USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Boothbay > The shipping days of old Boothbay from the revolution to the world war : with mention of adjacent towns > Part 15
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John P. Perkins
CHAPTER XI
THE BARKS
T HE full-modeled bark Thales was built at Edgecomb by Wood- bridge Clifford for command of Nathaniel G. Pinkham of Booth- bay, which was her home port for a decade. The other owners were Henry Clifford of Edgecomb, Marshal Smith, Allen Lewis, Thomas Hodgdon, Robert Spinney, all of Boothbay, and Mark Rand of South- port. The vessel was built stanchly of white oak and hackmatack and registered 234 tons. When launched, in November 1848, the bark was named Thales after the celebrated Ionian philosopher, one of the seven sages of Greece. He considered water to be the origin of all things.
The Thales sailed on the maiden voyage about Christmas laden with sugar-box shooks, lumber and provisions for Cardenas, and was await- ing freight there in mid-January. After returning home, another trip to Cardenas followed, and the last of May Captain Pinkham, then in Havana, chartered at the rate of two pounds, sixteen shillings on 1200 boxes of sugar consigned to a firm in Antwerp. He then proceeded to Cardiff, Wales, to load coal for Wilmington. On the passage thither in August the Thales was spoken on the American coast sixty-two days out, short of provisions and water, by bark Fairmount which supplied the deficiency.
In January 1850 'the superior fast sailing barque Thales' was adver- tised in a Boston newspaper to sail for Matanzas. She started, but an- chored in President Roads on account of an east wind. The weather cleared, sail was made for Cuba and the bark was kept in active service during the year.
The following year the Thales was spoken in August fifteen days out of New York, bound to Rio Janeiro. On the homeward passage the foremast was sprung, sails split and the vessel otherwise damaged in heavy weather. On arrival, in January 1852, at New York, Captain Pinkham's wife, Mary D. Pinkham, wrote Mrs. William S. Emerson:
We arrived the second of the month. We had a very pleasant voyage from here to Rio and home 'til we were up to latitude 33° N., from that time 'til
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THE BARKS
we arrived in the Breakwater we had nothing but continued gales and head winds.
Nathaniel had a letter from Allen Lewis yesterday. He wrote that there was a man who wanted to buy his part of the barque, so I shall stay here 'til I know whether Nathaniel will go home or not. Your husband's brother, Capt. John Emerson, has been on board to see us and we were very glad to see him. I am writing by candle-light in the daytime, it is so dark in the cabin.
A Captain Gardner bought into the bark and relieved Captain Pink- ham. The following April and in about the same position the Thales was struck by a squall while approaching the coast from Nuevitas, and arrived in New York with loss of maintopsail, main-topgallant yard, foreyard and sail. While loading ice at Augusta in November 1853, the bark was driven on the Gravels at Hallowell by running ice and frozen in. Captain Gardner managed to get off and out of the Kennebec. He proceeded to Havana, where in January the Thales was 'taking up at a dollar and one-half per box sugar and three dollars per hogshead mo- lasses on deck to load at Matanzas, Cardenas or Sagua for New York.' In port at the time were brigs Onward and Rainbow.
During the winter of 1855-56 the Thales was reported in Mediter- ranean waters, commanded by a Captain Howland. The following August a hurricane swept the Gulf of Mexico, and the bark went ashore near Pensacola, but was floated off and laid up for repairs. Late in Janu- ary 1857 the bark was spoken fifty-four days out, Pensacola for Buenos Ayres, and in May sailed for New York. A trip to Mobile followed, dur- ing which Captain Howland narrowly avoided the wreck of a British bark submerged in ten fathoms near the Agua Keys. On a passage from New Orleans to New York in 1858 the Thales, Captain Jervey, picked up at sea a leaky boat containing five men in an exhausted condition. On their way to Bahama wreckers for assistance to the wrecked ship Pelican stated they had been blown out to sea without food or water. That year the bark, previously managed by Nesmith and Sons, was owned by Sturgis and Company, also of New York, the home port. At the beginning of the Civil War the Thales was owned by J. Rodewald and Company of New Orleans, and seemingly ended her days during that period.
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THE SHIPPING DAYS OF OLD BOOTHBAY
A bark named after Lewis and Albert Hobart was constructed by Charles and Rufus Murray and launched late in 1849, probably at Hodgdon's Mills. Besides the builders the vessel was owned by Tyler, Albion and Wadsworth Hodgdon, Cornelius and Ezekiel Tarbox of Westport. About 107 feet in length, she registered 272 tons. In Janu- ary 1850 the L. and A. Hobart, commanded by Allen Hodgdon, sailed from Wiscasset in company with brig G. W. Kendall, the former bound to Matanzas, the latter for California. The following September the bark arrived in Boston from Smyrna, a forty-eight-day passage, with cargo and eight passengers including the Reverend George W. Wood, wife and four children. When ship Northern Queen was built for Allen Hodgdon's command his brother Albion took the bark. Another master was G. Hodgdon.
The Cuba was constructed by John McDougall at his shipyard on Oven's Mouth waters at North Boothbay, and was launched in the fall of 1849. Doubtless she was the largest vessel built at this yard, which was abandoned for one with deeper water at Hodgdon's Mills. Of medium model with a draft of thirteen feet, she had a single deck with half-poop and deck-cabin. Her first commander was Simeon Sawyer.
After loading at Wiscasset, the Cuba sailed from Boothbay in De- cember on her maiden voyage to the island for which she was named, returning to New York early in 1850. A year later the bark was in Boothbay with a Portland cargo for Nuevitas, and on her return to New York voyaged to Cardenas. The fall of the year found the Cuba in Boothbay again, this time from Bangor for the West Indies. After a voyage to Saint Thomas in 1852, the bark arrived in Portland, thence to Calais to load lumber for New York. On the passage a severe October nor'easter was encountered. The deck was swept of everything mov- able, including the deck load of lumber. The vessel was damaged badly.
The following year Captain Sawyer made a voyage to the Mediter- ranean and Palermo where wine, lemons, sulphur and general cargo were loaded for New York. A winter passage faced him, and on ap- proaching the American coast in January 1854, he experienced a very severe southeast storm, and while lying to under goose-winged main- topsail the Cuba shipped a tremendous sea. It stove the bulwarks and
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THE BARKS
swept the deck. The main hatch, a boat, the house and galley were carried away. Sails were split and blown away, and Captain Sawyer had great difficulty in making port.
After hailing from Boothbay for a number of years the bark was owned in New York by Wakeman and others, commanded by a Cap- tain Leavitt. In the fall of 1857 the Cuba loaded 150,000 feet of long- leaf pine at Wilmington and, on what seems to have been her last trip, set sail for Havana. Weather conditions appeared propitious on going down Cape Fear River, but on passing the bar and gaining a good offing, a clouded sky assumed a threatening appearance. A storm was brewing, and in the vicinity of the Bahamas the wind blew with hurricane force. In mid-November the bark was dismasted and, nearly a complete wreck, made her way to Nassau. A survey was held and the Cuba con- demned. The bark and cargo were sold at auction for $2500.
There were numerous Maine-built barks named Cuba; in 1860 one was wrecked on a coastal reef off Panama. She pounded heavily with every sea which made a clean breach over the deck. After several at- tempts a line was floated ashore by means of an empty water cask, and natives rescued the crew one by one. Shipping news stated she was the Boothbay bark, but there is evidence to support the view that the lost vessel was constructed at Belfast.
In late autumn of 1852 a clipper bark named M. R. White was launched at Boothbay, owned by Allen, Benjamin and Russell Lewis, William S. Emerson, and built by Stephen Sargent and Moses R. White. The last was a ship carpenter, and earlier in the year con- structed schooner Quereau at Arrowsic, then came to Boothbay and was associated with Stephen Sargent. Mr. White became a worthy citi- zen of the town. With Russell Lewis in command, the first voyage was from Wiscasset to Savannah in December. Of 240 tons burden, the bark was a fast sailer, and when ten months old was purchased by a Liverpool house for three thousand pounds sterling for use as an Aus- tralian packet.
The medium clipper bark Archer was launched from the shipyard of Stephen Sargent at Boothbay September 21 1854 for command of Russell Lewis. She was a double-decked vessel of 405 tons, with a flush deck and crossed a skysail-yard on the mainmast. Like the clipper ship
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THE SHIPPING DAYS OF OLD BOOTHBAY
Archer, built two years before, she had the name of being a fast sailer and consistently made good passages.
Originally constructed for a fruiter, the Archer was chartered for her first voyage to take out a large and heavy cargo of machinery for the water-works at Alexandria, Egypt. Since it was not advisable to make the vessel top-heavy with the load on deck, and because it was too large to go down the hatchway, the deck beams were cut away to en- large the opening, which enabled it to be stowed safely in the hold. After discharging the machinery the Archer proceeded to Cardiff, Wales, for a cargo of coal and, in June 1855, was at the old Phoenician island of Malta, scene of the shipwreck of Saint Paul. Thence the bark went to the Italian seaport of Leghorn, where merchandise and prod- ucts of the Levant were loaded in August for New York. Next came another voyage to the Mediterranean in late fall of the year. Captain Lewis's mate on that occasion was Benjamin F. Pinkham, then about thirty.
Two round voyages to the River Plate followed with lumber loaded at Heal's Cove, Westport, by the Heal Brothers who had a lumber-mill at the head of the cove. Here, where once merry jests of robust lumber- men and sailors' chanties broke the silence of lofty pines and other trees, the ruins of the old mill and adjacent wharves may still be seen. The Archer continued in South American trade for many years, and made several fast passages to Buenos Ayres with lumber and other Maine products, returning to Boston with wool, hides, and horns for dunnage.
During the Civil War the Archer was placed under the Argentine flag and renamed Manuela after a Spanish lady, to avoid capture by Confederate cruisers. The bark, however, was American owned and commanded by Wadsworth H. Lewis, a younger brother of the former master. The Archer was a fortunate and profitable vessel, and with competent masters sailed the seas safely until she was broken up for her metal in Portland. Russell Lewis was so well pleased with the vessel that he named a larger bark, constructed in 1868, after her.
While in South American trade in the Archer Captain Russell Lewis realized its possibilities and advantages, and determined to enlarge the trade if possible. With this purpose in view he retired from the sea in
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THE BARKS
the 'sixties and established a shipyard on the outskirts of Portland, where a number of fine vessels were constructed under supervision of Stephen Sargent, whom he induced to leave Boothbay to aid in an undertaking which proved very successful. Their white-painted barks were known far and wide as the White Line, and ran regularly to Montevideo and Buenos Ayres.
This place was called Gan-Eden, the Garden of Delight; and it belonged to the Caliph Haroun-Al-Raschid, who, when his heart was contracted, used to come to that garden and sit there; so his heart became dilated, and his anxiety ceased .- Noureddin and the Fair Persian.
Of the old Boothbay square-rigged vessels the Gan-Eden was best remembered by elderly seafarers, for she passed in and out of the har- bor in the 'seventies and was commanded by local shipmasters. Her timbers came from the shipyard of John McDougall, and construction on the eastern side of the harbor was in charge of Charles Murray. Of full model and framed for a single deck (another was added later), the vessel of 347 tons had an elliptic stern, measured 120 feet in length and was well built and bark rigged. The master's niece, Miss Mary C. Emerson, made the burgee and christened the bark after a book en- titled Gan-Eden or Pen-Pictures of Cuba. She was launched on a cold, blustering December day in 1857. The managing owners were Bridge, Lord and Company of Boston, and the principal local owners were Captains Allen Lewis and Samuel Miller Reed. In 1869 Allen Lewis sold his one-quarter interest to John B. Emerson.
The Gan-Eden lay in the harbor on New Year's Day, and made her first voyage from Bath to Mobile. During the summer she crossed to Cronstadt, Russia, and returned to Boston early in January 1859; the master, Samuel M. Reed, reported speaking the British bark Eagle in distress, leaking badly, and crew eager to be taken off. A strong gale kicked up so heavy a sea that it was too dangerous to attempt it then, so he stood by until the vessels became separated in the storm and mist.
The following June the Gan-Eden was in Boothbay fitting out for a voyage to the Mediterranean. Seamen's wages amounted to about twelve dollars with advance and fourteen without. A good cook drew eighteen to twenty dollars per month with advance. On return to Bos-
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THE SHIPPING DAYS OF OLD BOOTHBAY
ton from Marseille in the fall a Captain Haskell relieved Captain Reed and sailed for Matanzas with cargo of 7700 staves.
In January 1860 Reed rejoined his vessel in New York and voyaged to Southern waters, taking up 818 bales of cotton at 'Saint Marks, Florida. By means of the hydraulic press, at a cost of less than fifty cents a bale, the cotton was compressed, thus enabling the bark to stow more cargo. Heavy northeast gales were experienced the entire nineteen-day passage to New York. The cotton was discharged at the rate of five cents per bale. In the spring another cotton cargo of 975 bales was carried on a thirty-day passage from Savannah to Gothenburg, Sweden. The freight money amounted to $18,475. Thence the bark proceeded with deals and battens to Algiers, North Africa. Another foreign voyage is mentioned in a letter:
Capt. S. M. Reed,
At the Clyde, April 186 -.
I write you at this time under very embarassing circumstances and desire to inform you of all my proceedings since I arrived here. In Queenstown I was advised to call a survey on my cargo to see the condition of it. I did so and the survey ordered some of the cargo restowed and pronounced it safe to proceed on. I made a safe passage the remainder of the way but was sick when I arrived so that I was unable to do any business for a short time, and I had the mate enter the vessel at the Custom House. The same day I got better and went to Glasgow to see the American consul to deposit my papers and enter a protest to see about calling a survey on my cargo and having everything correct.
In my absence someone appointed a survey; two men came on board as surveyors, took off hatches and discharging began without my orders. They wanted to see the mate's log book, which he showed to them like a big fool. He had made assertions not at the time of the disaster, they said, and he told them he did. So they have charged the ship 488 pounds sterling. It is the mate's carelessness in not writing the log promptly. I think if I had had Paul Adams in his place the ship would be a $1000 better off. Van Tassel has left for home. I have a good mate, sail on the 12th for Havana and hope to have a good passage. J. Auld
On arrival home Cephas Reed was appointed master and sailed for the United Kingdom. In December the bark carried coal from Cardiff to Barcelona, thence to the Mediterranean, and in May 1862 arrived
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THE BARKS
in Boston from Messina. News of the fall of New Orleans had reached the North the last of April; this offered an opportunity for the Gan- Eden and she sailed for Ship Island with government stores. One of the crew, a Boothbay boy, wrote home:
New Orleans, July 1862 ..
Amos Tibbetts came on board and Snub Ayer and Bill Boyd are here. They have been sick and have been discharged. Warren Dolloff, Jim Seavey and Chat Reed left the hospital last Monday and went up to Baton Rouge to join the regiment. Chat Reed is second lieutenant and was promoted over Warren Dolloff. They informed me that Weston Reed had gone home. George Beaman Lewis is sick in the hospital here and I am going up to see him to-morrow. I have a rebel bayonet and cap-box that Lew gave me and am going up to the quarters and shall try to get some more things. We heard that McClellan had been driven back and lost 15,000 men. Contradicted next day. News not reliable.
Freights are now thirteen dollars per hogshead on molasses for New York or Boston and Cephas gets fourteen dollars on a hogshead of sugar, which is a first rate freight. We are almost loaded now and will get away soon. We are going to New York and you do not know how happy I feel, and I think I should have left the vessel if she had been going to Europe. Tell mother it is as healthy as it is in Boston. I have not heard of a single case of yellow fever.
George G. Emerson.
At Boothbay Samuel M. Reed received a note from the managing owners that: 'We received a letter this morning from Capt. Cephas Reed dated New Orleans, July 29, 1862, in which he informs us he was going down river bound to New York with $9,777 freight. She has eleven days' demurrage due amounting to $440 which we shall collect.' In addition hope was expressed the Confederacy would fall in God's own time. On account of the danger of capture war risk insurance, sometimes operative for a single voyage only, was very high and at a premium; for instance, the Gan-Eden was insured for $16,000 at seven and a half per cent.
Although freight rates dropped in the fall two more round New York-New Orleans trips followed. From the latter place in January 1863 Cephas wrote:
It is very stormy to-day and is very cold. I had to have a fire in the cabin to keep comfortable. Yesterday I went all day without a coat and to-day my
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THE SHIPPING DAYS OF OLD BOOTHBAY
body needs two to keep warm. Freight is two dollars for sugar and seventy- five cents for molasses and at that rate the charterers will lose perhaps $2000. The freight will amount to about $2500 and she will pay $1300 home. I shall be under charter over two weeks before I get away from New Orleans.
In July he informed Samuel M. Reed that:
I could not find anything to do when I got back from home, the [draft] riot put a stop to business and thought it best to get out of New York the first opportunity. I write to inform you that I am loaded with 463 tons of coal and bound to Boston at $1.75 per ton. The bark is drawing fourteen feet depth. I am ready for sea and shall go to-day.
January of 1864 found the Gan-Eden in New Orleans again. She went north, crossed the Atlantic, and in the fall arrived at Portland from Havre. After a successful West Indian voyage in 1865 the bark, Cienfuegos for Boston, grounded on soft bottom on the south side of the Isle of Pines near the spot where the Bowdoinham ship New Orleans was lost in the September hurricane of 1837. After hogsheads of sugar were thrown overboard, the bark came off uninjured.
In the autumn Captain Cephas Reed sailed for New Orleans, and passed New Year's Day of 1866 amid the familiar surroundings of the river port, thence to Havana and New York. In May he voyaged to Havana again, and during a long stay in port the Captain died and was buried there. In July the Gan-Eden with '2000 cajas azucar' under deck sailed under a Pinkham, probably the mate, in company with the bark Adelaide Norris, Captain James Reed. Both had eleven days' passage to New York.
Then and there Silas H. Greenleaf took command of the Gan-Eden, and with occasional relief by a relative continued in the bark for sev- eral years. His first voyage in her was to Inagua, Great and Little, the two most southerly islands of the Bahama group. After a voyage to Lisbon in 1867, Captain Greenleaf engaged in South American trade, and on a passage from Buenos Ayres in 1870 touched at Cardenas for cargo. On sailing for Portland in March, a heavy squall and sea caused the cargo to shift as the vessel heeled under the terrific blast, throwing her on her beam ends. In the dangerous emergency confronting him, the Captain acted promptly and saved his bark by good seamanship.
nules
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THE BARKS
Then came a trip to Cuba, and another voyage in the fall to Buenos Ayres, with return via Cardenas to New York early in 1871. The Gan- Eden cleared for Boothbay, and during the summer, wrote Sarah A. Emerson, 'has been at Allen Lewis's wharf where Mr. White has been working on her until last week when they took her to Portland to finish up. She is going to South America.' The bark first made a coastal, then West Indian trips and in the fall of 1872 again voyaged to Buenos Ayres.
Two years later D. H. Brown commanded the Gan-Eden, and in 1875 Benjamin F. Blair took the bark to Buenos Ayres in seventy days from Portland-a long passage. Homeward bound he made the run to Cardenas in forty-seven days and, after an absence of seven months, arrived in Portland in June of 1876. His first officer was George A. Lewis.
That fall the vessel was sold to C. P. Knapp and others of Portland, henceforth her home port. In need of repairs, the bark was over- hauled, newly coppered, and in fine condition sailed from Portland for the last time. She arrived at Santa Cruz before Christmas, crossed to Cape Verde and early in 1877 set sail at the Cape Verde Islands with a native crew for home. On nearing the coast in March a snowstorm was encountered. The seamen had neither shoes nor stockings and were of little assistance in working the vessel; the mate was only eighteen. Off the course his position was unknown to the master when, soon after midnight, she struck hard and fast upon the beach in a dangerous posi- tion near some rocks at the southeastern point of Nashawena, one of the larger islands of the Elizabeth group (named after Queen Elizabeth in 1602). It was snowing so thickly that they were scarcely able to see, but all reached shore safely. The bark soon bilged and filled with water at high tide. The owner came and chartered vessels for salvage, but only one hundred bundles of hides, thirty bags of coffee and the sails were saved. He sold the ship at auction for $625. The wind hauled to the south, and the Gan-Eden began to break up and soon went to pieces on the rocks.
In November of 1858 an unnamed bark of 431 tons was launched at Hodgdon's Mills which, when partly completed by John McDougall, who had failed in the recent financial depression, was purchased by the Patten family of Bath. They finished and fitted her out at Bath,
1
£
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THE SHIPPING DAYS OF OLD BOOTHBAY
where she was registered the following February under the name of Ivanhoe, after the character made famous by Sir Walter Scott. Under . sail the bark was a handsome vessel with studding-sails, called stunsails by sailors. These wing-like extensions of the square sails were very useful in light fair winds. By the wind or close hauled she was an especially fine sailer. Isaac W. Reed, deputy collector at Boothbay, recorded that the vessel was 120 feet in length. Of full model and double decked she had a house-cabin. Apropos of a vessel with two decks it is said the Henry VII was the first double-decked ship con- structed in England (1509).
Captain Seward P. Emmons was the first commander, and the Ivan- hoe was operated between American, Cuban and Mediterranean ports. (A fine painting exists, showing the bark entering Marseille in 1859.) This was varied with the London, Rio Janeiro and New Orleans trade. The following year the Ivanhoe lay in the magnificent bay of the Bra- zilian seaport, entered by Juan Diaz de Solis, who mistook the entrance for a river and named it Rio Janeiro, the river of January (1515). With 6000 sacks of coffee she sailed for New Orleans, and arrived late in February 1861. Years of strife and suffering were in the dawning: con- ditions there were unsettled and Captain Emmons, likewise Captains Emerson and Lewis of Boothbay, thought it advisable to leave as soon as possible; consequently the bark cleared about two weeks later with a cargo of 9000 sacks of corn for Queenstown for orders. About a year later, while the Ivanhoe was at Richibucto, New Brunswick, she was sold for foreign account and soon afterward foundered in the Bay of Biscay.
A beautiful white-painted bark was built at East Deering by Stephen Sargent, master-builder for R. Lewis and Company, for command of Henry W. Race. When launched late in 1875 this fast-sailing vessel of 764 tons was christened Charles R. Lewis, after a son of Russell Lewis.
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