The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Captain B---- tells a story of an immense turtle which he saw at sea, on
a voyage to Batavia,--so long, that the look-out at the mast-head
mistook it for a rock. The ship passed close to it, and it was
apparently longer than the long-boat, "with a head bigger than any dog's
head you ever see," and great prickles on his back a foot long. Arriving
at Batavia, he told the story, and an old pilot exclaimed, "What! have
you seen Bellysore Tom?" It seems that the pilots had been acquainted
with this turtle as many as twelve years, and always found him in the
same latitude. They never did him any injury, but were accustomed to
throw him pieces of meat, which he received in good part, so that there
was a mutual friendship between him and the pilots. Old Mr. L----, in
confirmation of the story, asserted that he had often heard other
shipmasters speak of the same, monster; but he being a notorious liar,
and Captain B---- an unconscionable spinner of long yarns and
travellers' tales, the evidence is by no means perfect. The pilots
estimated his length at not less than twenty feet.
* * * * *
The Grey Property Case. Mrs. Grey and her child three years old were
carried off by the Indians in 1756 from the Tuscarora valley in
Pennsylvania. The father, going on a campaign in search of them, was
exhausted by fatigue, and came home only to die, bequeathing half his
property to his child, if living. The mother, his wife, being redeemed,
and there being several children who had been captive to the Indians to
be seen at Philadelphia, went thither to see and recognize her little
three years' old daughter, from whom, in her captivity, she had been
separated. Her child proved not to be among the little captives; but, in
order to get possession of her husband's property, she claimed another
child, of about the same age. This child grew up gross, ugly, awkward, a
"big, black, uncomely Dutch lump, not to be compared to the beautiful
Fanny Grey," and moreover turned out morally bad. The real daughter was
said to have been married, and settled in New York, "a fine woman, with
a fair house and fair children." At all events, she was never recovered
by her relatives, and her existence seems to have been doubtful. In
1789, the heirs of John Grey, the father, became aware that the claimed
and recovered child was not the child that had been lost. They commenced
a lawsuit for the recovery of John Grey's property, consisting of a farm
of three or four hundred acres. This lawsuit lasted till 1834, when it
was decided against the identity of the recovered child. (Sherman Day's
Hist. Coll. of Penn.)
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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