Captain John T. Axton's Account of the Miraculous Rescue of the Ticonderoga Survivors

“Captain John T. Axton, who is now in charge of the port of embarkation at Hoboken, tells a story of the sinking of the Ticonderoga which is one of the most remarkable instances of the power of prayer that has ever come to our attention. Fourteen men were in a lifeboat for six days. They had very little water and almost no food. They organized themselves, appointed a leader, and then they decided to pray. Every man on the boat prayed in turn. One of them was a rough giant of a man, and he prayed, 'God help us.' Another was a young lad, and he prayed, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.' The leader, continuing his story, said that from the very moment when they began to pray it seemed as though an unseen tow line was attached to the boat which kept pulling them steadily in one direction, and that an unseen power surrounded them till they were finally rescued. Every one of them felt it; and he concluded, 'If you should ever tell one of these men that there was no God to answer prayer, that man would certainly feel to choke off your utterance as a most terrible blasphemy.' They were picked up by a tramp steamer and brought to New York, and they all attribute their rescue to the direct intervention of the Almighty.”

— Captain John T. Axton, as reported in The Young Woman's Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3