Hezekiah Abbott

Hezekiah Abbott helped to save Philip and Robert Way from drowning, Bonavista, Newfoundland, April 4, 1917. Philip, 57; Robert, 42 and a third fisherman were seal hunting on an ice field in the Atlantic Ocean. Through the shifting of the wind, the ice began to drift, and they were marooned on ice cakes. In a short time the companion of Robert and Philip fell off his cake of ice and was drowned. The wind blew 40 m.p.h., and the two men drifted at about 2 m.p.h., while the ice was heaving in waves about six feet high and the cakes which supported them threatened to break. They were a half-mile apart and about two miles from the edge of the ice nearest shore. The ice cakes were about 55 feet apart and surrounded by ice which was ground into a soft, plastic mass, about eight feet thick. When discovered, they were being carried across the mouth of Bonavista Bay. Abbott, 63, fisherman, and four other men, none of whom could swim, volunteered to go to the rescue, knowing that other men had refused to go. They provided themselves with a day’s rations, put out in a 20-foot rowboat, and entered the ice field. They used oars where they could, pushed the cakes aside with gaffs where it was tightly packed, and at times got out of the boat onto ice cakes and pulled the boat along. Making arduous progress, they finally reached Philip in about one hour, and by the same methods, they reached Robert a half-hour later. The boat was then headed across the field toward shore and moved in that direction, but slower progress was made then, because the ice was tighter. Two hours later the boat got out of the field three miles from where it had entered it and was then towed by a motorboat to shore.