Abigail Becker, Angel of Long Point

In 1854, Abigail Becker, a young trapper’s wife, rescued eight sailors from certain death after their ship was wrecked off Long Point. News of her selfless courage quickly spread beyond her home in Norfolk County, Ontario. She was honored with a reception in Buffalo where several hundred dollars were presented to her as a reward, and also received a gold medal from a New York lifesaving association. Abigail gained a kind of immortality as a legendary figure in Great Lakes lore. Until the late 1800s, she was actually more famous than Laura Secord! Over the past century and a half, Abigail’s story has been told so many times that it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction. In this book, Cheryl MacDonald presents a carefully documented version of the famous rescue and Abigail’s later life, augmented by several earlier accounts in both prose and poetry.