Taken from the Nashua Daily Press
December 31, 1896 Page 7

SAVED BY HIS DREAM
Castaway's Vision of a Sail Brought Rescue.
Three Men Eleven Days on a Frail Raft.
No Water and No Food Save One Raw Fish
Picked Up at Last When Almost Dead and
Taken to Liverpool.

The American Brigantine May T. Kimball sailed from Mobile for Guantanamo, Cuba, on Aug. 19.  Head winds bothered her, and she was still in the gulf off southern Florida on Sept. 22.  At one bell of the forenoon watch that day a howling gale jumped out of the southeast.  Under naked poles the brigantine ran before it.  soon the seas had charge of her decks, and all hands manned the pumps.

A chain pipe leading down into the chain locker was knocked away by the sea, and the cap that covered the mouth of the pipe went floating by the side.  Captain Bowers ordered the second mate to close the aperture with canvas.  It was too late.  The brigantine began to sink.  Captain Bowers ordered all hands aft and sang out to the mate, Mr. Flood, to fetch the ax that was in the cabin.

While the mate and the steward were carrying out the order the second mate with another ax chopped away the main rigging.  Spars, bracing, cargo, and the confusion of wreckage crashed over the side, smashing boats.

An onslaught of destroying waves knocked James Jeffers and two shipmates, Elijah Cash and Peter Madison, all colored, overboard.  Though that wave brought them face to face with death, it really saved their lives.  Jeffers caught hold of one of the topsail yards that drifted near him.

With a reverberating crack like thunder, and a "Rip, rip, rip," the compressed air burst the cabin roof off, and it shot into the air.  A large splinter from it was driven by the force of the explosion four inches into Jeffers' right leg.

All three sailors, Madison, Jeffers, and Cash, gained the cabin roof, and turning, they saw the brigantine's five remaining men, Captain Bowers, the two mates, the steward and a four seaman, Peter Mitchell, standing together on the weather bulwark, which was one foot above water.

At 5 pm., while the five men on the rail were looking wistfully at the frail raft with the three castaways, the May T Kimball sank with all who were left aboard.

The raft on which the three sailors depended for life was 15 by 10 feet, with a broken skylight, to which they clung with desperation.  The men had no food, no drink, no tobacco and very little hope.  Jeffers is an Episcopalian.  He told his fellow castaways that their only chance for life lay in prayer.  So Jeffers prayed, and on the second day after the shipwreck Cash and Madison became converted and confessed their sins.  For six days the turbulence of the waves did not abate.  There was not a minute when the castaways were not half submerged.  Many times they were washed off the roof, but regained their raft.  There was nothing to do but pray and keep watch for a sail.

On the fourth day hunger pangs became almost intolerable.  Soon after the desire for food gave way to thirst, and the men began to drink salt water, which increased their sufferings.  At 4 pm of the sixth day a schooner was sighted a mile and a half to leeward, but she made no response to their signals.  The men then resigned themselves to death.

That night a piece of board became detached and wounded Jeffers in the other leg.  Madison's feet were badly swollen from the constant beating of the salt sea.  On the seventh day Madison became delirious.  At midnight of the same day Jeffers dreamed that he was close to land and called to the other boys, "Come, let's go ashore."  He shoved a board underneath the raft, but found no bottom.  Before they could restrain him Jeffers jumped into the sea.  He was six feet away from the raft, when, by swimming on his part and by his brother seamen forming a human chain, he was pulled back.  It was 12 hours before he came out of his delirium.

On the eighth day a small butterfish was tossed by a wave upon the cabin top.  Cash with his knife divided the fish into three equal parts, and the famished sailors ate and felt refreshed.  In two days more their sufferings were more intense than before.

At 9 am on the eleventh day, when all were asleep, Jeffers had another dream.  He thought a man stood near and said: "Arise! Arise! There's a ship which I have prepared for you."  Jeffers did arise.  He looked around for the ten thousandth time in that fight for life, and there, five miles leeward, he saw a brig.

Jeffers waked the others, and after they had raised their signal, they all prayed. They were seen, and the ship, which was the Norwegian Brig N.S. Hansen, bound from Apalachicola for Liverpool with rosin, picked them up.  Captain Rasmussen did all he could for them and landed them in Liverpool.

New York World.