never knew a more beautiful old age. Beloved by those of all ages, he had many friends among the young people and was young with them, and his grandchildren were devoted to him. They called him ‘White Grandpa,’ on account of his silvery hair, to distinguish him from my father. They always knew in just what spot in the room to look for candy and fruits which he always had for them, and if there was anything they particularly wanted they were always sure that ‘White Grandpa’ would give it to them. Like so many old people it was hard for him to adapt himself to modern improvements. And especially the new ideas of shipbuilding were not always to his liking. At a window of a room in our summer home, commanding a fine view of Boston harbor, we would often find him holding his spy-glass at arm’s length, and if sometimes we would ask ‘What do you see, Grandpa?’ he would invariably reply, ‘I was looking at those blasted three masted schooners.’”
In the days of his life at sea a three masted schooner was almost unknown, and the schooner rigged vessel was rarely seen except on the American coast of the North Atlantic Ocean. Everywhere else square sails were the rule. Even the “tub” of twenty-five tons on which Captain De Wolf made his voyage of twenty-five hundred miles to Ochotsk was a brig. At his death no naval constructor had dreamed of a five masted schooner, and a seven master would have been deemed impossible. Today all the great colliers carry five or six masts and there is not a square rigger among them. The schooner rig is distinctively American. The first schooner ever constructed is said to have been built in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about the year 1713, by Captain Andrew Robinson. In two centuries it has driven the square rigged ship from the Atlantic coast of North America. In the great ports upon the Pacific coast square sails are still frequent, though they are seen for the most part upon the masts of foreign ships. The schooner rig has conquered even that former home of most rigid conservatism which was opened to the commerce of the world in 1854, by a Rhode Island naval officer, when Commodore M. C. Perry dropped anchor near the little fishing village of Yokohama, Japan. As one passes through the “Inland Sea” today he notes that all the fleet craft skimming over its waves are rigged in the American way. The schooner has driven the slow moving “junk” out of business as far as those waters are concerned.
Captain De Wolf died in Dorchester, on March 8, 1872, aged ninety-two.
2—VOYAGE OF THE JUNO
A VOYAGE TO THE NORTH PACIFIC AND A JOURNEY THROUGH SIBERIA MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY AGO. BY CAPTAIN JOHN D’WOLF. (CAMBRIDGE, 1861)