USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 30
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In another letter Isaac Reed notes:
I should be glad to find someone in Boston who would take a small part [of a ship Reed was constructing] so that she may hail from Boston, as in that case we could save taxes. Captain Bentley is a first rate ship- master. Mr. J. R. Groton says that there is no man in this section before him, he (Groton) will own 1/4 of the vessel, - he has been in his employ a number of years.13
In a letter to Gardner under date of June 22, 1849, Mr. Reed observes that Mr. B. B. Haskell wants a coal freight for his schooner Braganza, $2.75 per ton, and he then adds a note which throws light on some of the old Waldoboro portrait paintings: "See Mr. Badger and have a little talk with him about coming down. We should like to have him paint mother, and I think I can find some other jobs for him." In a letter of August 30, 1847, Mr. Reed notes: "By the loss of the schooner, Osceola we lose at least one years profits and we feel poor." He then adds an observation which throws some light on the mania for making money years before in land: "Father lost all his property in land speculations and Dr. Brown almost swamped George [Smouse] in the same business."
Ships were built, launched, and put to sea with great dispatch in these Waldoboro yards. It often happened that "shares" in them were not sold until after they were launched and were engaged in trade. Such matters were not allowed to deter the speed with which ships were put in the water. On such matters the Reed correspond- ence throws additional light. Isaac Reed in a letter of July 23, 1846, observes that during this year one of the vessels launched from the yard of Reed & Welt was in the water in thirteen weeks after the keel was laid. The bark Antoleon, built by Achorn, Reed & Haskell in 1839, was built, launched, rigged, and sailed for Appala- chicola with only three sixteenths of the vessel sold.14
12Letter of Isaac Reed to Gardner K. Reed, Feb. 19, 1849.
13 Isaac Reed, letter to Gardner in Boston, Sept. 5, 1839.
14Isaac Reed, letter to Gardner Reed in Boston, Dec. 14, 1839.
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In these years ships were built in such numbers that the local lumber supply soon became insufficient and cargoes were brought in from the South. Ofttimes it was the practice of the builder to send out a company of his ship carpenters to Virginia in the late fall to cut timber and prepare it for shipment in the early spring when the ice had cleared in the Medomak. On April 7, 1850, Isaac Reed writes to Gardner the following reference to this problem: "We are in expectation of a cargo long due from Virginia, white oak. A few days since we were notified that a cargo of hard pine would be shipped from Wilmington, N. C." And again on Decem- ber 5, 1849, he writes:
William F. Storer wrote home that he had bought a timber lot. Today he writes that O'Brien of Thomaston has taken the trade from him by giving $30.00 more than he was to give. He is now going to look at a 1000 acre lot which he thinks can be had for $3000.00. ... We should like a part of a lot at a good bargain, if it can be had. Timber is getting scarce in this country, also in Virginia, and must always bear a good price.
The Reed correspondence as well as the advertisements and the marine notices in the county papers afford a glimpse of the scenes in the busy port in the Great Days. For instance, Colonel Reed, writing to his son Gardner in Boston under date of Novem- ber 2, 1837, notes: "Gorham [Smouse] you know has gone to the West Indies in the brig, Benjamin, Captain Benjamin Creamer, Master. . . . They have as part of the freight 43 horses on deck for Jamaica. We have not heard from the vessel since she left our river." In the Lincoln Patriot for April 2, 1839, the following typi- cal advertisement appeared: "For Boston. To sail this week - The Schooner, Medomak, Isaac Winchenbach, Master, having good accommodations for passengers, will sail as of above, and takes freight on moderate terms. Apply to Haskell & Reed, or Master on board at Brown's Wharf." So active was contact and trade with Boston that on April 9th of this year three vessels sailed on the same day for the Massachusetts port: Schooner Forest, Winchen- bach; Medomak, Winchenbach, and Columbia, Kaler, all for Bos- ton. In these years the schooner Mexican, with Captain Lewis Winchenbach as Master was regularly and profitably active on this route. She was owned in part by Colonel Reed and in consequence carried the major share of the goods for Reed's store and the Reed & Welt yard.
During the Great Days, along with fortunes made in the shipyards and on the high seas, there was loss and tragedy as well. Many a good ship never returned to her home port, and there were vacant chairs by the firesides and silent endings to many a romance.
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The following brief reports are drawn from the Wiscasset Lincoln Intelligencer, and the Lincoln Patriot of Waldoboro:
March 1, 1831. At Wilmington, N. C. Schooner Amaranth of Waldo- boro from New York for Charleston with loss of foremast.
Sept. 2, 1831. Captain McIntyre and mate of schooner William of Waldoboro, lost near Trinidad, came as passengers on schooner Lucy and Margaret to New York. Vessel and cargo lost, crew saved.
March 10, 1837. Schooner Warsaw, Deane from Boston to Bangor was entirely lost on Fisherman's Island on the 13th in gale. The crew was saved. About two thirds of the cargo was saved in a damaged state. The Hull broke in two and was saved for $14.00.
1839 Gale. Many vessels wrecked on Norman's Woe. Columbia of Waldoboro. Captain Kaler and his brother drowned.
1845. Vessel seen afire 26th of June was Ten Brothers, Crawford of Waldoboro. Was from Galveston to Antwerp. Cargo of cotton. Crew was taken off by a French vessel and carried into Havre.
1854. Bark Averon foundered on the coast of Spain. Value $10,000.
These brief reports tell little of the strain, the agony, and the peril which were met by Waldoboro captains and crews on all the seven oceans in these days of men against the sea. Much of it that was typical and characteristic may be told in the tale of a single ship on a single voyage. It was in October of the year 1856. The ship Alfred Storer was tight, staunch, and well and suffi- ciently manned. The Storer sailed from Liverpool for Bombay under the command of a Waldoboro skipper, Captain Isaac W. Comery, with a cargo of railroad iron and machinery. All went well until the 26th, when strong breezes from the northwest with heavy squalls were encountered. On the 27th the gale increased, blowing from the W.S.W., with a tremendous sea running. The Captain close-reefed the topsail, reefed and furled the mainsail and spanker, and furled the jib.
At four in the afternoon the fore-topsail burst, and before it could be clewed up it blew to pieces. With the gale increasing everything was made as snug as possible in order to ride out the storm. At 6:00 P.M. a heavy sea struck the ship, throwing her far over on her beam ends. Its impact caused the main-topgallant mast to snap off at the cap, which with the yards attached fell across the main-topsail yard and split the main-topsail which soon slat itself into shreds and blew away. A reefed spanker was set to keep the ship to the wind, and the crew worked at clearing the wreck- age. In such terrific weather the men found it impossible to cut away the rigging on the broken spars, and the wreckage continued beating and chafing the main-topsail yard and rigging. At ten that night the mizzen-topgallant broke at the sheave hole, bringing down the royal mast and yard with rigging attached and lodging them across the mizzen-topmast stay and the starboard main-
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topsail brace. The crew was housed in the poop for the night to insure greater safety. In the meantime the ship was making some water and the pumps had to be regularly manned.
At daybreak the wind had not abated one jot, but with day- light as an aid the crew again went at the job of clearing up the wreckage of spars and torn sails. By noon they had suceeded in clearing only a part of the debris caused by the fall of the main- topgallant mast. On the 28th the wind was still of hurricane force and the sea running to fearful heights. On this day the crew was still at the task of clearing the wreck of the main-topgallant mast and yards. As the broken mast came down it struck the mainsail and tore it badly, and before the masts could be cleared the main- sail was rendered useless. At 3:00 P.M. the fore-topgallant sail and foreroyals blew from their gaskets and went to pieces. At 4:00 P.M. the spanker gaff broke and the spanker blew to shreds. A close- reefed mizzen-topsail was set and tarpaulins were got into the mizzen rigging to keep the ship to the wind. At midnight the wind veered to the northwest bringing the ship into the trough of the sea, causing her to roll and labor fearfully. By this time she was making more water than in the earlier part of the storm. In order to get the ship off before the wind they prepared to wear and set a reefed foresail, but when coming to on the starboard tack the foresail burst and to save the foreyard the torn sail had to be cut.
The 29th commenced with a strong gale and a very bad sea. All hands were at work clearing the wreck of the mizzen-topgallant mast, when suddenly the ship gave a tremendous lurch. The star- board main-topsail brace had parted, letting the mizzen-royal mast and yard down by the run and lodging them across the cross- jackyard. When the storm had inoderated so that an inventory of damage could be taken, it was found that an entire set of sails were gone; two topgallant masts and two royal masts with yards were broken; main and mizzen-topmast crosstrees broken; main- topsail yard chafed so badly as to render it unsafe; fore and main- topmast caps broken, and the greater part of the running rigging broken, cut, or washed away. To top this all, a great part of the cargo consisting of heavy machinery had broken adrift in the hold, threatening in case of recurrence of heavy weather to batter the interior of the hull and open the seams. In view of all these facts it was deemed wise to make for the nearest convenient port for needed repairs. The course was accordingly set and at 8:00 A.M. on the 30th the ship came to anchor in Vigo Bay, Spain.15
This struggle of a fine Waldoboro ship for survival for four days and nights is both typical and characteristic of the common
15 Based on a written report of Capt. Comery in possession of Alfred Storer, Esq., Waldoboro, Me.
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hazards faced at sea in these days and of the courage and skill with which the men who manned and officered these ships met the grim and ruthless onslaught of the sea.
In the three decades treated in this chapter the American Merchant Marine underwent a phenomenal growth. In the period from 1830 to 1860 our foreign commerce had expanded from 537,- 563 tons to 2,496,894 tons, and the coastal trade had risen in the same period from 516,979 tons to 2,704,544 tons. In the building of this great fleet New England held a consistent pre-eminence, outbuilding in each year the whole Atlantic seaboard from New York to the Mexican border. For example, in 1855, the year of greatest construction, New England built 326,437 tons to 176,901 tons for the rest of the United States.16 The period of greatest activity in the industry, in New England and elsewhere, began around 1847 and continued in rapidly increasing volume through 1855. It is no accident that this twelve-year period coincided with the final burst of glory of sail, when the great clipper ships, the most beautiful creations ever to sail the seas, made records of speed that were not to be exceeded by steam for a quarter of a century.
These clipper ships had a long ancestry which began with the mania for speed following the War of 1812, when the "packet" lines were inaugurated. The ships sailing set routes were called packets because they were commissioned to carry the monthly or periodical packets of mail and papers as well as passengers to and from Europe. In the interests of business such connections demanded considerably more speed than the old crossing of two months, and to meet this need a group of New York businessmen in 1817 established the first line of regular sailing packet ships between the United States and Europe, the famous Black Ball Line.
These - the world's first ocean liners - sailed from New York for Liverpool on a set day each month. The fastest ships available were sought for this run, and then the aim was to build still faster ships for this service. The average passage in the first six years of this line was twenty-three days east and forty days west. These vessels were the immediate ancestors of the clippers. At all times on their runs they were driven to the extremes of safety, until it was said that "they carried sail till it was worth man's life to go aloft." With their ever-increasing demands for speed these lines gave the impetus to new concepts in lines, struc- ture, and rig.
It is true in the greatest days of sail the largest and fastest ships were built in New York and Massachusetts. All Black Ballers were built in New York with two exceptions, and these exceptions do honor to the reputation for quality of the Waldoboro yards,
10 Merchant Marine Statistics, Bulletin No. 5, Dept. of Commerce, 1928.
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for the only two Black Ballers ever built outside of New York State were the two sister ships, William F. Storer and Hamilton Fish. Both ships were built in the decade when the packets reached their peak in size and speed. Both were built by William F. Storer and Charles Comery in the Bill Storer yard on the west side just below Storer's Point. These ships were three-deckers with white oak frames and of 1628 tons. They had a length of 200' and a beam of 40' 2" and a depth of 28'. They were built in 1856; the Storer ran the Black Ball schedules until 1875 and the Fish to 1878.17 Both ships must have been fast sailers to hold their own on the route so long, at a time when the competition with steam was becoming rather formidable.
The clipper ships were a response to the economic needs of the 40's and 50's. The need for speed in maintaining connections with Europe was one factor; another was the developing China trade, where size and speed were essential to conserve highly valu- able and perishable cargoes and to escape the lurking Chinese pirates. "Speed to China" had become a slogan and stood as a chal- lenge to American shipbuilders to improve the instruments of transportation. This trend in naval architecture received new impetus with the discovery of gold in California in 1848, and in Australia in 1851. In these years there was a mighty rush to the gold fields of the Pacific state. Seldom has such a mighty migration found a parallel. People rushed thither by land and sea from every quarter of the globe. In the year 1849 alone seven hundred and seventy-five vessels cleared from Atlantic ports for San Francisco. From nearly every seaport on the Atlantic side they sailed, all filled with passengers and freight.
At this time California was a great undeveloped area unable to provide the food to feed this vast deluge of humans and the material to develop new projects. Everything had to be imported, and such goods sold at fabulous prices. For instance, beef sold from $45.00 to $60.00 per barrel; boots were $45.00 per pair; shovels were $5.00 to $15.00 a piece; tea, coffee, and sugar went for $4.00 per pound. Such prices made freights high, and vessels in a single trip often made more than their original costs. The demand was for ships of large carrying capacity and extremes of speed to cap- ture the maximum of profit in this lucrative trade.
These profits were so fabulous that the mania for ships knew no bounds. This left the builders free to exercise their best skill with little concern for costs, for they could get their own price for any superior ship built. Out of such a condition grew the great fleet of clippers, "the stateliest and the speediest creations
17Robt. G. Albion, Square Riggers on Schedule (Princeton University Press, 1938), p. 296.
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ever driven by sail," and they came in swift succession, all in a period of ten years. The first was the Rainbow, launched in New York in 1845, the fastest ship at this time in the world. Following this, ship construction of the new type was rapid and in the early 1850's the most famous names went off the ways, mostly in New York and Boston yards. The year 1849 was the greatest in ship- building. Maine led all other states with an aggregate construction of 82,256 tons. New York was second, with 44,104 tons, but New York and Massachusetts led easily in the size and quality of the new clipper type. After 1854 no more of these extreme clippers were built for the California trade. They were followed by a fine class of vessels known as the "medium clippers."
The extreme clipper was a ship with sharp, concave water lines at the bow and the greatest breadth of beam considerably farther aft than the conventional type. Such a hull laid more emphasis on speed than on cargo space, and to attain this end it was heavily sparred to carry a great load of canvas. For example, the famous Flying Cloud had a mainmast of eighty-eight feet, not to mention the topmast and the topgallant which topped it. Athwart this "stick" was a main yard eighty-two feet in length. In 1851 the load of canvas supported by such spars drove her from New York to San Francisco in eighty-nine days. At times speeds reached twenty-five miles an hour, and averages were main- tained by the fact that sail was shortened only when the wind started ripping the canvas from the yards. The clipper Surprise was said to have reefed topsails but twice in a 16,000-mile trip from New York to San Francisco. This all suggests that the speed of the clippers was due as much to the skill and daring of the skippers as it was to the architecture of the ship. The conjunction of all these factors, shape, rig, sailing skill, and economic demand, made the years between 1849 and 1856 the most prosperous shipowners had ever known.
The shipbuilders of Waldoboro were slow indeed to appre- ciate these new conditions and the demands it placed upon their business. For the most part they were the heirs of the old Tory tradition, as adverse to experimentation in shipbuilding as in poli- tics. Nevertheless the new style came to Maine. Metcalf & Norris in Damariscotta built the Alert, the Queen of the East, and the Flying Scud. In Rockland Deacon George Thomas built the Rattler and the famous Red Jacket, which in 1854 crossed the Atlantic to Liverpool in thirteen days, a record which has stood for sail for all time. Yet there is little indication that the Waldoboro builders were greatly moved even by the changes taking place a dozen miles away. They were as resolutely conservative in their business as in their political philosophy, but they were not equally so by
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any means. In some ways Joseph Clark broke with this conserva- tive tendency. As early as 1835 he proved himself a deviationist and built the Mary Ann, the first full-rigged ship to be constructed in the town. Again in 1865 he built the American Eagle, the first new-type three-masted schooner built in the United States, a type which enjoyed great popularity through all the days of sail. In addition, he was iconoclastic enough to build a large part of his great fleet in a yard in which his more conventional colleagues affirmed that it just could not be done.
An interesting note on Mr. Clark's so-called recklessness is furnished us in a letter of Colonel Reed to his son, Charles, in Boston under the date of November 2, 1837. The Colonel writes:
Yesterday Mr. Clark's ship Avon of about 500 T was launched from the yard adjoining Sproul's Wharf. When it went off the launching ways, it occupied almost the whole width of the channel. The slope was gentle and the descent so gradual that the vessel acquired but little mo- mentum, and was easily prevented from dashing violently up the oppo- site shore. Many thought she could not be launched without sustaining great injury from the rocky bottom of the river, and many others sup- posed if she got safely into the water, that the river was so narrow that she could not be turned down stream, but would remain across the chan- nel. ... But none of these fears were realized and the Avon now lies at Smouse's Wharf, "looming up" almost as high as the store, safe and uninjured.
Then Mr. Reed adds another bit of local news, which though irrelevant, is too human to be omitted: "Immediately after the launch Mr. Henry Demuth was buried. How quick the change from gay to grave! Many, who but a few moments before shouted at the launch, now wept at the funeral."18
Mr. Clark clearly was not a traditionalist. He seldom hesi- tated to break with the views and prejudices in his town, but yet there are no grounds for believing that he ever built a clipper ship. This he could not have done in his own yard, and in these years of maximum rush in ship construction, he would have found it difficult indeed to lease a yard from a colleague where he could have gotten a clipper into the water.
Of other Waldoboro builders we can be more certain. They were too hostile to innovations in any shape to adapt themselves to new and radical structural patterns. These were of the same tradition as those gentlemen who remained Federalists long after the Federalist Party had died, and who then became Whigs and never heard of the death of the Whig Party until years after its final demise. There were only a few unconventional enough to gravitate toward the clipper type and build some smart ships which
18Letter in possession of Dr. Benj. Kinsell, Dallas. Texas.
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won recognition for their speed on the high seas. Henry Kennedy's Toulon, of 744 tons, built in 1852, sailed in 1853-1854 for the New Orleans, Louisiana and New York Line as one of its fastest ships, with an average westbound passage of seventeen and one-half days. Charles Vannah's Moonlight, a ship of 806 tons, built in 1854, made the New York-California run in one hundred and fifty days, which was hardly clipper speed. These vessels were of the medium clipper type, not so sharp at the bow, bearing a far lighter load of canvas, more cargo space, a ship that could be handled by fewer men, hence a type more profitable to operate when the demand for speed and high freight rates had declined. In this same class must be placed the ships Hamilton Fish and William F. Storer, which sailed for the Black Ball Line in Civil War days, and had to be smart enough at sea to outrun the Confederate privateers.
The question whether any extreme clippers were ever built in Waldoboro yards presents a problem which will never be solved with certainty unless the builders' prints for certain ships are dis- covered. If such were ever built they came from the yard of Edwin Achorn (1809-1887), clearly the least conventional of local build- ers. At the age of twenty-five Edwin Achorn was building small vessels at Waldoboro, an index to his ingenuity, his initiative, and his originality. In those days boys started out early on their own, and it is possible that he had already served a ten-year novitiate in some shipyard, possibly that of John Lash whose daughter, Elmira, he married. In his later years Edwin Achorn lived on Medomak Terrace in a home since destroyed by fire, which stood on the site where recently Peleg Levensaler built his home.
Achorn's yard, or at least the one where his best ships were built, seems to have been in the run due east of the present home of Guy Waltz.19 Here a small fleet of clippers or near clippers were launched, to be exact, four in all: Woodcock, 1852, 1091 tons; Wings of the Morning, 1853, 916 tons; Spark of the Ocean, 1853, 895 tons, and largest of all, the Achorn, 1854, 1250 tons. Were these clipper ships? There are grounds favorable to such a presumption. Carl C. Cutler, an American authority on the clippers, includes all four in his list of "clippers and reputed clippers" built in the 1850's. Concerning the "reputed clippers" he comments as follows: "They appear to have been heavily rigged in characteristic clipper style, and when loaded could only be distinguished from the true clipper by the expert."20
In so far as the customhouse records furnish us dimensional data on these Waldoboro clippers it is clear that their dimensions follow closely and favorably those ships for similar tonnage which
1ªLouis Levensaler, born 1859, a contemporary of Edwin Achorn for nearly thirty years.
2Čarl C. Cutler, Greyhounds of the Sea (New York, 1930), pp. 389, 390ff.
GENERAL HENRY KENNEDY
JOSEPH CLARK ( --- 1875)
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