USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Boothbay > The shipping days of old Boothbay from the revolution to the world war : with mention of adjacent towns > Part 24
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A few years later the rock-bound but sylvan-lined shores of the Sheepscot, topped with virgin spruce and pine, witnessed a strange sight, the arrival of armed vessels and small transports filled with men, the first Louisbourg expedition. After a farewell sermon by the Rev- erend George Whitefield, whose musical voice furnished the motto of the expedition (Nil desperandum, Christo duce), the troops sailed to rendezvous in the mouth of the river.
'Sheepscott River March ye 29, 1745,' wrote Benjamin Craft to his wife, 'We came out of Boston last Sabbath day fifty odd Sail of us, &: stood off to sea that night. The wind came against us & we put in again. At night we got close in to Cape Ann, but ye wind away we were obliged off to sea & a Tuesday we arrived in Sheepscott.'
On the morning of the third day the raw spring air resounded with animated cries and orders, and the hoisting of sail with creaking blocks, as anchors were weighed and sixty-three sail rounded the cape and stood to the eastward. The expedition was signally successful.
Seba Smith jr. wrote:
The family of Robert Wylie, of Townsend, exhibited a happy picture of hardy industry, jocund health, and unalloyed contentment. He had emi- grated from Ireland to the Province (now state) of Maine, about the year 1730, bringing with him his good wife Eleanor and three small children. The vessel which conveyed him across the Atlantic, made its first harbour at Townsend, ... and he declined stopping at the eastern cove of the har- bour, where several settlers had already located themselves, and removing about a mile from them, he took possession of the high land which forms the western cove and which was then covered with a thick growth of pine and spruce, and here and there a vein of oak, beech and maple.
Here he built a log-cabin, cleared the land and earned a living by farm- ing and fishing. Later the off shore trips were extended to the banks and gulf of St. Lawrence in a suitable vessel, manned by his stalwart sons Wil- liam and Alexander and others. On a homeward passage, perhaps about 1750, the latter dreamed one night that his home, now a more pretentious
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dwelling than the cabin, was attacked by Indians, his little sister Esther killed and the rest of the family carried into captivity, a dream which caused him and his father considerable uneasiness . . .
Towards night the wind began to grow more languid, and Robert grew more impatient, and he was now fearful it would not hold out to carry him home. He walked the deck with a quicker step; he looked off upon the water and anxiously watched the signs of the wind; and then he would ex- amine the sails one by one, and see that every inch of canvas was made to draw. The breeze continued light, but steady, the remainder of the day, and just as the last rays of the setting sun were resting upon the mast- head, they doubled the southern cape of Fisherman's Island, which gave them once more a distant view of home. The house was about four miles distant, and was plainly discernible ... as they drifted moderately in towards the harbour. The wind continued to die away, and they moved along with a tantalizing slowness. The twilight shades grew deeper and deeper, and when they had arrived within a couple of miles of their habita- tion it was almost lost in darkness. Suddenly a light darted from the house and gleamed upon the water, like a brilliant star in the horizon .
Robert watched the light for a minute or two with increasing uneasiness. Did his eyes deceive him, or did it grow larger and brighter every moment? His strained eyeballs were riveted, and he stood motionless and almost breathless, when a red column of flame suddenly burst through the roof of the cottage, streaming high into the air, and casting a long reflection upon the water, like a fallen pillar of fire, that reached quite to the vessel's side.
It appears from the rest of the article that the yawl was lowered hastily, and after several mishaps the fishermen landed near their home, where they found the wife and mother. Having recognized the approaching vessel, she had hastened thither from the eastern cove, heedless of pleading friends, to warn her dear ones of the presence of Indians who, in fact, had fired the cottage and retreated. From her it was learned that:
John and Robert, the two oldest boys who remained at home, had been out in the afternoon about a mile into the woods, near the head of Camp- bell's Creek, in quest of roots and evergreens for beer. About two hours before sunset they came running in with great terror, and informed their mother that six or seven Indians were in the woods coming down by the side of the creek. Upon which she immediately collected her children, left
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the house, and fled as fast as possible to the eastern cove; and thus probably escaped a cruel death, or a still more cruel captivity.
The historian Parkman has described vividly and inimitably the harassments of Indian warfare, therefore a few Broad Bay incidents only may be mentioned: In an Indian treaty negotiated in 1717 the sachem Wiwurna said: 'We are willing to cut off our lands as far as the mill and coasts of Pemaquid . . . We must have our fishing and fouling where we will.' Eight years later, asked why they fought, Indians re- plied: 'Because you have taken our lands even so far as Cape Newagen, where you have beaten two of our Indians to death.'
In another treaty the Wawenocks delivered up a captive boy of six- teen named McFarland (October 1749); and six years later the red men captured a settler in Broad Bay and another, fleeing in a canoe, was shot and killed. In June 1758 Indians appeared at Sheepscot and car- ried off to Canada thirteen-year-old James, son of William Kennedy; and about that time Samuel Day and Rufus Stacy, in a fishing craft from Gloucester, were captured off Monhegan. In 1759 one Chaples, of Cape Newagen, two other men and a boy were fishing near Monhegan on a peaceful July day when savages were seen approaching in canoes. Soon the dreaded war whoop arose, they attacked and the fishermen were slain and their schooner burned.
In 1769 a Captain McCobb's vessel, from Boston for Broad Bay, was seized by an armed British vessel for breach of the Acts of Trade. The Crown desired rigorous enforcement of the customs, and in 1774 one Andrew Reed was appointed commissioner of customs for the north- ern district of the American colonies.
In July 1782 the privateer Wasp put in at Boothbay. The following year a Tory named Triest, who fled from town during the war, re- turned to his family. An unfriendly reception awaited him; for on a cool evening in April he was suspended from the masthead of a sloop in the harbor. At noon the next day the Tory was lowered, compelled to signify in writing his intention not to return and was taken with his family to the eastward.
For a period of one year, beginning July 2 1787, Thomas Boyd was appointed naval officer for the port of Boothbay. In June of 1789 two men, Messrs. Cox and Thompson, arrived in Boston from London-
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derry, Ireland, purchased the vessel they came over in, proceeded to the Sheepscot and loaded timber to construct a bridge across the river - Foyle.
During the Revolutionary War, autumn of '76, Captain Soules in a privateer captured a ship from Halifax and sent her into Townsend harbor.
Under an Act of Congress passed in June 1812, privateers were fitted out and three cruises along the coast from Portland are described in part by extracts from their log books. The first to sail was the Saint Michael, fifty-four tons, owned by Seward Porter and T. Stover. The vessel mounted five carriage guns and carried thirty men, officered by Captain James D. Edgar and Lieutenant Joshua Cousins.
July 17, 1812. At 8 A.M. weigh Anchor and maide Sail; at 9 A.M. Captain Stover left us; at 12 Meridian Seguin bore South, distance one mile. So ends this day with pleasant breezes and clear weather.
July 18. At 2 P.M. com to anchor in Boothbay, all hands Woodin and watering and making neysary preparations for a Cruise. Quarted the People.
Sunday, July 19. Clear- at 2 P.M. weigh Anchor and maid Sail; at 6 P.M. Monhegan bore SW. dist 3 leagues; at 8 P.M. carried away the main Top- mast.' Most of the time they cruised about in fog, 'caught plenty of Fish and two Holabout' and seem to have stood in toward Castine.
July 29. these twenty-four hours begin calm and foggy weather. At 2 P.M. fog Lighted and saw two Schooners under the land, at the same time dis- cerned the Private Arm. Schooner Polly of Marblehead, Captain Lafavor. At 6 P.M. the Enemy came to under the Battery, which fired two guns; at 8 P.M. sent Seven men in the boat to cut them out but found them guarded by Boats from the Shore, who fired about 60 Rounds at the Polly's -one man slightly [injured] in the Polly's-thick fog and calm. At 2 A.M. the St. Michaels Boat returned the people all well ... and they layed in company with the Schooner Polly waiting for the fog to clear up.
Off Mount Desert and vicinity Captain Edgar captured and sent in small craft, but manning the prizes so depleted his own crew that he decided to return: 'August 9, at 5 P.M. Came to Anchor in Portland harbour. So ends the Cruise.'
A large privateer, the three-masted schooner Dart, Captain John Curtis, sailed July 27 1812:
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This day begins with Calm; at 12 meridian got under way and beat out the harbour; the wind at SW .; the Crew amounting to 27 in all. Bound to - Towns End to Recruit men, at 1 P.M. passed fort Pribble; latter part Calm, took to our Sweaps; at 11 at night Com too anchor 2 miles below the Har- bour.
July 28. This day begins with Small breeze; at Sunrise got under way & Came up to town-the Capt went on shore for men; at 12 meridian cam on board. Could not get a man. got under way bound to Thomaston to recruit men. Latter part thick fog, hove too and Caught some fish; at night thick fog and Calm.
July 30. . . . at 4 P.M. com to anchor in the harbour of Thomaston; at 5 do Capt. went on shore to Recruit men. Entered 16 men. Got all hands on board, amounting to 46 in all, got under way [and] beat out.
A few days out and off Mount Desert a sail was brought to, which proved to be the packet ship Archimedes, of and for Philadelphia, with 130 passengers from Londonderry. Another sail was sighted and chased, but the Dart bore away on ascertaining it was the privateer Saint Michael. Then two brigs were pursued; one escaped into Hali- fax, the other in a bay beyond. For wood and water the privateer put in at Cape North.
To intercept merchantmen inbound to Quebec, the Dart cruised in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and before the end of the month captured the brigs Howe, Hector, Eliza and the Diana. All, with exception of Hector, surrendered without resistance. The prisoners were landed, the prizes remanned and ordered in, and with crew diminished by about thirty hands the privateer sailed for home. In September, 'Spoke and was boarded by a Schooner from Boston bound to Damariscotty; at 6 P.M. Manheigan bore ENE. 2 Leagues,' wrote the officer of the Dart before arrival.
The white wings of peace-the sails of a ship-the treaty below, were on the ocean westbound when January 21 1815 Captain William Thomas started on a futile cruise in the small armed schooner Fly:
At 5 A.M. got under way from Jewells Island & stood to the Eastw'd; at 10 came to anchor in the Sheepscot River. Wm. Allbay [Albee] entered on the shipping articles to perform the Cruise as a Seaman.
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A nor'easter delayed departure and John Barte (Barter), Wm. Cam- ell (Campbell), and John and John Sadler jr. were recruited. The wind veered to northwest, the weather cleared and they sailed. At noontime the privateer Phenix, homeward bound to Salem, was spoken and at night the Fly anchored in Goose River.
Jan. 28. This day begins with light air from the SE .; at 3 A.M. discovered a schooner standing to the Westward, sent the boat and boarded her, she being the Privateer Aurora of Wiscasut, Capt. Boyd, bound home from a cruise.
Feb. 15. All this day fresh gales from the North & Clear; at 5 A.M. re- ceived information of a Pease between England & America - considering the Cruise to be up, got under way for Portland; at 10 P.M. com to anchor in Kennebeck river.
Coincidentally with arrival of news of the ratification of the Treaty of Peace by the United States Senate, a son was born February 20 1815 to Elder William Emerson. That day he planted a willow sprig, now a landmark on the Boothbay-Wiscasset road known as 'the old willow tree.' The year was memorable for its tremendous equinoctial storm, or September line gale, in which the waters rose to perhaps unprece- dented heights, and a contemporaneous Boston item read: 'To the east- ward the violence of the gale exceedeth all recollection, doing incal- culable damage on land and sea.'
For breach of maritime law in the spring of 1817 the Boothbay fish- ing craft Lucy, Rambler, Jefferson, Superb, Isabella, Independence, Exchange, and the General Jackson, of Monhegan, were sent in at Halifax.
Burnt Island light was established in 1821 by an Act of Congress ap- propriating $10,500 for three lighthouses. New and improved reflect- ing apparatus was added in 1856, and two years later a lens was in- stalled. In the 'nineties the light was a fixed red with two white sectors, changed to flashing in 1902. Of the light keepers, J. P. Chandler, of New Hampshire, served in the 1830's; Joseph C. Auld in 1843 and Wil- liam Mckown in 1855. During the period 1868-1909 James A. Mc- Cobb, Freeman Grover jr., James Burke, Willis Dolliver and William T. Holbrook successively kept the light. In 1824 the new lighthouse on Monhegan was first illuminated with revolving red and white lights.
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An incipient mutiny on brig Done occurred in December 1821, the first day out of Wiscasset for Matanzas. The crew did not wish to pro- - ceed, and demanded that the youthful master, Samuel H. Knight, on his first command, put back, and threatened bodily harm if he refused. As a sailor assumed a menacing attitude with an axe, Knight promptly shot him; thereupon the men returned to duty.
In July 1824 the brig Cuba, from Trinidad de Cuba for Belfast, put in at Boothbay. The master, a Captain Rice, reported that while round- ing Cape San Antonio two boats' crews from a vessel approached with the intention of boarding. All hands were called and preparations made for resistance. The brig was armed, and as the guns belched forth their fire the picaroons lay on their oars and decided discretion the better part of valor. Even at that time Boothbay had its maritime importance; for in the fall of 1826, within an hour and a half, eighty-three sail got under way and left the harbor.
A distressing shipwreck occurred on Fisherman's Island in October 1835, when the brig Mexican was cast away and four of the crew of five were drowned. Winter set in with a snowstorm, and by mid-December the main harbor was frozen over when the schooner Dart, commanded by William Carlisle, arrived with a cargo of West Indian goods, which was discharged on the ice near Seal Island, now Tumbler, and hauled to town by teams. Incidentally, per a Reed deed of 1792, the early name of Mouse was Moose Island.
The years rolled on, and in July 1843 the Independence of Frank- fort, Captain Arey, struck on Pumpkin Rock at night and soon pound- ed to pieces in raging surf. One man only was saved by leaping onto the round rock as the vessel struck. There, just high enough out of water to prevent being washed off, he remained from Wednesday night until Friday afternoon when, with difficulty, he secured some wreckage, con- structed a small raft, and with this support reached Damariscove. On the rock the sailor subsisted on a little lard and flour which washed up from the wreck, but had no drinking water. Later the body of a man, supposed to have been one of the crew, came ashore on Damariscove and was buried there.
Coming down the Damariscotta in 1849, bound to Apalachicola, the William Hitchcock grounded on Murray's Point. The new ship lay one
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tide, went to sea undamaged, and on the passage struck on the Tortugas shoals and when taken to Key West, eleven augur holes were found in · her bottom, leading to the suspicion they had been bored purposely.
In 1853 came 'The great Gale in the North Atlantic,' a series of storms lasting about ten days, and at times the wind blew with a hur- ricane force not experienced for years. The brig Sarah Ellen sailed from Bath, sought shelter in Boothbay and even there lost sails and boat and cut away the foremast to avoid going ashore. In Eaton's Annals of Warren a sentence reads: 'The great snowfall which had recommenced the last day of 1853, continued drearily all New Year's Day, but by January fourth, after a week's detention, stages and mails arrived bringing news of unprecedented disasters by the storm upon the coast.' There was a heavy toll of life and seventy or more wrecks on Cape Cod; its violence at sea has been related in connection with brigs Rainbow and Mazatlan.
Another bad storm occurred in 1856. Soon after New Year's the brig Lucy H. Chase, Wiscasset for Havana, sailed from Boothbay and five days out was fallen in with dismasted, full of water and with boats gone. All hands were taken off in an exhausted condition. A month later the James Bliss put in at Boothbay with loss of sails and short of provisions. The schooner was named after a Boston ship chandler, associated for a time with Gilman Greenwood, son-in-law of Alexander Reed. The firm was located at the head of Russia Wharf, and there supplied the old Boothbay vessels with stores. A boy of Spanish descent came to Boston in a ship and James Bliss adopted him, he taking his bene- factor's name in full. After the death of his foster father the young man continued the business and was a habitual vacationist at Boothbay.
In the summer of 1864 the Confederate cruiser Tallahassee, a former English-built blockade runner, appeared off Matinicus and Cape North; captured thirty sail of fishermen, bonded five and wantonly burned and sank the rest. Another, the Restless of Boothbay, was. scuttled about forty miles west of Cape Sable. The crews were landed.
The Forest Belle, a fine new vessel just off the stocks at Hodgdon's Mills, sailed from Gloucester for the Grand Banks, and was lost with all hands, including Ephraim Hechman and Randall Mcclellan of Boothbay.
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'Twas in the Fall of sixty-eight, November, the nineteenth day, These fearless men, with a nor'west gale, From Cape Ann bore away. -The Fishermen's Own Book
In 1869 the Fourth of July fell. on Sunday; the following day in Boothbay the fisherman Young Sultan ran down and sank a large row- boat filled with youthful celebrators. Some were injured, and the Misses Caswell and Greenleaf were drowned. An hour later the Spray sank a boat near the Southport shore, but all were saved.
During that year the fisheries employed about 550 Boothbay men and boys in fifty-one local vessels, and the estimated value of the catch was a quarter-million dollars. The schooners averaged about sixty tons, and usually were manned by eleven hands whose average age was twenty-five. In the spring the Nellie M. Short was lost with all hands.
In old age a fisherman who made a trip in his youth as cook, about 1852, related to this effect: 'We had a brick fireplace and Dutch oven for cooking and baking. The stores contained neither butter nor sugar but plenty of hardtack. Besides coffee, ground on board, a mixture of molasses and water was popular. Candles were used for illumination.' The forty-ton vessel sailed for Cape Sable and one night: 'The skipper pointed out a star to steer for. The man at the wheel yelled out he had lost the star, but we got to the fishing ground and caught a good fare of fish and returned home.'
Among local incidents of this decade the one longest remembered was the line gale September 8 1869. It began in the evening with heavy rain, increased in intensity, and ceased before midnight. Of short dura- tion, it was tremendous in violence. Many of the 100 sail at anchor were damaged by coming into collision; one after another the Farragut col- lided with five vessels as anchors dragged. Morning dawned on a deso- late scene, with a dozen or more wrecks ashore and the harbor strewn with wreckage of boats, spars and sails floating about. Most of the wrecks were salvaged, and fortunately no loss of life was recorded. Ashore the tall liberty pole, erected in front of the Emerson home at Church Square during the war, was demolished and houses and barns unroofed.
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BOOTHBAY HARBOR
OUTWARD BOUND, THE 'NATALIE B. NICKERSON'
BARQUE 'SARMIENTO'
SHIP 'JOHN T. BERRY'
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In 1873 a gale at the Magdalen Islands wrecked the fishermen Di- ploma and Silver Lake. Two years later a mutiny occurred on the Jef- ferson Borden; and the two mates, residents of Edgecomb, were killed by the crew. In the fall the schooner sailed from Boothbay for England, was reported 'missing' but arrived. Seamen considered the vessel un- lucky. In 1879 five vessels in Boothbay were struck by lightning, and in the fall the clipper-built schooner Gertie Lewis made the run from Gloucester to Portland Head in seven hours.
A few happenings in the 'eighties may be mentioned: In July 1881 two men in a medium-sized sloop-rigged dory passed Damariscove on a successful trans-Atlantic passage of fifty days from Bath to Falmouth, England. Named City of Bath, the craft was built on Georgetown.
In January 1882 a British schooner, unable to enter the harbor against a strong head wind, anchored near Damariscove, parted chains at midnight and stranded. The crew landed safely but, huddled among boulders, suffered intensely from cold. At daylight they were succored by islanders. The annual autumnal line storm, as in 1869, struck locally in the evening; and amid rain, wind and vivid lightning a large fleet of sail rode out the gale in safety.
At the break-up of winter in 1883, one Wiggins predicted a storm which would destroy the world, and warned the President to hold all shipping in port. This became known, and aroused speculation and fear. The storm was light, and 'Wiggins's gale' became a byword among sailors.
On a summer call in 1887 the English cutter yachts Galatea and Stranger anchored inside Squirrel Island. As early as 1740 the word 'yacht' appeared in the South Carolina Gazette, thus: 'We hear that the Yachts will sail for his Majesty.' Among other arrivals were the Ameri- can yacht Volunteer and the square-rigged steam frigate Tennessee, flagship of the North Atlantic squadron.
Severe wintry weather prevailed in 1888, and several colliers were wrecked, consequently there was a shortage of coal. In February the brig Harry Stewart, frozen in at the Vineyard a month, arrived off Boothbay ice-covered, the crew exhausted and frostbitten. Forty days from Perth Amboy with coal, the brig was towed in through broken ice by the revenue cutter Levi Woodbury. Then came the great March
Masters and Mariners OF THE Boothbay Region
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. PSALMS CVII: 23, 24.
IN MEMORIAM SEAFARERS LOST AT SEA
For many years Gloucester has observed a memorial day for fishermen lost at sea; if eventually this locality likewise honors its lost sailors, for that -occasion the writer suggests the anniversary-September 5 1813-of the Enterprise-Boxer sea fight off our islands' shores.
In the brief sketches and notices of mariners Mr. Francis B. Greene's History of Boothbay, Southport and Boothbay Harbor, Maine, has been an inval- uable guide and assistance, and the writer freely acknowledges his great indebtedness to this comprehensive work, also for use of its record of births and deaths; others are taken from various sources. Since family names fre- quently were duplicated, this in some cases made it possible to identify sea- farers with their respective vessels. While great care has been exercised in recording facts appearing in custom-house records, contemporaneous ship- ping news and family papers, some hearsay statements also have been used. Memories are not infallible, and in a work involving so many details, written without the personal verification of mariners long dead, doubtless minor errors have crept in. However, at least some light has been thrown on the maritime history of old Boothbay.
Abbreviations used: a., about; b., born; d., died; q.v., which see; sch., schooner; slp., sloop. The town and year in parentheses, following a vessel's name, denotes where and when built.
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