DRAPED IN OLD GLORY AT 159 ADELPHI (1905)
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“Few men have lived lives of greater adventure and achievement than John Quevedo, whose body, in a flag-draped coffin, lies at his home, No. 159 Adelphi street, Brooklyn.”
So read an article in the Duluth Evening News of 9 February 1905.
“Fifty years in the United States Navy, a member of the crew that, under Commodore Perry, opened Japan to Western civilization, one of Farragut’s men in the big sea lighting of the Civil War and, greatest of all, one of the gallant crew that under Schley dared the perils of the frozen North and rescued Greely from his starvation camp at Cape Sabine. Such is the record of John Quevedo.
“A Spaniard born, he had been in the American Navy since he was 16. His father was a bluejacket before him, and his son fought under Dewey at Manila, and is now instructor of gunnery at the Brooklyn navy yard.
“For the past decade John Quevedo has been the storekeeper at the navy yard ever since a shell fell on his feel on board the Boston and incapacitated him from further active service. Two weeks ago the veteran was attacked by paralysis and gradually sank into death.”
A GREELY RESCUE HERO
“Of all his adventures, he spoke most proudly of his Arctic experience.
“He was one of the men chosen for that desperate venture because of his splendid physique and his record for courage, capacity and endurance. He was on the Thetis and was one of the first ashore at the desolate cape where the horror camp was found.
“Operti’s great picture in the gallery at Washington shows Quevedo as one of the stretcher bearers carrying Greely from the tent that had fallen on him and his few surviving mates to the Thetis.
“Maj. Greely took twenty-six men into the Arctic on his attempt to reach the pole. When the Thetis found him two years later only seven including Greely, remained alive, and they were on the verge of starvation.
All the food that was left in camp when the rescue party arrived was a few ounces of gelatin obtained from boiling the sealskin boots of the party.”
WRAPPED IN THE FLAG: A DRAMATIC MOMENT
“Before Quevedo died he had his son promise to stick by the flag through thick and thin,” noted the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
“It was a dramatic moment when the dying sailor, with a record of fifty adventurous years full of brave exploits, called his son to his bedside and said, ‘John, my boy, remember my instructions to you. Stand by your country’s flag through thick and thin and bury me with the Stars and Stripes around me.'”
The son is himself a sailor, with a medal for bravery and a record as a fighter in the late war. He stood by the bedside with tears streaming down his face and saluted his father with naval formality.
“Aye, aye, sir, ” he responded.
The old man called again for the flag and then closed his eyes and died. With his death the United States Navy lost one of the most devoted and loyal men who ever fought under its flag.
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