Abigail Becker

Who was Abigail Becker?

Abigail Becker, known as the Angel of Long Point, was a Canadian woman credited with saving the lives of numerous sailors caught in storms along the shores of Long Point. When the storms had passed, she would wade in the water as far as she could to rescue trapped seamen from their doomed ships.

After marrying a widower and taking on the care of his six children, she settled in a trapper's cabin on Long Point, Lake Erie. On the 23rd of November, 1854, with her husband away, she single-handedly rescued the 7 man crew of the Buffalo based schooner Conductor, which had run aground in a storm during the night. The crew had clung to the frozen rigging in the darkness and, despite her inability to swim, she waded chin-high into the water after dawn to help the stricken sailors reach shore.

In another incident, four sailors arrived at the door of the Beckers' cabin, in the midst of a severe fall gale and snowstorm. Apparently they were only four of six survivors from a schooner that had gone ashore during the night, but two of them had given up and collapsed a mile or so from the cabin. Abigail invited the four in to warm up by the fire, and then set off in the snowstorm with two of her boys and some warm clothing, to find the other survivors. Miraculously, despite the severity of the storm and resulting limited visibility, she was able to locate the two and coerced them to get up and go on, practically pushing them back to her cabin. All of the sailors survived.