Page 24. MAINE COASTAL NEWS November 2012


REMEMBERING: CHARLIE ARNOLD, MDI'S ORIGINAL RECYCLER By Lee S. Wilbur


“Just look at these boards. Have you ever seen anything as beautiful. And the beams. Hand cut. What would you pay for something new like this today? I was standing in Charley’s “second- hand” yard while his crew were unloading a truck full of lumber from a teardown house. “Now be careful boys,” He’d say, “This is good stuff and we don’t want to mess it up.” Load still had nails sticking out. Usually carried two prices, one with nails in which ran around 15 cents a foot and a premium if


Interesting


Vessels of the Passamaquoddy


Continued from Page 23.


UNKUS abandoned at sea with the foremast gone, and the mainsail double-reefed. The crew apparently been taken off by an out- bound vessel. A mystery concerns the 217-ton brig


TWILIGHT built in Eastport in 1854 by Stephen Fountain. The Machias Union re- ported a mutiny onboard the TWILIGHT in 1855; the captain, his wife, and a sailor were murdered and two sailors suspected of the murders were sent to New York for trial from Puerto Rico. The TWILIGHT is reported to have an Eastport captain and crew, but no further information seems to exist. Many issues from the 1857 Eastport Sentinels are missing, and the only report of the mutiny was from the Machias paper.


the “boys had time between jobs to “de-nail” it. But, the good stuff didn’t stay in Charley’s yard for long.


1971. Finally, after 8 years of start/stop,


semester off occasionally, break for Uncle Sam’s Army, we got back to Southwest Harbor fulltime. Brought the mobile dwelling back we’d had at Orono, one that I’d spent valuable class time doodling a way to make a real house out of. Course we had no full-time jobs and two small children. No money either, but we didn’t owe anyone, and we had, like many on the Million Dollar Island, dream of a house and an ace in the hole, and his name was Charles Arnold. Charley, as we all knew him, along with a fair number of other men, came to the island with Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps at the height of the “Great Depression”. They built roads and hiking paths and buildings for Acadia National and along the way, several, like Charley, married local girls and came back after the war to settle. Word was, a good thing, brought fresh blood to an area where family names were beginning to remain the same, not unlike many coastal towns. MDI was going through one of its periodic transformations. Fire of “47” had burned a lot of the old mansions, summer folks with the immense fortunes were slipping away with their estate homes being torn down to make way for projects such as the terminal for the Bluenose Ferry to Nova Scotia, or simply because the 50 room mansions such as John D. Rockefeller’s “Eyrie” were no longer a “necessity”.


Charley spotted an opportunity. There


wasn’t an abundance of money on the island. WWII was just over though some of the


ex-GI’s had savings. Used lumber, brick, and stone could be re-cycled (don’t recall the term at the time). So Charley went into the wrecking business. There were partially destroyed buildings from the fi re as well as older dwellings destined for memories. What was built by human hand could be taken carefully apart by human hand for resale.


By the spring of 1972, after teaching and being principal over in Lamoine, there was a pile of new 2x4 studs alongside a humungous pile of boards just laden with board nails sticking through in our dooryard. By May, the snow had pretty well melted away and the neighborhood kids were earning ten cents a board for pulling the nails. Girl types made the most money with their sticktoitiveness. Roof rafters and collar beams came from a summer estate over in Brooklin, pine paneling later from Linnehan’s garage on the triangle in Ellsworth. For some years, Saturday mornings often meant a trip to Charley Arnold’s looking for just the right lumber to complete a job. As our two got a bit older they’d look forward to going along as well. Never knew what they’d fi nd or what Charley would send them home with. I’m not sure that Ruth, Charley’s patient wife, was too overly enamored of Charley’s avocation. She was never known to exude Charley’s excitement over his newfound products. But she put up with it all quite well. No woman would aspire to having her backyard and on occasion, her front as well, piled to the hilt with used building “stuff”. Ruth always seemed to be in charge though with “settlin’ up”. Charley would scribble prices down on a scrap of


paper or board and you’d go to the house, knock on the kitchen door, and Ruth, who had problems with her legs in later life would say “Come in” and she’d take your money along with a little sigh.


When work would slow down in the Boat business, as it did occasionally, we’d keep the crew going by putting up another building. One year we wanted another storage building for long lumber and equipment which needed to be out of the weather. We had Charley deliver the materials, nails and all. Didn’t particularly want skilled crew pulling nails at their pay scale. Young fellow from New Zealand happened to stop in looking to make some pocket money. Doing his “walkabout” as I guess many “Aussies” and “Kiwis” I’ve met are required to do. Also needed a place to sleep. We had an old wood sailboat up in the storage yard for sale so I told him he could sleep in it and pull nails for cash. Worked out well, and a year later I received a book in the mail about lobstering in New Zealand. He’d completed his walkabout and wanted to thank us.


In Charley and Ruth’s later years, zoning laws became evermore strict. Little by little the storage/sales yards were out. Ruth’s health began to fail and the days of recycled building supplies on MDI came to an end. I just completed a workshop/studio/ library and though I was able to fi nd material in “Uncle Henry’s” it was nowhere near handy as going to Charley’s on Saturday morning. Never will be as much fun.


Work is Progressing on Tug SATURN


The H-bitt on the stern in the process of being chipped and ground.


One of the forward double bitts chipped, ground and painted.


generations to enjoy. For more information: (207) 223-8846 or to join the Friends of SATURN, send a check for $25 or more to P.O. Box 710, Winterport, ME 04496. Recent photographs showing SATURN'S progression this summer.


SATURN is an 117-foot railroad tug built as the BERN for the Reading Railroad in 1907. She is one of the last railroad tugs and is being saved for future


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