I have always been intrigued by the life of this 'unknown' African whose fascinating biography appears in a number of 18th-century newspapers. He was a remarkable man whose adventuresome life included for a time residence on a Quaker plantation, located somewhere within the Philadelphia area.
'A Singular Character.' (From a late London paper)
"Among the few survivors lately returned from the unsuccessful attempt to make a settlement at Sierra Leone, is an aged black man, whose life has been a continued scene of adventure, hair-breadth escapes, etc.He was originally brought from Cape-Coast by a Liverpool trader, and sold to the West-Indies, from whence he got on board one of his majesty's ships, and served a number of years. He was so remarkable for his activity, that he jumped into the sea, and with a long knife, dispatched a large shark, that was so formidable in a harbour of the West-Indies, that few of the seamen could bathe without iminent danger, and for which, as it prevented a number of desertions, he got a merciless flogging.
He afterwards belonged to a Jamaica merchantman, where he was the means of saving the lives of the crew, consisting of thirty persons, as, through being becalmed near a month at sea, the stock of provisions was expended; the ship abounding with rats, he was the only person on board who took the hazardous method of catching them, by anointing his hands with oil; he then lay on his back with his eyes shut, and his arms extended in the hold, where, impelled by hunger, these vermin would lick his hands, when he was sure by a method peculiar to himself to grapple with them. There the exigency of the situation compelled the crew to eat till they got a better wind.
He has been several times shipwrecked, and once escaped when all the crew, except the captain and himself, perished. He succeeded unhurt another time in fixing a flag at the main top, during an engagement in one of his majesty's ships, where 3 other men had been killed in the attempt.
He was afterwards a drummer in a regiment of horse, in Germany, and had his drum shot through in an action, without receiving any personal damage.
He was a slave in Pennsylvania, and afterwards an overseer of them. This servile situation (tho' he had been in England several years a bricklayer's laborer, etc., previous to his late embarkation for Sierra Leone) from the kind of treatment of his owner, a quaker, near Philadelphia, he declares to have been the happiest part of his life.
His means of obtaining a livelihood, at present are as singular as the rest of his adventures, viz, by selling fish that he procures by groping with his hands, procuring worms, paste, etc., for angling, catching moles, and picking up wool in the fields." {From, 'The Pennsylvania Mercury & Universal Advertiser,' December 23, 1788, No.330, p.4, cols. 2-3}
Hopefully a reader will be able to shed more light on his identity, name and final demise.
See also: 'The Providence Rhode Island Gazette & Country Journal,' January 17th, 1789, p.1, col.3; p.2, col.2; 'The Maryland Gazette,' December 25, 1788, p.1, col.3; p.2, col.1).
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