Lewis Gerhardt Goldsmith
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In 1879, in the midst of an international fad for attempting long voyages in tiny vessels [1], 40-year old Captain Lewis Gerhardt Goldsmith, a Danish immigrant and Civil War veteran, announced at a press conference [2] in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, that he was having built a boat of his own design, based on the latest "lifeboat" technology, in which he would sail around the world. The vessel, dubbed the Uncle Sam, was to be an open wooden dory eighteen feet long by six feet wide, with a single fore-and-aft rigged mast. In place of a cabin, the Uncle Sam would have a watertight "trunk", an oilcloth-covered wooden box large enough to sleep in. Goldsmith also announced that accompanying him would be his new wife, 22 years old with no prior sea-going experience. She would be his "crew".
The planned route would take them along the coast of North America to Newfoundland, then to England, a restorative stopover with family in Copenhagen, thence through Gibraltar to the Mediterranean, through the new Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean, on to the India, China, Japan, Hawaii, San Francisco, Cape Horn, and home. He said they would leave in July 1879 and would return in November 1881, allowing time to exhibit the remarkable vessel in cities along the route.
The Captain and his wife left Boston Harbor at dawn on Sunday, June 1, ahead of schedule. Their progress, as reported by passing vessels and by the ports-of-call where they stopped, was charted in newspapers all over the United States, making maximum use of the new undersea telegraph cables. The Uncle Sam put in to Halifax, Nova Scotia, three weeks later, for a week of resupply and repair. The Goldsmiths hopscotched northeastward along the Maritimes, heading for St. Johns. In early July the Uncle Sam was badly damaged in a storm and had to make an emergency stop at the tiny French possession of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, just south of Newfoundland. Mrs. Goldsmith had become seriously ill (diagnosed, according to the Captain's log, as "inflamation of the bowel") and both she and the Uncle Sam needed rest and repair. With the help of the local French community Goldsmith was able to get underway again and reached St. Johns, the last stop before England, on August 7th. After a final resupply they set out for Liverpool in mid-August.
A week later, 600 miles to the east, they encountered storms and fogs on the Grand Banks. During a "great storm" a huge wave overtopped them and swept away their sea anchors and most of their supplies. The Uncle Sam was swamped and filled with water but was kept afloat, as designed, by its watertight compartments. After days of misery in the flooded vessel, amidst injury and illness, the Captain spotted the sails of a passing ship and, rigging a temporary storm sail, gave chase. After a desperate hour someone on the ship spotted their pursuer and gave the alarm. The crew of the Queen Of Nations, a high-speed clipper ship out of Australia, threw a rope to the couple in their derelict boat and hauled them aboard. Captain Goldsmith's last act before debarking was to open the seacocks on the compartments to scuttle the Uncle Sam. Even aboard "The Queen" they were not yet safe; for two weeks the ship was battered by storms before arriving safely in Liverpool. Word of the Goldsmith's rescue was flashed across the Atlantic and made headlines in papers all over America[3]. The Captain gave another press conference [4] and then the couple went home to Brooklyn. They named their first child "Miquelon".
