Captain John Crane, 1800-1815
9781465641830
242 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
I am a modest, bashful sort of man, though I say it myself, and have been a sailor for a goodly number of years. Perhaps on board a ship I am not so bashful, and especially when in command of her. I don't feel altogether at home on shore, although I've given up the sea, and propose to spend the rest of my life on land. I was born on the 25th of November, 1783, the day of the evacuation of the city of New York by the British, at the end of the Revolutionary War. It is proper to say that my arrival into the United States (and the world) on that day attracted much less attention throughout the country than did the departure of our enemies, but there's nothing surprising in that. I suppose you might have found, a few years ago, a good many people throughout these United States who were born on the same day as George Washington; but they haven't attracted any attention, while he has filled the eyes of the world. At any rate, he filled the stomachs of the British with all the fighting they wanted when they came here to subjugate the colonies. My name is John Crane, or, rather, Captain Crane, at your service. I am, or rather was, a sea-captain, and for a pretty fair time too. People keep on calling me "Captain," although I've given up sea life and settled down on shore. But that's the way of things generally; which, after all, isn't so bad. If a man has done something and won a handle to his name, I think it is fair to let him keep it, and so I never correct folks when they call me Captain Crane. But when I sign a paper of any sort, no matter whether it's a letter to anybody or a legal document, I always write "John Crane," and nothing more. I never stick Captain on in front of it, as some do that I know. Since I settled down on land I've told a good many of my experiences to neighbors and friends, and they've urged me to write a book. I've hesitated a good while about it,—there's where my bashfulness comes in,—but, after all, I don't see why I shouldn't do as others have done. There's many a book on sea life by men who have never been on blue water a tenth part as much as I've been there. I can't spell very well, that was always a weak point with me; but I'll leave it to the printer to correct my spelling, and also my grammar, if I slip up in it. I never had a chance for much schooling; I had a little of the three R's, Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic, but precious little it was. I was born among the hills of New Hampshire, in the township of Pembroke, about fifty miles from Portsmouth, a seaport of that State, and sixty or seventy miles from Boston. As my birth occurred on what we may consider the last day of the War for Independence, I can't be supposed to remember anything about it of my own knowledge, but my earliest recollections are very much concerned with it. It was the great topic of conversation among the people in the region where I lived. My father, and nearly every other man in the neighborhood, had fought in the Continental Army, and they were very fond of "fighting their battles o'er again" in front of their firesides. My father was a soldier from the beginning of the war until 1777, when he was badly wounded and came home. It was late in 1778 when he recovered, but he wasn't able to go back to the army again. So he married, and you'll know about his family farther on. My early life was one of hardship. My parents had a small farm which we cultivated,—father and mother, and three brothers of us,—with our own hands. In fact, we could not well do otherwise, as we were too poor to hire any help. When he was twenty-one years old, James, my eldest brother, left home, went to a neighboring town, where he hired out with a farmer, and in less than a year was married to the farmer's daughter. Luckily for him, his wife's father had a good-sized farm, and she was an only child.
