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 48
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This barque was named for the German artist, Albert Bierstadt (born in Solingen near Düsseldorf, January 7, 1830, and brought to this country by his father two years later when he settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts). She was loaded at Wiscasset by Alfred Lennox with baled hay for Galveston, Texas. She was lost when comparatively new.
The Golden Horn
The clipper ship Golden Horn was built in Wiscasset in 1854, and launched from the shipyard of Clark and Wood on the day when two other vessels were launched from Wiscasset yards. The Golden Horn was owned by Henry Clark and commanded by Capt. George H. Wood. She was 186 feet long, 37 feet beam, 23 feet draft and registered 1, 193 tons. Her connection with Wiscasset ceased in 1863 when she was sold to go under the British flag in order to evade the risk of capture by Confederate commerce raiders, as insurance against such was almost prohibitive.
In 1886 the ship was listed under the Norwegian flag as the bark Golden Horn of Christiania.
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Johnston's Ships
Name
Built
Name
Built
Ship Stirling
1805
Ship Dove6
1824
Ship Cleopatra
1807
Ship Stirling (2nd)
1833
Ship A frica
1810
Ship Gondar
1847
Ship Caledonia
18II
Ship Tamerlane (2nd)
1854-5
Ship Tamerlane
1824
Ship Wallace
1856
The Ship Stirling
The ship Stirling™ was built three miles above Wiscasset on the Sheepscot River at Sheepscot Farms, in the season of 1805. She was registered at the port of Wiscasset on December thirtieth of that year, and sailed from this port on New Year's Day, 1806, for New York. Her first voyage was to London, thence to St. Petersburg and home to New York, where she arrived in July, 1806. There she was consigned to Mr. Jacob Barker,8 formerly of Pownal- borough, who owned one-quarter of the vessel.
Jacob Barker was a prominent merchant and a friend of Judge Cooper, father of the writer James Fenimore Cooper, and through his influence young Cooper was shipped aboard as a foremast hand on the ship for his first sea voyage.
Another youth, Ned Myers, had preceded Cooper by a few days, having, at the age of thirteen years, indentured himself to Capt. John Johnston, the commander of the Stirling. Ned had run away from his father's friend, Dr. Heiser, of New York, and imposed himself upon Captain Jack, as the skipper was familiarly called, by a pitiful tale of his being left an orphan by the death of his father, who was a sergeant of marines, killed in action between the British frigate Leander and the French frigate Ville de Milan, which had but recently taken place. Every bit of Ned's story was false excepting the battle, his father having died many years before in the British Land Service.
6. Dove, 36.47 tons, built at Wiscasset, 1824. Owners John and Alex Johnston. Daniel Brookings, master.
7. Record of Vessels-Port of Wiscasset-Ship Stirling ; built on the Sheepscot River ; burthen 274 73/95 tons (old measurement ) length 99 feet; breadth 24 feet 11 inches; depth 12 feet 47/2 inches ; owners, John Johnston & Sons, Thomas Sloman. Consequently she was not two years old when Cooper and Myers made their voyage in her. The Stirling was considered a fair sized vessel for those days.
8. Jacob Barker was born at Swan Island, in the "hard winter," December 17, 1779. His father was Robert Barker and his mother Sarah Folger. Through the Folgers his family was connected with Benjamin Franklin.
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Ned said himself that he picked out the Stirling because he liked the looks of Captain Johnston, as well as his good-looking mate, Mr. Irish. Ned was a rare specimen of cool impudence, but he soon discovered that both captain and mate were abundantly able to take care of themselves as well as of all the rest of the motley crew of nine different nationalities, not one of whom failed in his duty for the thirteen months that followed. The third lad to ship on this memorable voyage was Daniel McCoy.
In the care of a merchant, young Cooper went down to the docks to look over the ship and sign the articles. He returned the next day clad in sailor's garb. Then began for him the realities of life; he was done with the quiet schools of literature and tutors forever. The tar-bucket and marline-spike, the thirty-two points of the mariner's compass with the necessary mathematics pertaining thereto, the knot, graft and splice, the hand, reef and steer, as well as the beef, bread and tea of a sailor, made a change indeed to the well- taught but fiery boy, as well as to his more virile shipmate, the itinerant Ned, with a temper of equal fire, but a landlubber also, though of lesser degree.
The log book of this voyage of the Stirling was surrendered to the govern- ment collector at Philadelphia at the close of the voyage in 1807, on account of the numerous searches, detentions or impressments from her deck, the cap- tain himself having been seized by the King's officers in London for the crime of speaking such broad Scotch. Though born in Haverhill as before stated, he had inherited the burr from his father, John senior, who had never been naturalized.
Deprived of the record the following dates are but approximate ones. When the Stirling swung into the stream, September 1, 1806, there were on board of her four Americans, a Portuguese, a Spaniard, a Swede, a Dane, a Prussian, an Englishman, a Scotch boy and a Canadian.
Before proceeding further with the voyage a few words about the master and owners of the ship may not be amiss.
John Johnston, Sr., was born in the plain shire of Stirling, North Britain. He emigrated to America in 1770, landing at Boston. He married Ann Payson in 1772 and they at first settled in Salem, removing later to Haverhill where their children were born. They came to Wiscasset in 1803 and followed their former business of shipbuilding under the firm name of John Johnston & Sons. It was John senior who built the ships and John junior who commanded and directed all foreign business. Alexander disbursed and had charge of all of the home business, books, accounts and papers pertaining to their affairs.
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John Johnston, Jr., was born in Haverhill in 1778. This voyage of the Stirl- ing was made in the seventh year of his experience as shipmaster, for his first command was the Levant in 1798, when he was barely twenty years of age. Those seven years were fraught with thrilling adventures, some exciting inci- dent having occurred on almost every voyage.
The voyage of the Stirling to Europe, as well as the return trip, was a stormy and a stirring one, and several of the events which happened at that time were afterwards worked up into powerful passages by Cooper in his sea novels. Not only that, but he also drew largely upon the adventures and experiences of both John Johnstons, father and son, and used these personal narratives in his tales. One of these was the horseback ride in the autumn of 1771, when John Johnston, Sr., went through the dense wilderness from Albany to Montreal with three companions and two Indian guides, chased nightly by a pack of wolves snarling and howling at their heels.
Into his Tales of the Sea, Cooper has woven many of the experiences in the early life of his captain, John Johnstc .: , Jr., when he out-sailed, out-witted and out-dodged the numerous pirates whose base was at St. Malo. One en- counter was on his voyage from Baltimore to Odessa and return in 1800, when he, by skilful handling of his ship, ran over and crushed a large crew of these sea rovers in a two-masted felucca, with the single remark: "Poor devils! they did not know how to handle their vessel." Among other incidents furnished Cooper by Captain Jack were those of his adroit dealing with the Barbary pirates of Algiers and Tripoli, by ruse if possible, otherwise by their total destruction; the mutineers of the Tagus and their hurried retreat before the bell-mouthed pistols in his grasp, single-handed and alone; besides a multi- tude of other incidents and accidents not relevant to this story.
The novelist has also drawn on the cyclonic experiences of his companion, the dynamic Ned Myers, for at least one of his stories, when in 1853 Cooper wrote his fiftieth tale entitled: Ned Myers, or Life Before the Mast. It was gen- erally accounted a novel, but it was in reality a graphic description and an authentic story of a perpetual runaway, Ned Myers, born in Quebec, who at the callow age of eleven years became a stowaway and hid for a day in a potato locker on board of the old schooner Driver, bound from Halifax to New York. Scarcely had the Driver been made fast to the pier, when Ned scuttled away like a wharf rat, a ragged vagabond, a romantic and pathetic figure with- out clothing, money or food, alone in a great and pitiless city. During the next thirty-five years this restless adventurer served in seventy vessels.
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Cooper wrote this book about Ned in the old tar style, but the account there given of the Stirling's voyage, with Cooper's share in it, is absolutely correct.
When the Stirling left New York she was bound to Falmouth for orders, and she arrived there after a long and stormy passage of forty-two days, going thence to London where she arrived about the twentieth of October. She re- mained there for seven weeks discharging, and taking freight for Cartagena, with gold wherewith to purchase barillaº for return to London.
One man was gobbled up by the press gang, and the ubiquitous and irrepres- sible Ned, a mere child, was also seized, but was released on demand of the captain and the producing of his indentures. Cooper with the crew had the freedom of shore leave and Ned says: "he [Cooper ] had a rum time of it in his sailor's rig, but hoisted a wonderful deal of gibberish according to his own account of the cruise."
About the middle of November the Stirling left London for Cartagena and on their way to Spain they were often chased by privateers, but the con- tinual heavy weather and rain across the Bay of Biscay enabled them to get clear. But one day off Cape Finisterre, during passing squalls from the west, they sighted an armed felucca with two masts, carrying lateen yards spreading immense sails, with sweeps only, in chase of a ship on the weather quarter, close by. She rapidly gained upon the ship and presently threw a ten-pound shot across her bow. The mate on watch aloft reported:
"An armed felucca, with bow and stern chasers, ten guns, full of men, sir! No help for it."
"Lay down from aloft and heave the ship to!"
"Aye, aye, sir," and down came the mate (not so good looking at that juncture). "All red shirt devils, sir; sixty of them, scum of the earth, well armed, sir," he growled out as he came down with a jerk on deck.
The captain, reminded by another shot, ordered the main topsail aback and helm "hard lee." In a jiffy the felucca was alongside to leeward and hailed them with this command: "Come on board, capitan, bring papers."
It would take full twenty minutes to clear away the boat at the stern, and while they were doing so, the captain called to Cooper to hide his best spy-glass, "below, my lad, in a good place"; and handing the gold in bags to Ned and Dan McCoy with : "Bear a hand, lads, find a good place," he walked to the
9. Barilla is an impure carbonate of soda, procured by burning salt-marsh plants, and is used in the manufacture of soap, glass, etc. Spain and the Balearic Islands produce the greatest quantity of barilla, although it is an export of France, Italy and the Canary Islands.
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gangway ready with his desk and papers to descend the ladder and go on board the felucca.
As the ship rose and the felucca fell on the sea, Ned said: "A more villainous set of beggars was never seen, each with a red shirt and cutlass. One of them was perched upon the slender top of the lateen yard, looking down upon the vessel and off into the storm clouds." Cooper, Big Dan, Dan McCoy and Spanish Joe got into the boat alongside, and Captain Johnston had his foot on the rail to follow, when a sudden squall struck the ship with considerable fury. The hands were hastily called out of the boat to take in sail and look after the ship, and these precautions delayed them for twenty minutes or more. Again the men went into the boat and the captain prepared to follow, when unex- pectedly came these parting words from the master of the felucca: "Hasta luego, Señor Capitan!" with a courteous wave of his cap, and the felucca was off like a bird, wing-and-wing, before the wind heading for shore. Captain Jack waved back his cordial adieu and most hearty thanks, and with his crew gathered about him at the gangway, stood intently gazing after this swift skimmer of the sea and her singular manoeuvre; when, crash! bang! burst forth in a cloud of smoke, so loud and near as to startle the whole crew with amazement. A whistling thirty-two pound shot flew across the ship's stern, after the felucca, now fast receding in a squall to leeward; while to their intense surprise a stately English frigate, double deck, carrying stu'n sails fore and aft and the water foaming to her hawse-pipes, rushed out of the storm cloud and across the ship's wake, not a stone's throw distant, on a bee line for the shadowy bird yonder. For an instant the British ensign fluttered in the breeze and the officer of the deck waved a silent greeting and adieu. Crash! went another shot from his long forecastle gun, repeated many times before the Stirling drew ahead beyond hearing, and soon all was lost in the whistling wind and pouring rain which followed.
Cooper had hidden the "best spy-glass" deep in the shingle ballast, down aft; but the gold could not be found for some days, and then came to light in the bottom of the great bread locker.
The ship went on, scarcely a day passing without being spoken by some of the numerous combatants on the seas, but nothing unusual happened and she arrived at length at Cartagena. Discharging there, she dropped down toward Cabo de Gata, taking in barilla at two small ports on the way. It was slow work, with plenty of shore leave for the crew of which Cooper and the other boys availed themselves. They left London about the first of March and had a
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tedious trip beating against the wind most of the way to Gibraltar. They visited Alemeria, Adra and Malaga, all of which places the boys explored quite thor- oughly, much to the gratification of Cooper, as well as his friends at home.
The great naval victory at Trafalgar had quieted this portion of the seas, but the British were busy at Aboukir Forts, among the Frenchmen, and French letters of marque which were seizing and destroying all cargoes bound to England. The Stirling passed the Bay of Biscay without molestation, luckily, and no incident occurred, except that off Ushant, when an English double-deck frigate of forty-four guns overhauled them rapidly and passed to port, a cable length only distant, without hail or sign, with water streaming freely from her scuppers as she bowled swiftly on before the wind. The clang of the pumps told the story, and she was going home, "to take in oakum," as Mr. Irish quaintly observed to the captain.
"Yes," said the latter, "we've seen her once before, off Finisterre, with the same tarred rope stain in her starboard main-to'gallant stu'n sail -do you see, Mr. Irish?"
"Aye, sir, and I'd give a guinea to know if he caught that white gull with the saltpetre he threw in her wake!"
In a day or two the Stirling arrived at London for the second time and re- mained some weeks waiting cargo for home, with the crew often on shore leave as before. It was then that the captain himself was seized by the press gang, which Ned tells about in his own curt style, as follows: "One day Mr. Irish was in high glee, having received a message from Captain Johnston to inform him that the latter 'was pressed'! The captain used to dress in a blue long tog, drab breeches and top boots, when he went ashore. 'He thought he could pass for a gentleman from the country,' said Mr. Irish laughingly, 'but them press gang chaps smelt the tar in his very boots!' Cooper was sent to the rendezvous with the captain's desk and papers, and the latter was liberated. We all liked the captain, who was kind and considerate to all hands, but it was fine fun for us to have the old man pressed." Old man of six or eight and twenty as he was then.
Cooper had, in all, fourteen weeks' stay at London; with as frequent liberty as he desired, rambling as he wished in contact with people of all nations, except the French who were kept busy at home; provided with all needful means by order of Mr. Barker of New York. He never once abused his privi- leges, and Ned was his vade mecum by the captain's ready assent. He avoided not one jot of his duty as a common sailor, but was a steady favorite of all his
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messmates of many nations. Shrewd, prompt, reliable and as Ned says, "good looking," yet naturally a high-strung boy.
At length, about July twenty-fifth, the ship sailed for Philadelphia, where she arrived in the Roads, after a stormy passage, on September fifteenth, Cooper's eighteenth birthday, and at town five days later. They had lost one man overboard, the Swede, in a gulf tempest a week before they got in. The courses were blown from the bolt-ropes, their boats and bulwarks stove fore and aft and their galley was swept away. It was an eventful year for James Fenimore Cooper, who left the Stirling at Baltimore.
The crew were discharged and paid off. The voyage10 was ended, after a thirteen months' cruise. Two of the apprentice boys, Ned and Dan McCoy, cleared out for a few days; Cooper went back to his home, leaving the officers alone on board till the boys got back again, tired, hungry, penniless and ever so humble.
After discharging her cargo the Stirling was laid up in port and owing to the series of national events which followed it was some time before she again put to sea. At the time of her arrival in Philadelphia the whole country was ablaze with indignation over the Leopard incident, the latest outrage of the British Navy, when on June twenty-second the U. S. Frigate Chesapeake went to sea from Hampton Roads and passed the British squadron just inside of Cape Henry. One of the British vessels, the Leopard, followed the Chesapeake for ten miles off shore and then deliberately boarded and searched the American frigate for British deserters. The Chesapeake, wholly unprepared for a fight with a friendly nation, struck her flag and surrendered. Four men were taken forcibly as deserters, two of whom were later returned. This outrage was deeply resented and the Embargo Act soon followed. Then came the non- intercourse laws and the War of 1812, and much of the shipping was at a standstill. Ned Myers and Dan McCoy were sent home to Wiscasset and to school, and Captain Johnston soon followed to rig and take command of the new ship Cleopatra, just launched (September 25, 1807), one hundred tons larger than the Stirling; but the times looked threatening, and one-half of the Cleopatra was sold to Jacob Barker and others, and Captain Johnston, who had sold all his interest in the Cleopatra, returned to the Stirling in January, 1808, taking Ned and Dan along with him. These two boys, with another, Jack Pugh,
10. The account of the voyage of the Stirling was written by Alexander Johnston, Jr., a nephew of Captain Jack, and taken from private papers. Cooper's autograph letter was in his possession. It was published in the Mount Desert Herald, September 20, 1883. As far as is known J. Fenimore Cooper never came to Wiscasset. He was born in 1789 and died in 1851.
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remained with Captain Johnston until April, 1810, coming twice to Wiscasset during that time, and each time were sent to school to learn navigation under the patient and efficient tutelage of Capt. Josiah Goddard. Business had come to such a pass at this time that it would not pay to run the risk, and a Captain Boynton was put on board the Stirling at Charleston, South Carolina, to take freights, as ordered by the owners at home. The ubiquitous Ned, acting second mate, ran away from Boynton, breaking his indentures, and was never heard from afterwards until the fall of 1842, a period of thirty-two years, during which time he had served in sixty-nine vessels and gunboats.
Cooper entered the Navy as midshipman January 1, 1808, and served a short time on the Vesuvius, a vessel utterly unknown to fame. He was ordered to the Wasp November 13, 1809, and six months afterward, May 9, 1810, he went on a year's furlough, but after this expired he quit the Navy forever. He married January 1, 18II, resigned his commission May 6, 181I, and never served one hour on the water, or anywhere else afterward. His whole life of active service was thirteen months with Captain Johnston and twenty-eight months on duty as a midshipman in the Navy. It was not until the death of his mother in 1817 that Cooper settled on his father's estate at Cooperstown and gave his attention to farming. Here we shall leave him for twenty-five years, until March 4, 1843.
Ned Myers, after thirty years' absence without leave from his old master, Captain Johnston, appeared late in the autumn of 1842 on the doorstep of his first commander at Wiscasset! There he stood, in his tight-waisted blue pants, short blue jacket, striped shirt, black silk flowing necktie, iron grey hair, visage plowed with deep furrows, blue powder stains plentifully thrown in, bruised and battered in hull and spars, stout cane in hand, on which he rested his star- board hip; and he trembled at the sound of the old brass knocker he remem- bered so well, and its hollow summons to the household within!
The door was opened by the captain himself. His hair too was iron grey, drawn up from the sides and, neatly braided, resting on his crown, the same pleasant eye, the same determined lip. The two eyed each other in silence a few seconds.
"Who have we here, my lad, and what can I do for you?"
"I have come a hundred leagues to see your face and hear your voice once more, my captain; I am Ned Myers, your runaway boy, gone into dock for re- pairs, penitent at last!"
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"Come in, come in." And Ned, grasping the proffered hand, hitched himself over the doorstep and limped forward to the parlor close at hand.
"See her, sister, I've brought you one of my boys. Do you know him - Ned Myers?"
The knitting work fell from the grasp of the matron, up went both hands in blank amazement.
"Ned Myers, John?""Why, Ned was a red-cheeked boy! Heavens-what a change! Are you Ned Myers?"
"I am your old red-cheeked boy, Madam, but my timbers are shivered now, and I 'ran away' from red thirty years ago."
Ned was made comfortable, and at home, under the hospitable roof he had so long deserted, where he remained several weeks. Many a chat had they, around the blazing fire, with its light dancing over the polished surface of the old brass firedogs, until far into the night, and the cold blast outside whistled and surged through the dense spray of the stately elms. The stormy life of Ned was recounted, as well as many incidents of the lives of the other boys, most of whom had long since passed away. The Cooper lad they had both lost sight of for many years. The captain thought that he was still in the Navy, a captain there. Ned said, "There were two Captains Cooper in the Navy, that he had seen both of them, that neither was the 'Stirling' boy." He added that he believed "there was a Cooper up country somewhere in New York state writ- ing books for a living, who had made some noise in the world," and that he would "hunt him up on his return to Sailor's Snug Harbor," whence he had come.
Ned had brought the first authentic news of the death of William Swett, a nephew of Captain Johnston. Both served on the Lakes in gunboats in 1812- 1813; both were wounded and sent to the hospital at Buffalo; neither was at- tended with any care, and Swett died.
If ever a man were capable of making an indelible impression, that man was the redoubtable Ned Myers. He lived a lifetime in a cyclone, a whirlwind all the way from that "potato locker" in the old Driver until he came to anchor at Sailor's Snug Harbor. He was made librarian of that institution. He had overheard one day in the library some conversation of a visitor (Rev. E. G. Parsons) about Wiscasset. Upon inquiry, the reverend gentleman gave him all the information required. Obtaining leave, he promptly sailed by packet to Bath, thence ten miles on foot over a hard road for a cripple, he arrived the fourth day at his destination.
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After some weeks' sojourn, spent in hunting up many of the friends and schoolmates of his early days in Wiscasset still living there, he bade them all a last goodbye and was sent back by land and steamer by Captain Johnston to his home, and as he termed it, "shipshape and Bristol fashion."
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