Adam Masterton (1829-1901)
Ship Rigger
Adam Masterton, a ship rigger from perth, lost some of his fingers in an adventurous voyage to Archangel, Russia in 1853 and 1854, at the time when Britain and Russia began their hostilities in the Crimea.
Genealogy
Adam Masterton was the eldest son of William Masterton, seaman, and Margaret Wynd. He is one of the large group of Mastertons from the Culross area. He must have coped with his disability and remained a seaman. He married Martha Cowper in Clydebank, Dumbarton and settled there. Details of his extended family can be found at this link.
Dundee Courier
A HARD CASE.- The Ocean's Bride, a brig launched at Perth some years ago, and the property of a Dundee shipowner, is now, we understand, rather strangely a Russian prize in Leith Docks. Last summer she went to Archangel, but, unfortunately, winter overtook her before she got ready to return, and kept her icebound till the present summer. Meantime a war between Russia and this country became threatening, and the captain, anxious to save his employer's property, made over the vessel to an Archangel merchant to prevent her being made a prize of by the Emperor. With the return of summer, the vessel set off on her return home, the captain, of course, chuckling freely over the manner in which he had cheated the Russ, but he only got out of the frying-pan by stepping into the fire, for, by making over the vessel to the merchant, he made her a legal Russian prize to his own country. With the exception of the captain, all the hands, we are told, belonged to Perth, who, poor fellows, seemed to have found to their cost that a Russian winter is really a wintry one. One of them, Adam Masterton, had his hands so much frost-bitten that all the fingers of the left one are off, and those of the right shortened by a joint, while the boy David Easson, has lost three of his toes.- Perth Advertiser.
Dundee Courier
9th August, 1854