Joshua Upham Slocum (1844 - aft. 1909)

Born 20 Feb 1844 in Mount Hanley, Annapolis, Nova Scotia

Ancestors

Husband of Virginia Albertina (Walker) Slocum — married 31 Jan 1871 (to 1884) in Sydney, Australia

Husband of Henrietta Miller (Elliott) Slocum — married 22 Feb 1886 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Descendants

Died after 14 Nov 1909 after age 65 in Lost at Sea, somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle

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Biography

Joshua Slocum is Notable.

Joshua Slocum was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world. He left Boston on 24 Apr 1895, and after a voyage exceeding 46,000 miles, reached Newport, Rhode Island, on 27 June 1898.^[1]

Born in Nova Scotia in 1844, he was a naturalised American seaman, adventurer, and noted writer. In 1900 he wrote a book about his journey, Sailing Alone Around the World, which became an international best-seller.^[2] Although he thought of himself as a sailor first, he was clearly as gifted a writer as he was a shipwright and navigator. His other books include Voyage of the Liberdade and Voyage of the Destroyer.^[3]

Joshua began his life at sea at the age of sixteen, when he left home after the death of his mother, who had given birth to his eleventh sibling. He and a friend signed on at Halifax as ordinary seamen on a merchant ship bound for Dublin, Ireland.^[2]

Shortly before Christmas 1870, Slocum put in at Sydney, Australia. There, in about a month's time, he met, courted, and married Virginia Albertina Walker. Their marriage took place on January 31, 1871. Miss Walker was an American whose New York family had migrated west to California at the time of the 1849 gold rush and eventually continued on, by ship, to settle in Australia. She sailed with Slocum, and, over the next thirteen years, bore him seven children, all at sea or in foreign ports. Four children, sons Victor, Benjamin Aymar, and Garfield, and daughter Jessie, survived to adulthood.^[2] His second marriage in 1886 was to his cousin Henrietta Miller Elliot.^[4] They had no children.^[5]

Captain Joshua Slocum inspires the wanderlust of both spirit and intellect – deciding to conquer a frontier is then followed by how to conquer a frontier. He sailed with a one dollar tin clock, the $15 price tag to replace his chronometer being too steep. The clock and the constellations were his navigation system, along with dead-reckoning and the occasional chart (except when an unwelcome goat came aboard and ate his charts of the West Indies along with his straw hat).^[6]

His last voyage was alone aboard the Spray, in 1909, at the age of 65. He set out once again on a long, single-handed voyage. This time he headed for the Orinoco River and the headwaters of the Amazon. He never arrived and was presumed dead. In 1924, Joshua Slocum was declared legally dead.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Kernaghan, Lois, "Joshua Slocum," The Canadian Encyclopedia, (March 4, 2015), online encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joshua-slocum : 22 April 2019)
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Wikipedia contributors, "Joshua Slocum," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joshua_Slocum&oldid=890646513 (accessed April 22, 2019).
3. ↑ Joshua Slocum
4. ↑ "Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FH6S-V8D : 11 March 2018), Joshua Slocum and Hettie M Elliott, 22 Feb 1886; citing reference ; FHL microfilm 823,138.
5. ↑ Brian D. Murphy, “SLOCUM, JOSHUA,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed April 22, 2019, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/slocum_joshua_13E.html.
6. ↑ Slocum, Joshua, Sailing Alone Around the World, Century, New York, 1900.

See also:

• Teller, Walter Magnes. The Voyages of Joshua Slocum. New York: Sheridan House, 1995.
• Find A Grave: Memorial #82543608
• Slocum, Charles Elihu.A Short History of the Slocums, Slocumbs and Slocombs of America, Genealogical and Biographical; Embracing Eleven Generations of the First-Named Family From 1637 to 1881, Volume 1, Pg. 551. Syracuse, NY: Charles Elihu Slocum, 1882.