OVERBOARD AND BACK The Thrilling Experience of Captain Hodson Off the Pacific Coast

Los Angeles Herald – December 21, 1902 – Captain John Hodson, a night inspector in the Honolulu customs force, has apparently led a charmed life. When a boy of 16 years he left his home in Norway, throwing away his chances of following in his father’s footsteps as an officer in the Norwegian army for a life on the sea.

Since Captain Hodson’s early childhood he has sailed all over the watery globe, and only a few years ago quit the sea after having been in many disasters. He was shipwrecked in the South Sea islands, and only by a miracle escaped with his life; but the most remarkable experience he had was while captain of a schooner trading between the Sound and California ports. On one occasion he took a cargo of lumber from the Sound to San Pedro. Before leaving the Sound the ship’s carpenter made some repairs to the hull of the vessel, and during his work the chips from a piece of timber he was hewing fell into the hull of the vessel between the lumber and its sides.

Shortly after leaving port the vessel encountered a heavy gale and the ship commenced to leak. The schooner’s pumps were started, but the chips which the carpenter had dropped into her hold clogged them up. The captain put his vessel right before the wind and ordered his men to take out the pump and clear out the chips. While this was being done he stood with the man at the wheel to see that the schooner was kept right ahead of the wind. Waves of enormous height were chasing the schooner, and one of these washed over the vessel from the stern to bow. throwing the man at the wheel flat on his face and tossing the captain overboard. As Captain Hodson was swept over the side into the foaming water the ropes holding a boom broke, and it dropped to the deck with one hanging out over the side of the schooner. A broken rope dangling from this hit the captain on the head and with the wild energy of a drowning man he caught hold of It. The vessel gave a tremendous lurch and her bulwarks were again under water, while the speed of the vessel dragged the man in the water who was holding on to the rope along and finally tossed him on deck again. He was at the wheel as soon as the schooner righted and nearly frightened the life out of the sailor standing there. This man thought he had seen a ghost and promptly ran from the wheel. Captain Hodson seized it, put the vessel ahead of the wind again and later weathered the storm. — Pacific Commercial Advertiser.

* Noteworthy

1861 – Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.

1872 – Challenger expedition: HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sails from Portsmouth, England.

1907 – The Chilean Army commits a massacre of at least 2,000 striking saltpeter miners in Iquique, Chile.

1962 – Rondane National Park is established as Norway’s first national park.

1995 – The city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control.