Many seamen would have perished without the courage of Abigail Becker. Besides raising fourteen children in a trapper's cabin, she waded into treacherous icy waters and undertook hazardous journeys to rescue sailors stranded in deadly storms of Lake Erie, Ontario, Canada.
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Long Point is a sand spit and mid-sized town on the north shore of Erie, in Norfolk County. In the nineteenth century it was dangerous in daylight and tragic at night. November gales were legend in ferocity. European immigrants settled in the area from 1790. After the American Revolution, some Loyalists joined them.
After 1796, the rugged land was given to anyone able to develop it. In 1830 the first lighthouse on Long Point was built. Most of the shipwrecks occurred right off the point. In the Lake Erie Quadrangle, over 400 ships have sunk.
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The Lake Erie Quadrangle occupies a 2,500 sq mi (6,500 sq km) area along Lake Erie in Pennsylvania; north to the shores of Ontario, Canada; and in the east and west to parts of New York and Ohio. This area has seen more than 430 maritime disasters.
Abigail married Jeremiah Becker in 1848, when she was just seventeen years old. He was a widower with six children living in a cabin on Long Point. Life was not easy. The family had to live from the land and the lake.
Abigail cared for the kids, chopped wood, scrubbed laundry, cleaned, prepared meals, churned butter, sewed clothes and made mattresses, curtains and rugs. Children helped with chores as soon as they were able. In short time Abigail was pregnant and would bear eight more children with Jeremiah. In the small cabin she cared for fourteen in all.
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Her husband was away when a hurricane level storm came in from the south-west about five in the afternoon, and rampaged through the night of November 23, 1845. During the tempest the Conductor, an American schooner from Buffalo, heading to Toronto with a load of corn, ran aground. The seven-man crew held fast to the frozen rigging half the night as the storm blew its course.
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Although she couldn't swim, at dawn Abigail waded into freezing water up to her chin and helped each man to shore. Her bravery later earned her awards, a handwritten letter and £50 from Queen Victoria. When the story of the Conductor became known, people of Buffalo raised over $350 (about $13,700 today) to reward her heroism.
During another late autumn squall a schooner of barley went aground near the Becker cabin. All hands were rescued except the cook. Her body was later found
floating in the wreckage of the ship.
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Another time, four sailors staggered to Abigail's door during a blizzard. Their schooner was swept to shore and only four of six made it to the Becker cabin. Abigail let them warm up by the fire while she took one of her sons and went into the gale in search of the fallen seamen.
Despite the storm and limited visibility she found them, and urged them to get up and come to her cabin. She had to pull them physically to their feet and push them along, but all the crew of the grounded schooner survived that night.
The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) made it a priority to visit Abigail on a trip to Canada. Both the New York Life Saving Benevolent Association and the Royal Humane Society struck gold medals in her honor.
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In 1864, Jeremiah joined the casualties and was lost during a storm on the lake, leaving Abigail alone with fourteen kids. Before 1870 she married again, a happy occasion followed by three more daughters, increasing her brood to seventeen.
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Because of the high incidence of childhood death during the Victorian era in Canada, unavailable or forbidden birth control and endless house or farm work needing more hands, country families often had a lot of kids. Little girls like these two would already know how to spin and sew.
The Angel of Long Point, Abigail Becker, died in Norfolk County in 1905 at the age of 75. She lived there most of her life and is buried in nearby Simcoe. Long Point is now an Ontario Provincial Park.
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