Page 22. MAINE COASTAL NEWS June 2012 A Cloud Burst on the Saint Croix River By Amos Boyd


It was a bright pleasant day in the latter part of 1898, and the steamer ROSE STANDISH lay quietly in the Eastport harbor, waiting patiently of the Boston freight to be loaded.


Not a cloud marred the clear blue of the sky; soft waves were lapping against the sides of the steamer as if they had never known unrest. Schools of Pollock were dancing in the waters nearby, to the infinite delight of the children watching them and the fishermen who were drawing large quantities into their boats.


At last the freight was on board the ROSE STANDISH, and the steamer quietly began weighing anchor, and one of the crew was pulling the dripping anchor ropes from the water, the steamer then left the wharf and pulled into the tide, steaming up the pleasant Saint Croix River, with her decks crowded with light-hearted passengers.


The steamer visited the peaceful harbor of Saint Andrews, and as it was rounding an island, one of the passengers saw in the


distant southeast, a dark speck, perhaps a cloud.


Slowly, silently, the little speck grew. Up, up it crept growing larger and blacker until the sun was covered and black and every vestige of the blue sky was hidden from sight. A spirit of unrest touched the water and waves began dashing against the sides of the steamer, and the ROSE STANDISH began to pitch and toss. For a moment the sky was quiet, then there was a terrible crash of thunder and then a great flash of lightning shot across the dark sky, and frightened passengers who had been near the bow, rushed for shelter into the steamer’s cabin. Before others could follow, a furious blast of sleet and hail swept the deck.


The chilled drenched passengers quickly joined the others and then peered out the clouded cabin windows to watch the storm. Terrified passengers crowded the cabin and one woman became hysterical and other fainted; others seemed as if stunned by fear and appeared almost glued to their seats.


The men reacted in different ways, some paced rapidly back and forth, one man tried over and over again to light his pipe, and another was swearing constantly, repeating curses until they lost all expression and meaning. There was a rare moment of quiet in the cabin and an elderly woman’s voice broke through the confusion. Comparing the storm to the Saxby Gale, which years before had destroyed large ships, property on land, and caused the loss of unaccountable number of lives.


He fright and confusion in the cabin continued, as the storm increased in ferocity. The cabin’s passengers became even more frightened when the window panes began to crack and shatter. The kerosene lamps hanging from the cabin’s ceiling were swinging wildly back and forth, threatening at any moment to crash upon the passengers below. The steamer was pitching about so wildly that those who had remained standing found the movement so strenuous they could hardly remain upright.


Penned up as they were in the stuffy cabin, the passengers wondered how much longer the storm could last, since it seemed to have lasted forever. After about ten minutes more, the hail stopped, and the clouds parted to reveal a partly blue sky. The passengers hurriedly left the stuffy air in the cabin for clear, clean air on deck. They found great confusion – hail stones as large as eggs were in humps on the deck and deck chairs and life preservers were scattered everywhere. Even a bicycle was found jammed against a railing.


This launching is at Belfast with a date of 1904. The only vessel launched at Belfast that year was the dredge KEY WEST and this is a schooner, but which one?.


The greatest shock to the already tired and strained nerves of the passengers was an open hatch exposing the clattering machinery of the steamer’s engine. Somehow during or after the storm, the hatch


cover had opened, exposing it to the startled passengers.


One of the ROSE STANDISH’s crew appeared, eager to share his news. The captain has been enjoying a walk on the open deck just before the storm hit, and was unable against the wind to return to the pilothouse. The first mate had taken charge and guided the ROSE STANDISH safely through the storm.


The steamer was now within sight of land, and soon the passengers were able to watch the shore as the vessel continued slowly along. As the passengers watched they could see the storm damage on land. Large trees had been blown down and sheds overturned. Once an empty row boat went bobbing past the steamer, followed later by two unhappy boys who were apparently in its pursuit.


Quite near the shore now, houses and people could clearly be seen. When Red Light Cottage was passed the doctor was clearly seen; he had just come down to the shore. He shouted a greeting: “Your Calais friends will be relieved to see you on land.” The tired and nervous passengers were so anxious to return to dry land, that the ROSE STANDISH seemed to be moving with unnecessary slowness, even though there was danger of striking on the Saint Croix mud flats.


Finally they reached the lower steamboat wharf. They hurried down the gang plank onto dry land, where they boarded horse coaches. As they rode along through town, the fallen trees and broken fences testified to the fact that Calais too had suffered from the cloud burst.


Eddie Drew & The Lowells Continued from Page 8.


the heiress/chairman of Guy Gannett Pub- lishing. “Hawley come down there, he had this camel’s hair topcoat on, expensive suit which back then, you know, cost a couple hundred bucks, fancy shoes, and all that,” said Drew. The men looked down into the engine room and Hawley exclaims, “Wow, look at that job down there! It’s just like a mirror!”


Becker tells him, “Go ahead, go down and take a look!”


“When Hawley set foot on the deck, his feet went out from under him and down he went,” says Drew. “Becker went down to help and the same happened to him.” The men were slipping and sliding around everywhere in the resin. They were finally able to escape, covered with fiberglass.


“So Royal says he came down the next morning, and Becker was there. Royal said Becker was right feather white, he was so mad. He says, ‘Where is that sonofabitch you got down here doing that fiberglass job? That bastard, I’m gonna kill him!’


“Royal says, ‘I had the hardest job in my life just to keep from busting out laughing, cause I could just imagine those two, just like pigs on ice trying to get back up.’” So Becker banned Ace from ever coming back to Robinhood again.


Will Frost’s youngest son Wardlow used to help with the boatbuilding, too, and he was around for the boat at Robinhood. Wherever Wardlow was, he used to go around whistling constantly through his teeth. One day Becker said to him, “Wardlow, you’re driving me crazy with that whistling!” Wardlow replied, “What do you think about me, deah? I have to be around it all day


long!”


“Poor old Becker just threw up his hands,” said Drew. (Ward called everybody “deah” in his good old Maine accent.) Wardlow was quite “a piece of work,” says Drew. He was a happy-go-lucky, good- looking fellow, the “favorite uncle” Jamie says, but tended to be accident prone with his boatbuilding. Royal told Drew about once when Wardlow was putting in a cabin front. Ward had cut a piece of wood but it was too short. “He put her in, but she dropped right down through,” said Drew. “So he went and cut another one, he went up, whoosh” - that one fell in too. “He was working with old Will at the time, and Wardlow come down to get another piece of stock to make another front, and Will says, ‘Don’t you touch another plank, Wardlow!’”


Another time, Jamie says, Carroll and Wardlow were doing some planking. “Wardlow was driving the wedge up, to drive the planking over, to get it tight. Dad said he come up with that hammer and he missed, and he hit himself square in the face! Dad said he put his hands over his eyes, saying ‘I’m ruined, deah! I’m ruined!’ and Dad sees tears coming down his cheeks.”


Drew first met Wardlow when Ward came to work for Carroll. “Royal had told me a bunch of stories about him,” said Drew. “Royal says, ‘If he asks you for money, don’t give it to him, cause you’ll never see it again.’ So Wardlow came in, and the first day he says to Drew, “I’m running a little shy, deah. You got 10 dollars you could lend me?” “Nope,” says Drew.


“He looked it me,” said Drew, “and he says, ‘That was awful quick. You must’ve heard about me.’”


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