Cook and Captain
Joe was a black and tan giant, a mixture of Negro and Indian blood. He served as cook on the schooner Cincinnati in 1837, when Capt. Porter sailed her.
Capt. Porter was an old sea captain, and like most of his ilk, something of a martinet. In the summer of 1841 one of the crew, a boy, happened to do something the captain did not like, for which he undertook to flog him. Joe at once interfered. This so enraged Capt. Porter that he threatened to flog Joe as well. Joe walked up to the captain, seized him by the collar of his jacket and the basement of his pants, and lifted him into the air as easily as an ordinary man would lift a four-month baby. He held him in that position a moment, then dashed him on the deck, as he would a pumpkin he wished to break. “Lie there, you dog!” he exclaimed. Capt. Porter told Joe afterwards that if he had him outside, meaning on the ocean, he would tame him. “If you had me outside,” said Joe, “and tried to lay a hand on me, I would throw you overboard, you bloody old tyrant.” |