Page 22. MAINE COASTAL NEWS January 2014


old friends and was given a hearty welcome. To Strip OLIVE BRANCH. The OLIVE BRANCH, which went ashore above Ayer’s mill Wednesday afternoon, was still there Friday morning. She will be a total loss which will amount to about (?). It is understood that her owners are going to strip her of whatever there is of value on her and then dispose of the hulk in some way.


Launching at Phippsburg.


The three-masted schooner JULIA P. COLE will be launched at 10 a.m., Tuesday, by F. S. Bowker & Son in Phippsburg. It was intended to have a grand celebration at the launching, but owing to the sudden death of Miss Julia P. Cole, daughter of Capt. Cole, who is going in command, the festivities have been cancelled. Capt. Cole who is down with (?), is reported as improving. The vessel is for the South Gardiner Lumber Co., and a craft of 500 tons. She will be ready for sea the fi rst of next month. The material is in the yard for a 550-ton three-master for New York parties. Capt. Colwell will be commander.


28 July 1904 Schooners Best


This Type of Sailing Vessel is Now the Most Numerous. Is Most Profi table


Schooner Rigged Ship is Considered Better than a Square Rigged One – Some Figures Showing Difference The schooner rigged vessel is now the distinctive type of sail carrier in the coasting trade. Schooners of great burden, however, are comparatively a recent product on the coast. Up to the time of the Civil War a schooner of 200 or 300 tons was considered large on the coast, through the fi rst three master on the great lakes was built as early as 1850. It was 30 years later that the fi rst four master was built on the coast and vessels of schooner rig began to run up to 1,200 and 1,500 tons in size. The fi rst fi ve mast afl oat that kept the seas of her own power was the schooner GOVERNOR AMES, built in 1889 at Waldoboro and up to four years ago she was the only schooner of her class.


In comparison with the full rigged sailing ship there is no question as to the superiority of the multimasted schooner. The cost of construction is less in the case of the schooner; she carries less than half the crew required by the ship she carries an enormous spread of canvas and can outpoint and outfoot any square rigger afl oat; and, fi nally, she can carry a great cargo. As to the standing of these schooners when compared with the ordinary type of steam cargo tramp, there is a necessity of more careful investigation. The average cost of construction per ton carrying capacity of four schooners – four and fi ve masters – from which data have been compiled, has been $25.


The cost of two steel freight steamships


built in American ship yards in 1900 with a capacity for 5,300 tons of cargo was $55 per ton carrying capacity.


The cost of running the schooners, as derived from statements rendered by the agents over a series of voyages covering a year’s time, was $7 per ton carrying capacity. The cost of operating the steamers was greater than this owing to the larger crew carried, higher wages necessarily paid, cost of coal for consumption in their engines and greater charge for depreciation, insurance and interest. It amounted to $30.50 per ton carrying capacity.


The advantage a cargo steamer has over the multi-masted schooner of the same capacity is the increased number of trips


HISTORY FROM THE PAST - Bangor Daily Commercial - Early 1900s was running at the time.


that it can make in a given time. The actual fi gures show that the tramp steamer can make about three times as many trips in a year as a fi ve-masted schooner engaged in steady business. About one-half the time the schooner will equal the steamer’s record in spite of the latter’s quicker dispatch, while the other half of the year its voyages will be twice as long. On the year’s business about twice as much business is handled by the steamer as by the schooner. The ordinary coasting cargo tramp steamer will make 36 trips in a certain trade in a year. She can carry 2,500 tons of coal per trip at 65 cents a ton, giving her gross receipts of $57,200 in a year. She is afl oat on an average 200 days in the year, burning 20 tons of coal a day at a cost of $2.50 a ton, $10,000 for the year. She carries a crew of 24, whose wages amount to $1,200 a month or for $14,400 in the year. It costs $12 a day to feed this crew, or $14,400 for the year. There are incidental expenses of $600 a month for paint, repairs on deck and in engine room, a total of $7,200 for the year.


The stevedoring will amount to $6,300 more. Port charges insurance, commissions and agent will cost $5,000 a year additional. This adds up to $46,300 and there will easily be $3,000 more in incidental expenses, making a round total of $50,000 operating expenses, thus leaving a profi t of $7,300 to pay insurance, interest, depreciation and dividends.


The Cost of Trips.


A fi ve-masted schooner of 2,258 gross tons will make 13 trips while the steamer is making 36. She will carry 3,600 tons of coal at 60 cents, earning 28,080. Her crew will consist of 12 men, whose wages will amount to $6,000 a year. It will cost only $1,500 to feed them. Incidental expenses summed up may amount to $4,000, this including commissions, agent, insurance, repairs, port charges, etc. The stevedoring will amount to $5,000. This amounts to a total of $16,500, which amount may be increased by miscellaneous expenditures to $18,000, leaving a profi t of $7,740 to pay interest, insurance, depreciation and dividends. Actual fi gures of voyages show gross


earnings for a fi ve masted schooner carrying 3,600 tons of coal, $11.11 per ton, while the actual expenses are $6.66 per ton, leaving a profi t of $4.45 per ton on the year’s business. A steamship of equal cargo capacity would earn on 36 voyages at 60 cents $21.60 a ton, while the expenses would be about $16 a ton, leaving a profi t of $5.60 per ton on the year’s business. The difference in favor of the steamship would be offset by the fact that her original cost is $55 per ton against $27 per ton for the schooner, the advantage of the latter thus being $26.40 per ton carrying capacity.


2 August 1904


The “SAND SUCKER” Dredging Steamer, KEY WEST


Belfast, August 2. The “sand sucker” dredging steamer


KEY WEST, built by George A. Gilchrist, the Belfast shipbuilder for the United States government, and launched from his marine railway on which she was constructed, July 23, is now in Portland being equipped with her machinery. The KEY WEST is the second craft of his description to be built by Mr. Gilchrest at his Belfast yard, the CUMBERLAND, having been constructed here in 1902. Like the CUMBERLAND, the KEY WEST looks short, and stubby. She is 135 feet beam and 15 feet depth of hold. She is built for heavy work, oak frame and hard pine planking and ceiling. She has two sand bins and four


dumping ports. She has been built under the usual critical supervision of a government inspector, William McDonald overseeing the work.


The Portland Company has the contract for supplying the boiler, engines, pumps, etc. A number of Belfast joiners went to Portland with her to complete the work, which cannot be done until the machinery is in place. I. L. Wilband is master carpenter;


Charles W. Coombs, blacksmith; Fred V. Cottrell, master joiner; Wright & Hall, plumbers; Luther Calderwood, fastener; Henry Gardner of Castine, rigger; and George Heath of Frankfort, caulker. The KEY WEST cost about $90,000; the CUMBERLAND, $125,000.


8 August 1904 Oldest American Vessel


Schooner POLLY, Privateer in 1812, Still Doing Business Under the Flag The ancient schooner POLLY, said to


be afl oat and in commission, says a Boston dispatch to the New York Sun, was towed up the Merrimac River recently to Amesbury, where she was constructed 99 years ago, and will be one of the attractions for the Old Home week celebration. Built on the banks of the Merrimac away back in 1805, the POLLY served successively as a coaster, then a privateer in the War of 1812, again in the coasting trade, and she is now to serve as a feature of one of the gatherings that are becoming the rage in the New England states.


For many years now shipping men have been speculating on the POLLY’s end. Back in the 70s they began to think it was about time for her to fall apart, but she has survived many of the marine gossips and apparently she is good for some years to come. The POLLY was not much of a war vessel when compared with the fi ghters of the present day, but she attained great fame in the second struggle with the mother country, fi ghting at least a score of battles at sea and capturing no less than 11 prizes from the enemy. Once she was herself captured, when her captain was lying sick in his bunk, her venturesome mate and crew tackling something too stout for her armament, but it was not long before the Yankees recaptured her and she has fl own the American fl ag ever since.


There are many stories told of the


POLLY, the 45-ton privateer that chased British schooners of twice her size and more, and from all accounts she must have been a terror. Her log is now preserved in the Portland Custom House, and it is better reading than some things in the naval books. Her last fi ght was with an armed British merchantman, at a point halfway between Mount Desert and the Duck Islands, off the coast of Maine, in which she was victorious and captured her opponent, a rich prize for those days. Since then she has been constantly in the coasting trade and only one other vessel, so far as is known, approaches the POLLY in length of active service – the schooner GOOD INTENT, launched in Braintree in 1813, and now bailing from Bucksport, Maine. There was a bark called the TRUE LOVE, built in 1763, for many years engaged in the whaling fi sheries and afterward sold to an Englishman, but her name long ago disappeared from the lists. The POLLY has had many narrow escapes from being totally wrecked, going ashore frequently, but always had good luck to hold together and fl oat off with the rising tide. Within three years she struck some rocks off the Maine coast, but the solid white oak of which she is constructed proved better than the granite ledges and she was hauled off within a few hours, although quite a sea


9 August 1904 Four Men and Vessel Lost


Rockland Schooner ELLA FRANCES Sunk in Collision Off Cape Cod. Rockland, August 9. A dispatch received in Rockland Monday night states that the schooner ELLA FRANCES of Rockland was sunk off Cape Cod on Saturday by the steamer NANTUCKET of the Merchants & Miners Transportation line, bound from Boston to Norfolk. Capt. Thorndike and three members of the crew of the schooner were drowned. One man was saved and landed at Norfolk.


The information received in Rockland was contained in a telegram from Edward Wentworth, Jr., of Rockport, Maine, the mate of the schooner, to his father. In this telegram Mate Wentworth said that the ELLA FRANCES had been run down and sunk off Cape Cod late Saturday afternoon by the steamer NANTUCKET. Out of a crew of the captain and four men, Mate Wentworth was the only man on board the schooner who survived. Those who were drowned were: Capt. Cyrus Thorndike, 45 years of age,


of Rockland. Rockland. Northport.


Seaman, Herbert L. Gray, 24, of Seaman, Harry McNally, 23, of


Seaman, M. A. Seaton of Rockport. Capt. Thorndike owned one-eighth of the vessel, the only share that was insured. The ELLA FRANCES was bonded at $5,000. She was bound from New York for Rockland with a cargo of 400 tons of coal consigned to Farrand & Spear, her agents and principal owners.


When the vessels came together, the fog horns was blowing on each. The NANTUCKET struck the schooner with such force as to cut the entire bow away and the vessel sank immediately. Capt. Thorndike, Seaton and Gray were in one of the schooner’s boats which were drawn under by the vortex made by the steamer’s propeller. The mate however, remained aboard the schooner and was in imminent danger of drowning when a boat from the NANTUCKET rescued him. Capt. Thorndike leaves a wife and child. It is understood that the others lost were unmarried.


The schooner ELLA FRANCES was built at Mt. Desert in 1870. She registered 145 tons net, was 91 feet long, 26.1 feet beam and had a depth of 7.9 feet. Her home port was Rockland.


28 November 1904 With the Ships


River Frozen From Dam to Narrows Monday Morning


Tugs Keep Port Clear


Vessels are Getting Away Fast but Several are Bound Here – Some Ship Items


The river Monday morning was covered with a solid coating of ice from the swift water below the pumping station dam way down below High head, and the tugs, which were tied up at the wharves had to break up the ice before anything could be done toward moving any of the logs or vessels which were in the harbor. If the tugs and other steamers had not broken up the ice the harbor would probably have closed for good as there is very little current in the river now and the ice makes fast. It will likely be several weeks yet, however, before the port is closed, as the tug will keep the river open just as long as there are any vessels to be


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