The 19th century is filled with tales of heroic rescues on the Great Lakes by the fearless lifesaving service, ships’ crews and brave civilians who risked their lives against impossible odds to save others. But among all of them, the extraordinary courage of one woman stands out---Abigail Becker, “the Angel of Long Point”.
Becker was 23 years old on the stormy afternoon of Nov. 21, 1854. She was married to a trapper, raising his six children in a remote cabin on Long Point, a peninsula on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie notorious for deadly shipwrecks. As the day waned, she was out in the wind and snow with two of her stepkids, gathering wood and water, when she encountered a harrowing sight: a battered schooner, run aground and half-submerged in high seas 200 yards offshore, eight men clinging to its mast.
She called to the men, but they could not hear her above the howling wind and crashing waves. They called to her, shouting that they were the crew of the schooner Conductor out of Buffalo, bound from Amherstburg to Toronto with the last load of corn of the season, and that they’d been wrecked since the night before. She could not hear them either. But it was clear to her that they’d been clinging for the mast for several hours and were freezing to death.
Becker told her children to build a fire on the snowy beach and said she would rescue the men---a remarkable assertion, for Abigail Becker could not swim. But she waded into the crashing waves anyway, and made her way out toward the grounded schooner until she was chin-deep in the frigid lake. Fortunately, she was a 6-foot-tall, unusually sturdy woman. The ship’s captain, Hank Hackett, dove in. Becker grabbed hold of him, told him not to struggle “for I cannot swim”, and began pulling him to shore. It was difficult, but she got him to the beach and the warmth of the fire… and immediately turned around and waded back in.
Six more times she waded into Lake Erie, even though her clothes were “frozen like iron upon me”, and each time she returned, having pulled a man to safety. Only one man, the ship’s cook, stayed behind to ride out the storm on the mast.
Becker, the two kids and the seven survivors made their way back to the small, already crowded cabin. There, Becker and her stepchildren looked after the men (her husband was away, getting winter supplies). The next morning, Becker and the crewmen went back to the beach and were relieved to find that the cook had made it through the night. They built a makeshift raft and retrieved him from the mast.
Over the next few days Becker and the children nursed the eight crewmen back to health. Later, the grateful merchants and mariners of Buffalo collected $650 and sent it to Becker (roughly equivalent to $25,000 today). She would need it, because despite her fame---she was also recognized by Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, the governor-general and the lifesaving associations of New York and Canada West---she lived hand to mouth… for in addition to her six stepchildren Becker had eight more kids with her husband before he died in a storm, and then three more with her second husband. That’s 17 children in all she raised, a heroic feat in itself. She also saved the lives of another six mariners, as well as those of a boy who fell down a well and a man who fell into a deep pond.
After the Conductor rescue, when the crewmen finally set out for Buffalo, they said in farewell to Abigail Becker, “to you, the Guardian Angel of Long Point Bay, we owe our lives.” Later, Becker was asked why she’d risked her life so fearlessly.
“I don't know as I did more 'n I'd ought to,” she answered, “nor more 'n I'd do again."
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Cast (in order of appearance):
Captain Hank Hackett: Mike Dugan
Little Boy: Olivia Dugan
Abigail Becker: Lisa Ludwig
Seaman: Karl-Eric Reif
Narrator: Susan Banks
Sound editing: Micheal Peters
Piano theme: Excerpt from “Buffalo City Guards Parade March,” by Francis Johnson (1839)
Performed by Aaron Dai
Produced by the Niagara Frontier Heritage Project
Associate producer: Karl-Eric Reif
Webpage written by Jeff Z. Klein (Niagara Frontier Heritage Project)
Special thanks to:
Kathryn Larsen, vice president, content distribution, Buffalo Toronto Public Media
S.J. Velasquez, director of audio strategy, Buffalo Toronto Public Media
Jerry Urban, senior radio broadcast engineer
Council Member Mitchell P. Nowakowski and the City of Buffalo for their generous support.
NARRATOR: In 1854, Abigail Becker singlehandedly saved all eight men from a wrecked schooner off Long Point, Ontario, [SFX: WIND OUT] and nursed them back to health in her cabin. The grateful mariners of Buffalo called her “the Angel of Long Point”. Over the years she saved eight more lives, all while raising 17 children. Decades later she was asked why she risked her own life to help strangers.