« Pay No Attention to the Trolls Behind the Curtain | Main | The New Whore Times »
September 24, 2012
The Adventures of the Real Tom Sawyer
and in San Francisco he had battled fire for Broderick 1, the city’s first volunteer fire company, under Chief David Broderick, the first fire chief. Twain perked up when Sawyer mentioned that he had also toiled as a steamboat engineer plying the Mexican sea trade. Twain well knew that an engineer typically stood between two rows of furnaces that “glare like the fires of hell” and “shovels coal for four hours at a stretch in an unvarying temperature of 148 degrees Fahrenheit!” -- Smithsonian Magazine
Posted by Vanderleun at September 24, 2012 4:32 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Wow, that is terrific.
One of my great-great grandfathers was a hero of the SF Quake, a San Francisco Fireman named Henry Horn, from the Mission District. He probably knew the "real" Tom Sawyer.
What characters!
Posted by: UncleJefe at September 25, 2012 8:50 AM
I'll bet when those two got together the first liar didn't stand a chance.
Posted by: I-RIGHT-I at September 25, 2012 12:20 PM
Sawyer earned the right to drink and carry on:
"Sawyer had proved his heroism February 16, 1853, while serving as the fire engineer aboard the steamer Independence. Heading to San Francisco via San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua and Acapulco, with 359 passengers aboard, the ship struck a reef off Baja, shuddered like a leaf and caught against jagged rocks. ...
"Chief Engineer Jason Collins ... and James L. Freeborn, the purser, jumped overboard, lost consciousness and sank. Sawyer, a powerful swimmer, dove into the water, caught both men by their hair and pulled them to the surface. As they clung to his back, he swam for the shore a hundred yards away, a feat of amazing strength and stamina. Depositing Collins and Freeborn on the beach, Sawyer swam back to the burning steamer. He made a number of round trips, swimming to shore with a passenger or two on his back each time.
"Finally a lifeboat was lowered, and women, children and many men, including the ship’s surgeon, who would be needed on land, packed in and were rowed to shore. Two broken lifeboats were repaired and launched. Sawyer returned to the flaming vessel in a long boat, rowing hard despite burned forearms to reach more passengers. He got a group into life preservers, then towed them ashore and went back for more. An hour later, the ship was a perfect sheet of flame.
"Ultimately, Sawyer was credited with saving 90 lives at sea, among them 26 people he had rescued singlehandedly."
That my friends is a Man. If you had known him, you would have been privileged.
Posted by: Fat Man at September 25, 2012 7:21 PM