January 18, 1776

The Atlantic Ocean could be perilous, especially during winter storms. Captain Daniel Van Vorhis and the crew of his sloop experienced this firsthand in 1775. As reported in the New York press a month later, Van Vorhis sailed from the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Croix for New York in October, “but having sprung his mast and boom,” and “meeting with a violent gale of wind, and being short of provisions,” the captain had to turn around. The sloop headed back to the Caribbean and made port at St. Eustatius on December 14, two months after it had left St. Croix. 

It must have been a harrowing journey for the crew to sail for such a long time only to end up a little more than 100 miles from where they had started. When Captain Van Vorhis arrived at St. Eustatius, his sloop only had “four biscuits on board, and not one piece of meat.”

The Pennsylvania Evening Post
Printed by Benjamin Towne

NEW-YORK, January 15.

Captain Daniel Van Vorhis, in a sloop belonging to Philadelphia, sailed from Santa Croix, for this port, the 11th of October last, and got in thirty fathom water, in lat. 39 and a half, but having sprung his mast and boom, meeting with a violent gale of wind, and being short of provisions, was obliged to bear away for the West-Indies, and arrived at St. Eustatia the 14th of December, with only four biscuits on board, and not one piece of meat.