Adam Weissel

Jumped Overboard to Save a Shipmate, Then Sailed into the Arctic

When a sailor fell overboard from the U.S. Training Ship Minnesota at Newport, Rhode Island, on 26 August 1881, Ship’s Cook Adam Weissel did not wait for a boat to be lowered. He went into the water after him.

The man in danger was C. Lorenze, the ship’s captain of the forecastle. Weissel reached him and kept him afloat until a boat from Minnesota could recover them. His action was later recognized with the Medal of Honor. The official citation states:

“For jumping overboard from the U.S. Training Ship Minnesota, at Newport, R.I., 26 August 1881, and sustaining until picked up by a boat from the ship, C. Lorenze, captain of the forecastle, who had fallen overboard.”

Weissel had been born in Germany in 1854 and was credited to New York for his naval service. By the time of the rescue he was serving in the United States Navy as a ship’s cook aboard Minnesota. His Medal of Honor was authorized under General Order No. 326 on 18 October 1884, more than three years after the rescue.

That was not the end of his unusual naval story. In 1884 Weissel served as ship’s cook aboard Alert during the expedition sent into the Arctic to rescue survivors of Lieutenant Adolphus Greely’s Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. The Naval History and Heritage Command’s contemporary roster for the Greely Relief Expedition specifically lists “Adam Weissel, Ship’s cook” among Alert’s crew.

The Greely expedition had spent years in the high Arctic conducting scientific and geographical work before its situation became desperate. The 1884 relief force eventually reached the survivors, making Weissel’s participation a remarkable second chapter in the career of a sailor already decorated for saving a life.

Weissel lived for more than four decades after receiving the Medal of Honor. He died on 10 December 1928 in Berkeley, California, and was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.

His surviving record is brief, but unusually vivid. Adam Weissel was not decorated for an act performed under enemy fire. He earned the Medal of Honor because, when another sailor disappeared over the side, he immediately followed him into the water and kept him alive until help arrived.