September 2009 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 23.
Maritime History:
Ship News 1895
Bangor and Bar Harbor, and after a few sea- in romances from time immemorial as dwellers bring about the desired result. At least, they easy position and will doubtless be floated
sons on that route she was used as an excur- upon rock bound coasts full of wave-beaten prevent the tide from carrying the ship further without injury.
sion boat. For the past three years she has indentations, lifting promontories from inshore. By this means, too, the ship can be There seems to be no truth whatever in
been laid up, not being well adapted for the which false beacon fires were made to blaze made to help herself, as the donkey engines the report that Capt. Lyman’s schooner SEA
Bar Harbor business, while the excursion on moonless nights when the storm fiend was can be utilized on the hawsers independent of PIGEON, which flew out of Seal Harbor one
business was done by smaller boats. She is riding his foam-crested steeds and drawing the power the tugs can be made to bring into stormy night six or seven weeks ago and
120 feet long, 21.7 feet beam, 7.3 feet hold and sail-riven ships upon sunken reefs. A play by drawing on extra lines fastened mysteriously disappeared, has been found.
175.48 tons net register. The purchaser will wrecker is “one who plunders wrecks or col- aboard for that purpose. Capt. Lyman has given up all hope of recov-
take her to Boston at once. lects goods cast ashore from wrecks.” Yet The photographic camera has been ering the missing craft, and has purchased
The Bath built ship LOUISIANA, Capt. there is a saving grace in the use of another made to take its part in the wrecking affairs of another vessel.
Jackson, recently made the remarkably quick and compound word, “Wreck-master,” who recent years, and the scrap books of the The British steamer SAMARIA, from
passage of ninety-six hours from San Fran- is “a person who takes charge of the salvage various companies are veritable curiosity Liverpool for Boston, last week rescued Capt.
cisco to Cape Flattery and during twelve from a wreck to the interests of the owners.” volumes. They show ships in all kinds of Hill, Mate Regina Beard and Cook Jerome
hours of that time she was laying off. This will But there is evident necessity for a revi- positions and conditions, with the surf beat- Morton, from the schooner LUCY
go down on the records as one of the best sion of the dictionary on this particular word, ing over them or lying partly sunk beside WENTWORTH of Machias, which was
sailing voyages ever made on that route. for the wrecking companies, so called, divide piers, with their tall spars angling in the idle sighted in a sinking condition about 175 miles
The barge ANDREW JACKSON, coal with the Live Saving Service the honor of air. Wrecking tugs, with their powerful der- east of Boston light. She was owned by J. K.
laden, bound for New York, while lying at conducting a humanitarian enterprise. They ricks are shown singly or combined on either Ames of Machias and was bound from Bos-
anchor in Hampton Roads, was run into at are not wreckers, but saviors from the acci- side of the sunken vessel. From these der- ton to Machias with 600 barrels of sugar and
3:30 o’clock in the morning by the schooner dents of the sea, and it is no detraction from ricks great chains are carried down under the a quantity of provisions.
S. V. W. SIMMONS. The barge was struck on the honorable service they render that it is hull of the wreck, bow and stern, by divers The schooner MAJESTIC, Captain C. L.
the starboard bow and cut nearly to the conducted upon a business basis and for and securely fastened under the keel. Then Bullock, from Rockland, Maine, for Salem,
water’s edge. The ANDREW JACKSON was profit. They begin where the power which the engines are put to work and the wreck is Massachusetts, with lime, went ashore on a
formerly a ship owned by the late D. D. Kelley causes a wreck leaves off and they display an lifted bodily, the work of pumping out the hull ledge at Biddeford Pool during Sunday night.
of East Boston, and was built in Bath in 1864, activity which is only equalled for expedition proceeding as she rises. Once within reach, The life saving men of the station at the pool
and owned by Morse & Co. of Bath. of movement by the life-saving crews them- the openings in the side or bottom are sighted the wreck and succeeded in rescuing
selves, whose sole duty, from first to last, is stopped up by the divers working under the the crew of three men. After striking ledge the
14 February to safe life. Once let the news of a wreck be water or close to the line, and in the majority vessel bounded over it and disappeared in
The brig MANSON which loaded last received in New York, it is immediately and by of instances when the work is accomplished the darkness. She is supposed to have sunk.
week at Swan’s Island with granite for some mysterious process transmitted to the the wreck can go to the pier under her own The MAJESTIC is of 74 tons net and was built
Colman A. Crabtree is commanded by Capt. office of the wrecking companies, the steam, or at least is capable of being towed. at Prospect, Maine, in 1838.
Thomas Crapo of New Bedford, Massachu- Chapman and the Merritt being the most This has been the case repeatedly, and with Bath built vessels have an enviable
setts, who with Mrs. Crapo crossed the At- notable organizations of the kind in the coun- vessels which had seemed beyond the hope reputation for making records, and those
lantic in 1877 in the thirteen foot boat called try, or perhaps in the world, if their masterful of rescue from storm-swept beaches. launched by N. T. Palmer can’t be termed
the NEW BEDFORD. The attention of all the apparatus be considered and compared with slow. All of N. T. Palmer’s schooners have a
civilized world at the time was called to him as the facilities of other like corporations. So Chas. E. Curtis of Ellsworth has taken the faculty of making quick trips. The latest
she was the smallest boat that ever crossed soon as the word reaches the offices the contract to get the schooner STORM PE- record made by one of his fleet is that of the
the ocean. The length of the voyage was 49 telephone begins to play its part. TREL off the rocks at Contention Cove, SARAH E. PALMER which left Boston Sun-
days from Chatham, Massachusetts, to In some instances it is a question of where she went ashore in a recent gale. day afternoon, February 2, for Philadelphia,
Penzance, England. Capt. Crapo carries the bidding, and the lowest bidder gets the job. During the heavy northwest wind Mon- where she loaded coal for Portland, and came
little boat on his brig which is the means of He may be expected to make an offer for the day the three masted schooner LIZZIE to anchor off Cape Elizabeth at 8 o’clock on
work of rescue with only the knowledge that LANE, Captain Glasson, from Searsport, with the evening of the 11th, making the run from
21 February can be obtained by viewing the ship from the a cargo of hay, while anchored in Boston the Capes of Delaware in 49 hours.
A UNIQUE MARINE INDUSTRY. midst of a turmoil or surf. However, this is not harbor off Spectacle Island, dragged her an-
The Trade of the Wrecker. How He often the case. The whole system of recovery chors and was forced ashore. She lies in an
Rescues Ships Which Are in Peril. rests with only the knowledge that can be
The rescue of the American liner ST. obtained by viewing the ship from the midst
PAUL from the sandy Long Branch shore by of a turmoil of surf. However, this is not often
BATH INDUSTRIAL SALES
the Chapman and Merritt wrecking compa- the case. The whole system of recovery rests
nies has brought to renewed attention a great upon well-defined maritime law concerning
marine industry. It is an industry about which salvage on cargo and ship. This it was which,
comparatively little is known by the general aside from shy question of a lump sum for the
public because of the isolated nature of its contract, made the work of rescuing the ST.
workings. PAUL particularly inviting. The amount li-
The wisdom is born of lifelong experi- able for salvage there was $3,000,000. It was
ence in a chosen calling is set at naught by the the biggest thing of the kind which had ever
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interfering portion of the country the instant fallen to the lot of the wrecking companies to
there is a calamity requiring special endeavor consider on the Atlantic coast, and the ST.
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to save property from further loss. The fur- PAUL was the biggest vessel ever seen with
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tion from a marine accident. His experiences the scene first, and it is worthy of note that the
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with water may have been confined to the Chapman company first got a hawser aboard
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try swimming hole. fated LAMINGTON, which went ashore on
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However, the ST. PAUL is once more in the Great South Beach, there was a pretty race
her native element, and the rescue was ef- down the bay and round Coney Island to the
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fected by known and tried methods, which spot. There the LUCKENBACK was first to
tend to bring forward with still greater degree reach the wreck, with the Merritt company’s
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of prominence the gallant men who reck not tug second and the Chapman tug third.
of a lee shore surf and who battle with old These are among the fortunes of the enter-
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ocean in its wildest moods. At times they prise, and when a ship is in dire distress, why,
meet with accidents; sometimes a comrade is the more the merrier, and perhaps the sooner
lost in the swirl of waters about the sides of the rescue is effected.
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a stranded ship, or a diver is smothered by the In case the vessel was stranded, as was
twisting of the air hose leading down to his the ST. PAUL, or as a hundred other ships
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twilight berth in the water. But the work goes and boats of various sizes have been in the
or NOT.
forward just the same. Bronzed cheeks may last few years, she must be drawn off, but this
pale for an instant, and there may be a dim work is not generally brought about success-
questioning as to who will be the next to pay fully by sheer strength and brute force. This
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the debt, but there is no yielding of muscles manner of working might be disastrous
strained to the task of saving life and prop- through the added strain put upon the help-

Wood & Fiberglass to 60 feet
erty. less vessel. Immense hawsers are usually
It would be interesting to know just how stretched from the ship to seaward and there
a term of opprobrium has been swung round fastened to heavy kedge anchors weighing
Kent Thurston ~ Marine Surveyor
on the tide of custom to apply to so worthy as much as 4,000 pounds. The cables become
Phone/Fax - (207) 948-2654
a calling as wrecking. Wreckers have figured taut under the strain and slowly, but surely,
E-mail: marinesurveyor@thurstoncreative.com
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