USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 33
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Johnston, at Wiscasset, and said to have been larger than any ship ever pre- viously built on the Sheepscot. That ship, commanded by Capt. Jonathan Ed- wards Scott, was overhauled and captured by a Danish sloop-of-war com- manded by Lieut .- Commander Trampe, on a passage from Liverpool to St. Petersburg, taken into Copenhagen, and there sold as a prize for being laden with English goods. The captain and crew were returned to the English and sent home, having lost their voyage and their pay.1
But greater provocation to the people at large than these acts was that of Great Britain in claiming and practicing the so-called right of search, whereby our vessels were hove to on the high seas and boarded by the British in search of alleged British sailors. Instances of such outrages were noted in the log book of the ship Stirling, another and perhaps the most famous of the Johnston ships, in her long remembered voyage of 1806-1807, on board which J. Feni- more Cooper then made his first voyage at sea. It is related that even her com- mander, Capt. John Johnston, familiarly called Captain Jack, was himself seized by the king's officers in London, because he spoke with such a marked Scotch accent, although he had been born in Haverhill in Essex County, Mas- sachusetts. The culminating act of this nature was the affair of the frigate Chesapeake, Capt. James Barron, and the English man-of-war Leopard near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in June, 1807, when the former was fired upon by the Englishmen and twenty-one American sailors were killed or wounded, when they refused them the right to search the American frigate for British deserters.
The end of the year 1807 was signalized by the Act of Congress placing an embargo on all American vessels by which they were forbidden to leave any port of this country for foreign voyages. It was believed that if Europe could thus be cut off from American supplies for the armies then in the field, the French and British restrictions on American commerce would be removed.
It may be interesting to note that the tonnage of square-rigged vessels owned at this port at the time when the effects of this act became manifest aggregated 8,405 tons, among which were counted thirty-two ships, probably not then exceeded by any port in the District of Maine. In 1808, the assessed values of real and personal property and incomes amounted to $845,000, hav-
1. Information furnished from the American Consulate General at Copenhagen by Edward M. Groth.
Sea-letter furnished by Department of State. See also Diary of Alexander Johnston, submitted June 23, 1883. The Cleopatra was registered at Wiscasset September 25, 1807. She was 110 feet long ; 27 feet 9 inches wide; 13 feet 101/2 inches deep, and owned by the builders.
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ing increased from $330,250, in 1801, and the number of polls four hundred and seventy-one as against three hundred and seventy-four of the record made seven years previously.
If Wiscasset staggered under the first embargo, the second had an even more paralyzing effect. Then followed the War of 1812, which proved the death blow to its halcyon days of roaring trade. Business and population began to flow in and thrive upon the Kennebec. The trade from the interior to Wis- casset was stopped, and the town through no fault of its own, was reduced to meagre resources, while other towns, springing up on every side, seized the enterprise that once centered upon the banks of the Sheepscot. The losses sus- tained by Wiscasset merchants and ship-owners reached large proportions, and there were few in business life who did not suffer thereby. Soon after the dec- laration of peace, nearly all of the principal merchants became embarrassed by the insistent and pressing demands made by creditors and the demands of the government in connection with custom-house claims. The processes of lawsuits were then so long drawn out, that the year 1815 passed and they were still in possession of their real estate and shipping, and several of them made brave but ineffectual efforts to retrieve their erstwhile fortunes and to set their long interrupted business flowing in former channels.
Among the principal ship-owners were the Woods. General Abiel Wood, who came here in 1766, from Middleboro, Massachusetts, contributed largely to the enterprise and activity of the community, and was Wiscasset's most prominent citizen. He had several sons, two of whom were important ship- owners, Hon. Abiel Wood, Jr., and Maj. Joseph Tinkham Wood. Both of them resided at the Point, which was a choice and desirable situation, but both of their houses perished in the fire of 1866. Hon. Abiel Wood was the ship- owner who owned the greatest amount of tonnage. Among his ships were the Columbus, Dryad, Perseverance, President, Sally, Diana, Shamrock, Independence, the brig Belisarius2 and an unfinished brig. He was extensively engaged in the timber trade with Liverpool. Rafts were made up on the Kennebec, with the pine floating the hardwood. They were floated down upon the ebb tide to Wis- casset, where both American and British vessels were ready to receive them aboard and to carry them to their destination.
Joseph T. Wood had the brigs Sophronia, Caesar and Perseverance, the schooner Trial and three-quarters of the ship Africa, the other quarter being held by Capt. Jonathan Edwards Scott. Wood at one time owned four ships
2. Belisarius was a white prince who was a loyal soldier of the Justinian period.
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which he named Europe, Asia, America and Africa. The first three were used up or lost in the service, but the last survived the war and passed into the hands of the Johnstons in 1 820. The A frica was for several years engaged in the cotton trade, with John Johnston as master, but was finally struck at sea in January, 1 826, the first night after leaving Wiscasset, in the vicinity of Cape Cod, by a brig bound for Boston, and she went down with all hands on board. Captain Farnsworth of Waldoboro was master at the time, and Joseph Swett of Wis- casset was one of the mates. They both left families. The crew, also, was com- posed of men from Wiscasset and vicinity.
Gen. Abiel Wood built one of the six long wharves that extended to the channel of the river. The others were Cook's wharf; Joseph T. Wood's wharf; Union wharf, built by a company; Carlton's wharf; and Dole's wharf. The other wharves were all shorter, extending only a part of the distance from the bank to the channel.
Gen. David Payson was also one of the men who took a leading part in the affairs of the town. It was he who built the ship United States, which lay at the end of Payson's wharf all through the war and for some time afterward. When it was proposed to fit her out for sea, objections were made on the grounds that she was not sea-worthy. She was, however, examined and found to be in a sound condition, and made a few subsequent voyages with small profit, trade at that time not being good for such vessels. She was a ship of five or six hundred tons, considered large in those days. Her figure-head was a little man about three feet long, with hat, swallow-tail coat, knee-buckles and shoes, who looked enough like George Washington to have been his son. The United States was at last condemned, towed over to Holbrook's island, where she was grounded and cut up for the wood and iron she contained. The bottom survived until 1830, when the boys who went swimming dived off the lower deck beams, but when the steam mill was built at that island, the hulk was soon lost to view.
The vessels of Hon. Moses Carlton were the ship Liverpool Packet, the ship Mary, the brig Eliza, the brig Swift, the brig Hiram, and the schooner Walter. He also held one-half of the schooner Edward Preble and three-quarters of the ship William Carlton, the other quarter of which was held by his son Wil- liam. Moses Carlton also held one-quarter of the ship Susan.
Capt. Samuel Miller, who came from Newcastle, owned the brig Ceres, three-fourths of the brig Union and three-fourths of the ship Mandarin.
Capt. William M. Boyd owned one-half of the ship Susan, three-fourths of
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the ship Octavia, three-fourths each of the brig Charles Miller and schooner William and half of the Edward Preble.
Maj. Samuel Cony owned the ship Evergreen, the brig Hare and a part of the brig Bowdoin. The estate of William Nickels owned the ship Clio. The ship Favourite and half of the Shepherdess were held by Thomas McCrate. Capt. Joshua Hilton owned the ship Thomas Nelson and a third of the brig Arrow, another third of the Arrow being owned by Samuel Hubbard. The ship Com- merce was owned by Capt. William Boyd, Jr., and Maj. Robert Elwell. The brig Decatur was owned by Capt. William Andrews and Benjamin Plummer, and the schooner Aurora was owned by William Bradley and Daniel Carr.
John Johnston & Sons were the only ones to survive the ruin which wrecked the ship-owners of this village. Besides the first ship Stirling, built in 1805, and the Cleopatra, built in 1807, captured by the Danes in 1810, they also owned the ship Caledonia, 477 tons, built in 1811 or 1812, but not finished until May 16, 1815. It was the largest ship up to that date built on this river. During the war she was hidden in a cove at Newcastle, partially submerged and her masts concealed by fir trees lashed to each of them, to prevent her destruction by the British, the enemy daily expected for two and a half years to come up the river to attack Wiscasset. She was refitted and sold in Boston in 18 16.
After the loss of the Stirling, which survived until 1819, the Johnstons bought the ship Africa. They built the Tamerlane in 1824. She went ashore in a gale at Portland Light June, 1834, but was gotten off with trifling loss. A later Johnston ship, the Gondar, was burned at Boyce's wharf, Charleston, South Carolina, June 15, 1853, from which only the figure-head, "Queen of Sheba," was saved. A second Stirling was built in 1833 and a second Tamerlane (924 tons) in Wiscasset in 1854. John Johnston, Jr., was the first master and was succeeded by Capt. John Holmes and Samuel Jackson.
Whitney, Sewall and Co. were then constructing vessels and the traditions and anecdotes relating to these old vessels and their owners reek with interest and adventure.
Ships lay at the wharves, abandoned and decaying during the embargo and the war. Some were condemned, while others went again to sea. There was the brig Independence, owned by Abiel Wood, which was sold after the war to Boston parties. The Shamrock, built by Col. Robert Murray, on Dyer's River, survived the storm, and after the war made several successful voyages to the West Indies and elsewhere, and was finally disposed of to a company of Nan- tucket whale merchants and continued for a time in that business. The Diana,
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which was a small ship, was in existence after the war and made several suc- cessful voyages. The Congress, another of Murray's ships, was sold sometime previous to the sale of the Shamrock and continued a staunch and profitable whaler for many years. It is well known that, while some kinds of cargoes rot and ruin the vessels that carry them, the whaling business tends to preserve them.
Moses Carlton came from the Head Tide section of Alna, and until pros- trated by the war, occupied a prominent place among the successful ship- owners of Wiscasset. When his ships came in bringing home the fruit of their voyages, the cargo money, in nail kegs, was pushed uphill from Carlton's wharf in wheelbarrows to his mansion on High Street by Robert Dow and emptied into chests in the cellar.
Tradition relates of the affluent Moses Carlton, that standing one day on his wharf, he threw a gold ring into the Sheepscot River, saying as he did so, "There is as much chance of my dying a poor man as there is of my ever again seeing that ring." A few days later when fish was served on the bountiful Carl- ton table, there, to the consternation of the family, was the identical gold ring inside of the fish. At the time of the embargo he saw thirty of his vessels rotting at the wharves, and he died a poor man.
It was during this period of anxiety that Moses Carlton, fearing an attack on Wiscasset by the British, built for a hideout, a large house at Head Tide, equipped with a secret closet, secret stairs and a jug vault in the cellar, a replica of that built by Nehemiah Somes for the Lincoln and Kennebec Bank at Wis- casset. This house is still standing and is owned by Mrs. Fred Hilton of Augusta.
When after six months of waiting, Great Britain had failed to fulfill her promise of reparation for the attack made by the British man-of-war Leopard upon the American frigate Chesapeake, Thomas Jefferson, then President, issued a proclamation forbidding British war vessels to enter any harbor of any port of the United States.
The Embargo Act,3 owing to the complete economic collapse and the popular clamor which followed it, availed but little and fourteen months after its passage by Congress it was repealed.
As may be readily supposed, political capital was made of this outstanding measure of the Jefferson administration, and in a pamphlet circulated in the campaign of 1808, defending the embargo, may be read this:
3. Facetiously spelled backwards by its opponents and called the O grab me act.
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To the Electors of Lincoln District:
If the Embargo was such an unnecessary measure, and such a serious evil, as repre- sented by factious men, it is natural to conclude that those persons who are most largely concerned in Navigation would not be insensible of the consequences, and would disap- prove of the measure; whereas the fact proves directly the reverse. Messrs. Gray, Wood, King and Carlton, are men of the largest concern in commerce; and all approve of the Embargo as a measure necessary for the publick good, and for their own particular interests.
Mr. Bradford is one of that description of aspiring men, who have ever been the bane of Republicks; he is a high toned Federalist ; an avowed advocate for an Army, Navy and National Enterprizes, which ever tend to enslave a people and aggrandize their rulers.
Some person has nominated the Hon. ORCHARD COOK, as a candidate at the ensuing election. Mr. C., (although he calls himself a Republican, and is railed against and falsely accused by the Federalist faction) is undoubtedly a Federalist in principle, his proceed- ings in Congress on matters of the greatest National moment have been as anti-republican as those of any Federalist ever was, without any exception. He is an open and warm friend to war Enterprizes - in Congress he ardently and perseveringly advocated the establish- ment of a Navy. In fact, he deviates not, in the least, from high toned Federalism, or Aristocracy: he and Bradford would doubtless very well agree in other points, if they could agree which should go to Congress. They both are greedy after Offices and power ; and replete with aristocratick pride.
The pamphlet supports the candidacy of Hon. John Farley, of Newcastle, "a Republican in word and deed." The other candidates were Alden Bradford and Orchard Cook, both of Wiscasset. The vote in this town stood one hundred and forty for Bradford, ninety-three for Cook and two for Farley. Cook was re-elected from the district. The "men of the largest concern in commerce," referred to in the pamphlet, were Hon. William Gray, familiarly known as "Billy Gray," of Boston; Maj. Abiel Wood, Jr., of Wiscasset; Hon. William King, of Bath; and Maj. Moses Carlton, Jr., of Wiscasset.
Evidence of the manner in which many of the inhabitants of Wiscasset re- garded the Embargo Act is to be found in our town records.
To the Selectmen of the Town of Wiscasset :
We the Subscribers, freeholders & Inhabitants of the Town of Wiscasset seriously Considering the ruinous tendency of Our present embarrased situation request you to call a Meeting of the Inhabitants of the said Town as soon as may be to Consider and determine on the following articles, Viz:
First To Choose a Moderator
2d. To see if the Town will forward a Petition to the President of the United States requesting him as far as he is Impowered by Congress to suspend the existing Embargo
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Laws in the whole or at least so far as it respects our Commerce with Spain & Portugal and their Provinces & Colonies or to adopt any other measure that may be Considered by the Town more proper for removing the present distressing Embarrassments on our Trade & again restoring to us the Blessings of a free & unrestricted Commerce.
Wiscasset Aug. 15th. 1808.
Signed :
Abiel Wood
Zebediah Thayer
Morrill Hilton
Hertley Wood
Thomas Nickels Kenelem Cushman
John Boyington
John Anderson John Hodge
Jo T. Wood
Henry Hodge
Wm Babb
Joshua Hilton Jr
Nymphas Stacy
William Foye
Tho's H. Nellson
Isaac Hubbard
Jesse White
Henry Leeman
Elisha J. Taylor
Israel Hunnewell
Alden Bradford
Samuel Miller
Joseph Christophers
Wm. Pitt
F. Whitman
James Hodge
Alex. Cunningham
John Babson
Wm Nickels
Samuel Adams
Pursuant to the foregoing a meeting was duly called and held at the Meeting House on Wednesday, the 17th day of August, 1808, at three o'clock in the afternoon to act on the articles above set forth.
Thomas Rice Esqr. was chosen moderator.
Voted that it is expedient and proper for the Town of Wiscasset respectfully to Petition the President of the United States to suspend the Laws laying the Embargo either wholly or in part According to the power vested in him by Congress and that a Committee of five persons be chosen to prepare & submit to the Town a Petition Accordingly.
Voted that Messrs. David Payson, Alden Bradford, William Nickels, Jeremiah Bailey & Nathaniel Austin Esquires be the Committee to Draft the Petition aforesaid.
Voted that the report of the Committee (after being read in Town Meeting) be Accepted.
Voted that the Selectmen of said Town be the Committee to forward said Petition to the President of the United States.
Said Petition is as follows Viz:
To the President of the United States:
The Citizens & freeholders of the Town of Wiscasset in the District of Maine and Commonwealth of Massachusetts in Publick Town Meeting Assembled respectfully represent - That a portion of their property is Vested in Navigation that on Commercial pursuits solely depends their Prosperity & in a great Measure their Means of Subsistance that the Laws of Congress laying an Embargo on the Vessels & export trade of the Country by checking Industry & enterprize in their opperations very severely affect your Petitioners and that they are desirous those Laws of the Government should be re- pealed as speedily as Constitutional authority & procedure will admit & as may be con-
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sidered Consistent with the Honour & Welfare of the Nation. With great Sincerity your Petitioners express a Cordial Attachment to the Constitution & declare their Determina- tion to submit to the Laws of the Country. Nor will they ever be averse from making any Sacrifices which shall be Necessary to preserve the peace & Independence of the Nation but living under a Government formed by & for the good of the People - a Government founded in & Supported by Publick Opinion they conceive it a duty which they Owe Not only to themselves & their Country but to their rulers to Communicate their Sentiments with freedom on Questions of great National Importance - they cannot therefore for a Moment admit that an Application of this Sort will be Considered an Improper Inter- ference.
It is Not the Object of your Petitioners to Criminate the Government for a Measure which is found by experiment so prolific of Distress reasons of State unknown to them may have existed which in the Opinion of Government rendered a Temporary Embargo Necessary both to preserve Navigation & to Manifest a Just Resentment for the Aggres- sions of the Belligerent Powers of Europe Though the arbitary orders of the Belligerent Nations which are so hostile to the Commerce of America have Not been formally Re- scinded yet the prospect of New Channels of Trade to & from the ports of Spain & Port- ugal serve to press the Conviction that great Advantages would Imediately Accrue by permitting Our Citizens to renew their Commercial Pursuits.
Believing that the evils of the Embargo are daily encreasing that the Dissatisfaction & Complaints of the people are becoming greater under the Distressing effects of this Meas- ure that they shall be wholly Incapable in this state of things either to Discharge personal Demands or to contribute to the Revenue of Government and that the Advantages of Active Commerce would forever over-balance all the losses to which it is exposed their re- quest is that the restrictions laid on Commerce may be removed whenever their repeal or Suspension can be effected without Compromitting the Dignity or Sacraficing the In- terest of the Nation.4
The effects of the Embargo Act operated to weaken the Democratic, or Re- publican party, as it was then called, especially in the eastern maritime states, and although Governor Sullivan was re-elected and the Madison electors re- turned, the Federalists succeeded in getting a majority in both houses of the Massachusetts Legislature. In February, 1809, Congress repealed the obnox- ious act, substituting an act of non-intercourse with France and England. A lively relation of the rejoicings of Wiscasset upon the receipt of the President's proclamation of the termination of the embargo is contained in letters written by Capt. John Binney, of the United States forces garrisoning the then new fort on Davis Island. One of these to his wife is here appended:
Wiscasset, Thursday, April 27, 1809 All is alive and in fact no part of America has so severely felt the Embargo as the Dis- 4. Town Records, Vol. 3, p. 338 et seq.
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trict of Maine. At six o'clock P.M. the Presidents Proclamation was read in front of the Post Office and in the Lincoln and Kennebec Insurance Office. The principal Gentlemen in the place had their ships colors displayed at the mast head and three cheers was given thro'out the town and a subscription was opened for Powder and filled at once, the Artil- lery and Infantry company was under arms in fifteen minutes - and paraded with drums beating and colors flying. At the request of Major Wood I fired from the Battery abreast the town four 24 pounders, and the citizens from their subscription kept firing until 10 at night. At 7 a procession was formed headed by the aforesaid companies - and all the citizens of the town followed 4 deep about 250 men, 500 boys, 700 dogs observed by 800 women, 900 children and 1,000 cats besides other animals in great numbers. The procession went through the principal streets and at convenient distances gave three cheers - drums beating, fifes playing, Bells a-ringing, marshals hallooing, boys squalling, guns firing, altogether made the most noisome hurlebello you ever heard. After parading through the town the whole company went to Fort Hill where grog in pails was given to the common people and they were bid to get roaring drunk as soon as possible. The Gentlemen went to Dows where Brandy rum & wine was in abundance, they drank Madison's health, the cups went merrily round and songs were sung. . . .
Notwithstanding negotiations of much length between the representatives of this government and that of Great Britain, matters went from bad to worse. The situation was further aggravated by the deception practised by Napoleon, who in 1810 caused our government to be informed that his whole system of decrees had been suspended. The Non-Intercourse Act having vested the Presi- dent with power of suspension, he thereupon immediately suspended its opera- tions so far as it applied to France, but the same being left in force as to Eng- land the ill feeling between our country and that became intensified and result- ed in a full declaration of war being signed by Madison on June 18, 1812.
News from England quickly followed this act, for among several items relating to Wiscasset contained in a news book kept in the office of the Essex Insurance Company, in Salem, the following is found:
1812, August 6, Orders in Council repealed. A vessel is arrived at Wiscasset from England, left July 3, brings accounts of the repeal of the Orders in Council on the 23rd June.
Again the inhabitants of Wiscasset turned to "the strongest of all citadels of civil liberty, the purest of democracies," the town meeting. At such a meeting specially held on August 1, 1812, "to take into consideration the alarming state of our Country and see what measures the town will adopt relative to that subject," it was
Voted. That we deem it a sacred and unalienable right "to assemble in an orderly and
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