Page 24. MAINE COASTAL NEWS June 2014 HISTORY FROM THE PAST - Bangor Daily Commercial - Early 1900s Continued from Page 23.


“HOLY GHOST” Yacht Sails The SARAH CROWELL with Sandfordites Aboard Off for Parts Unknown.


Freeport, August 7.


The barkentine SARAH CORWELL recently purchased by the Kingdom Yacht Company, the nautical branch of Frank W. Sandford’s “HOLY GHOST” colony at Durham, sailed from Freeport about noon Tuesday for parts unknown. A large number of trunks and about 30 of the Shilohites were taken on board here, together with suffi cient stores to last for a long voyage. Neither Capt. A. K. Perry, nor any member of the crew would give out any information concerning the destination of the vessel.


11 August 1906


“I Dunno” Says Holy Ghoster The Mate of Sandford’s New Ship Won’t Give Out Any Information. Boston, August 11. – Anchored ten ship


lengths off the city dock at Long Island and idly swinging at her anchors, the barkentine REBECCA CROWELL, with a lot of people belonging to the Holy Ghost and US society of Shiloh, Maine, is lying at present in a state of isolation which the offi cer of the old hooker refuse to have broken by newspaper or other visitors.


They are most inhospitable and uncommunicative to those who go alongside in search of information, refusing to allow intending visitors to come aboard. When the REBECCA CROWELL sailed from Freeport, Maine, several days ago, she carried a large number of passengers, men, women, and children from Shiloh, and it was said that the barkentine had been bought by Rev. Frank W. Sandford, the self-styled Elijah, and that he was going to take the boatload of his disciples to Jersusalem to found there a new colony.


20 August 1906


Hardly a person who lived in Bangor 20 years ago and was old enough then to know anything, does not remember well the old barge CLIFFORD, owned by the towboat company of Hugh Ross & Sons.


Probably the old boat has not been thought of for years, except when some swain of long ago has been mooning over the good old days when excursions down the river were more popular than they seem to be nowadays, and young people knew how to enjoy themselves.


The fact that calls the barge CLIFFORD up to memory now is that the other day the city of Boston placed her out of commission as a hospital boat. For the last ten years and perhaps longer the CLIFFORD, though too old for excursion service has been rounding out her useful career as a fl oating hospital in Boston harbor for children of the poor during the heated summer term. She had been changed over as to her house and upper works so that a Bangorean would hardly have known her and had accommodations for 60 infants who were permanent patients and about 70 day patients. Her place is to be taken by a fi ne new boat, built by the city expressly for hospital purposes which will take care of more than double the number. The old barge has been towed to the North pier and remains there awaiting the decision of the authorities as to her future. The CLIFFORD was built, probably 30 odd years ago at Crosby’s ship yard near the Tin bridge. She was built upon honor and every stick that went into her construction was viewed by her master builder before it was touched. That is probably why she has lasted so long. As soon as she was fi nished there was a big launching, with a party on board and fl ags waving in the breeze. Then she went into the excursion business, and never since has there been a craft like her on the Penobscot. Wide, roomy, stiff as a church, with decks built to hold all the weight that could be put on them, she was as staunch a boat as fl oated in these waters. Her limit was her capacity, and Capt. Walter Ross, in speaking of her the other day said that she had gone down river with over 1000 souls aboard.


She had no motive power of her own but was always tied alongside the RALPH ROSS or the WALTER ROSS and in this way towed to her destination. Many a merry party the old craft carried down the blue Penobscot bay to Fort Point, Islesboro, Castine, Northport and Camden, and many


John's Bay Boat Company Continued from Page 15.


are hideously ugly. I told the owner that we could add two more feet of boat for the same price as that thing.” Like all John’s Bay Boats she is cedar on oak, 2½ by 1½ frames on 10 inch centres and 1¼ planking. Down below she has four bunks, some storage, a galley counter, and an aluminum work bench with a vice. Peter added, “She has got the new sort of wrinkle, which we did on Ben Weed’s boat and that is the lobster tanks goes from waist high on deck down to the engine beds, which makes it six feet deep. It has a lot of capacity without taking up much deck space and you can crank up the bottom so they are easy to tend. There is a below deck tank too, aft between the fuel tanks, but it is a pain to use. You are on your knees trying to get the lobsters out. Whereas this tanks is like standing at a work bench.”


By the end of May they are expecting lumber for another 46 foot lobster boat. This one will be going to a fi sherman from Spruce Head and will be done early next year. During the winter they added another bay to the side of their building with repair work in mind. The bay lines up with the railway and it has big doors on each end so a


a man and woman in Bangor now recall dozens of such trips, and the long sail back by the light of the moon.


But her career here came to a close more than 15 years ago, when she was sold by the Rosses to the Union Towboat Co. of Boston. There, for some years she was used as she had been on the Penobscot, for picnic and excursion parties down the bay, to Lynn, to Nautasket and Marblehead. When she began to show signs of age she was sold to the city of Boston and ever after, until she had outlived her usefulness was used as a hospital boat for the care of sick children. The old barge had her fun in her youthful fays and in her old age served suffering humanity as best she might.


When she was bought for hospital purposes her deckhouses were torn down and the upper works remodeled to suit the business to which she was to be put, but her old name Clifford was never changed. She was named, by the way, for a little nephew of Capt. Walter Ross of this city, Clifford Buck, son of his sister Mrs. Stewart Buck. Clifford is an old Penobscot name, and was born by both the Rosses and the Bucks, who owned most of the land down by Prospect and Searsport and who were among the prominent families of the lower valley and about the bay.


Just what is to be done with the CLIFFORD is not now known, but her career has been an honorable one and she deserves a decent end.


18 August 1906 Famous Clipper Ship that was Built by a Rockland Deacon – Clipped an Hour Off Record – News was Received in Rockland of a Sunday and Caused Rejoicing.


In Maine, where the art of building sailing ships has fl ourished as nowhere else on this continent, and where in the olden days it used to be said that deep-water sailors constituted one of the principal “crops,” great interest has been manifested in a recent race of yachts across the Atlantic, and in the discussions that have followed the announcement of the time of the winner, the three-masted schooner ATLANTIC, as the fastest on record for a sailing vessel, says the Rockland Courier-Gazette.


Brownell truck can drive through. They also have ramps that they can put on the railway to haul a boat off and into the building. That way they are less dependent on the weather. Peter added, “It gives you some fl exibility and even when everyone is going good on the new boats there are just times when it is just crowded in here. I also thought maybe add a man, which I haven’t done, because no one is available. If there were a boat carpenter looking for work I would hire one more.”


In the new bay is the 38-foot lobster boat JANIE M. from Beverly, MA. She was built on Cape Ann about 34 years ago. Fifteen years ago they did a lot of work on her. They cut the stern out and replaced the platform. Peter explained, “The house was getting pretty waterlogged and the engine, a big Caterpillar had record breaking hours on it. We tore her right down to the sheer clamp, put in a new engine, wash rails, trunk, and wheelhouse. The owner didn’t have her built, but bought her when she was almost new. He loves the boat and didn’t want an- other one.”


Now they just need to get the house done and hook up things and she will be done, probably in June.


Capt. Samuels of Brooklyn, who was skipper of the famous clipper ship DREADNAUGHT, asserts that in 1859 he sailed that ship from Sandy Hook to “off Queenstown” in nine days and 17 hours, so that the yacht ATLANTIC’s record of 12


Continued from Page 9. CHARLES W. MORGAN


ballasted (weighted down) to her correct sailing draft, the sails will be attached to the spars, and the crew will conduct four days of sail training scheduled for June 7-8 and June 11-12.


The ship will be open to the public in New London with an extensive dockside exhibit on May 24-25, May 31, and June 1 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.


The ship departs on the next leg of the


38th Voyage with a transit to Newport, RI, on June 14. Following that stop, the ship will then visit Vineyard Haven, Mass.; New Bedford, Mass.; and Boston, where she will dock next to the USS Constitution. She will also anchor off of Provincetown, Mass. for day sails to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, where the Morgan will team up with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to observe whales in their natural environment and call attention to mankind’s changing relationship with the natural world.


days, four hours and three minutes from New York to the Lizards, while exceptionally fast sailing, is far from being the record for the trip across the ocean.


But whatever glory may have been won by the DREADNAUGHT or others in their races to Queenstown or the Lizard, the most famous of all sailing records belongs to a state of Maine ship the clipper RED JACKET, whose time from New York to Liverpool has never been equaled. The RED JACKET made her famous run in January 1854, when she sailed from Sandy Hook to Liverpool, pierhead, in 13 days, one hour and 25 minutes.


The best that Captain Samuels claims for the DREADNAUGHT from New York when she sailed from Sandy Hook to Northwest, light ship is 13 days and eight hours, so that the RED JACKET’s passage is six hours and 35 minutes the faster. Many attempts have been made to best the RED JACKET’s time, but while some ships came near to it none ever succeeded in winning away from Maine her well-earned laurels of the sea. The Liverpool record remains where the RED JACKET placed it 51 years ago and at present it seems to be in no danger.


In 1816 the famous Black Ball line of packets began plying between New York and Liverpool. During the fi rst nine years their average sailing time was 23 days, though one trip was made in 15 days and 18 hours. The fast vessels of the line were of 800 or 900 tons, old measurement, or about the size of an average three-masted schooner of today. They were then considered very large. Other lines soon sprang up as rivals of the Black Ball, and the size of the ships increased, until in 1846 the NEW WORLD, 1400 tons, was the largest vessel afl oat. The fi rst clipper ship was the RAINBOW, 750 tons. She was rapidly followed by others, ranging in size from 1000 to 2000 tons. Their careers were brilliant beyond anything our merchant marine service ever had or has experienced. Seacomb & Taylor of Boston, a


prominent fi rm of those times, contracted in 1853 with Deacon George Thomas of Rockland, Maine to build a clipper ship of 2500 tons, which would make her the largest ship afl oat. Mr. Thomas had a shipyard at the Northend of Rockland, where many famous vessels have since been built. The RED JACKET, as the new ship was named, was ready for launching in the fall of 1853, and at 11 o’clock a.m., on November 2, she was launched.


The RED JACKET was launched without her masts. As she left the ways a bottle of New England rum was broken over her bows and the crowd yelled itself hoarse. So great was the ship’s momentum that it resulted in an accident. Across the cove at Crockett’s point, the old schooner WARRIOR was taking in a cargo of lime. The big ship majestically bore down upon the little schooner, all efforts to check her being useless.


Undefended, the RED JACKET crashed into the unfortunate WARRIOR, staving in her side, bulging up her deck and squeezing barrels of lime but at the hatchway. A week after her launching the RED


JACKET was towed to New York, where she received her masts, spars and rigging. By January all was complete, and the ship set sail for Liverpool. There was great excitement over the event on both sides of the ocean. The ship was out for the record, and the eyes of the maritime world were upon her. At that time there was also being built in Rockland by Horace Merriam the clipper ship LIVE YANKEE, 1638 tons,


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