Page 24. MAINE COASTAL NEWS May 2016 HISTORY FROM THE PAST - Bangor Daily Commercial - Early 1900s Continued from Page 22.


the lighter ATLAS from Portland, started out bright and early to go to the wreck in the hope of saving the rigging at least. They ranged up alongside and began to work at rescuing the sails, beginning at the bow and working aft. They cut away the jib stays and fore rigging that supported the jibboom and bowsprit and ran these on board together with the three outermost jibs. The fog however shut down and the


wind began to breeze up again, causing the outfi t to roll to such an extent that it was not deemed safe to stay there any longer. Accordingly the return trip was begun and before they reached port they had about all they could manage to come along. The tug buried her nose under at every dip and the lighter thrashed about in an alarming fashion.


Those on board the lighter wanted


to turn about and run for shelter under Richmond Island, but Capt. McDuffi e kept on and came into port safely at about noon. It is stated that there is no material change in the position of the vessel. Her


four masts are still standing, or were when she was last seen. She is not thrashing about much being fi rmly planted on the ledge. The water rises up to her main mast on the full tide, while her bows are high out of the water. The tug men say that unless something


utterly unforeseen in the shape of a tidal wave or an unusually heavy hurricane comes, the vessel ought to hold together for some time, probably all summer, but they regard it as extremely doubtful if they succeed in saving more than the rigging, chains, etc.


Capt. Lermond is Better. Capt. Lermond is gradually improving,


although he is still in an extremely critical condition. He was practically wet through for four days and nights without a chance to change his clothes and ended with this fearful experience. His skin is in a sort of parboiled condition all over his body and limbs and this gives him great pain. It was stated Monday that some of his


ribs had been broken by the pounding about that he received, but this is not the case. He is bruised and sore all over, but no bones are thought to be broken. He was much clearer


J F Continued from Page 23.


sure auction and questions rose about what was going on with the land. This forced John to look for another location. Just down the road across from the Big Indian there was a piece of property for sale and he went to see Dodo Brockman, who might know more about it. John explained, “We came in and we looked at it. We loved it. He wanted to sell the property, but I wanted to lease fi rst with an option to buy. He gave me a favorable lease and we bought it February 2015.” They are still doing service work at their


fi rst location in Freeport, but are already making plans to expand at their new location by the Big Indian. They already have ex- panded their boat lines by bringing in Oyster Harbors, run by Matthew Camp. The line they are pushing this year will be Regulator, which is a high-end center console boat.


As time marches on more changes came


as their children entered the business. When Tom got out of school he took a job at a recycling plant in Minnesota. He returned and John added him as an employ at his new location on Route 1 in Freeport. This past winter they went south to St. Martins and he found he liked the warm weather and the mega-yachts. He met a crew member from one of the mega-yachts who told him he was crazy not to do it. He went and took some safety course and John lost his son as an employee. John’s daughter Jill, is now running the


3.5 Long shaft Leftover 3.5 Short Shaft 5 Sail power 6 short shaft


9.9 Long shaft Leftover 9.9 Short shaft 20 Long shaft


20 Long shaft Leftover 30 Long shaft 60 Long shaft


Current Inventory Outboards $900


$1,100 $1,472 $1,674 $1,999 $2,355 $3,130 $2,817 $4,010 $6,951


$7,906 $8,785


$12,385


New Meadows Marina in Brunswick. John added, “She grew up in that show room. She would come over and take her naps in a 15-foot Wahoo we had in the showroom. I didn’t realize how much she was taken in. When she got old enough she wanted to paint bottoms and work out in the yard. She went to Wheaton College and got a degree in languag- es and international studies. Toby, her husband, is a tropi- cal biologist, but he works for the State of Maine. They both love Maine. I know she could make a lot more money than she makes in the marina, but she loves it and she is very good at it and last year I turned over New Meadows to her.”


Life has its in-


60 Long shaft Command Thrust $7,020 90 Long shaft leftover 90 Long shaft


90 Long shaft Commercial Use $9,290 115 Long shaft Command Thrust $8,950 150 Extra-long shaft


150 Extra-long shaft Coml. Use $12,425 Royal River Boat


307 Bayview St., Yarmouth, ME 04096 207-846-9577 www.royalriverboat.com


teresting paths and one may start in one direction that looks hopeful, but end up going another way due to hurdles and challenges that pop- up. Being in busi- ness can be extreme- ly challenging and those that can over- come the challenges, know when to fi ght, know when not to, are the ones that sur- vive, and John has certainly done that .


in his mind Monday after a night’s sleep and his attending physician thinks he will pull through without any trouble. The owners settled with all of the men


who left for diff erent towns, some going home and others to Boston to ship on another vessel. They lost everything they had on board the vessel, saving only the clothing they stood in and whatever they happened to have in their pockets.


18 June 1903 Sad Homecoming


Body of Edmund C. Arquith of Hampden Arrived Thursday. Drowned on Wreck


Capt. I. B. Ulmer of Schooner FRED A. EMERSON with Boy’s Remains Came on Boston Steamer.


Capt. I. B. Ulmer of Hampden arrived


home Thursday noon on the steamer CITY OF BANGOR with the body of Edmund C. Arquith, the Hampden boy who was drowned while with Capt. Ulmer on the Bangor schooner FRED A. EMERSON when she was wrecked in a gale off Montauk Point, last Friday. The death of young Arquith comes as


a great blow to his people in Hampden and to his friends of which he had a great many. For the past two years he had been a student at Hampden Academy and although but 14 years of age he had completed one year in the high school. His father runs a lighter in New York


harbor and about two weeks ago he sent for the boy to come on as his school was nearly over. Arquith was one of the brightest scholars in his class and he will be much missed. His sister, Miss Emma Arquith, was in the graduating class at the Academy and this blow comes especially hard to her at this time.


A Bangor Man Lost. George Wayland of Bangor, the cook on


the ill-fated vessel, was also lost in the storm, being swept overboard. Wayland is well- known in Bangor and has lived and worked here for a number of years past. He leaves a wife and several small children. He had been in the employ of Arthur R. Hopkins, leaving there but a short time ago, and was a familiar fi gure to the men on lower Exchange Street. The mistake which sent the schooner


FRED A. EMERSON on the rocks happened as follows: The men were unable to get their bearings accurately, and mistaking Little Gull light for Race rock, they brought up on a rock to the eastward of Fisher’s Island. The schooner within 15 minutes shifted


her position, and was blown into the Race, where she rapidly fi lled with water and turned over on her beam’s end. The boy was not strong enough to stand


the beating of the waves and succumbed and George Wayland, was washed away. The others were rescued by the schooner LUGANO and carried to New York. The EMERSON was bound from New Bedford for New Haven. The vessel was uninsured. Two other members of the crew who


were saved, the mate Alfred Flagg, and a foremast hand, James Calloway, also belonged in Hampden.


19 June 1903 Many Wrecks


Derelicts the Dread of Atlantic Coast Sea-Captains Float for Years


Abandoned Vessels Travel Thousands of Miles in a Partially or Totally Submerged Condition.


There is nothing so dangerous to


American shipping as the hundreds of derelicts or old wrecks which are fl oating around the ocean. There is absolutely no way


to prevent being sunk by collision with these submerged craft every year many craft meet a watery grave, dragged down as it were by some sister schooner who perhaps years ago met a similar fate. Bangor shipping men are always alive to the dangers from these water- logged vessels which fl oat around a few feet under the water for years at a time and they are the dread of sea captains and sailors all up and down the coast. The following regarding derelicts from


the American Syren and Shipping Illustrated is of more than common interest to Bangor people:


“Along the Atlantic coast of the United


States there trade some or the most daring seamen, in schooners of from two masts to seven masts, that are to be found under any fl ag; and, having regard to the wicked weather experienced at times, the success attending their eff orts is phenomenal. In the hold below lumber is very often stowed solid, and a heavy deck load rather handicaps the crew under certain conditions; but they persevere against almost overwhelming odds and somehow manage to arrive even though after many days. Occasionally, however, wind and wave prove too much for mortal men and their charge; the crew seek refuge on board a passing vessel and the schooner is left to her fate. A number of these derelict vessels seem to break up or founder soon after being abandoned; yet a few drift several thousand miles before the end comes. “A schooner abandoned somewhat to the


southward of New York is generally carried south by the cool water of the Labrador current until the vicinity of Cape Hatteras is reached; then she succeeds in winning a way to the warmer waters of the Gulf stream and drifts to the northeast for a while. Should she happen to get out of the infl uence of the stream, and into the dead water of the so- called Sargasso sea, she may move slowly in every direction over this enervating region, so much avoided by navigators of sailing ships desirous of making a quick passage. The bark VINCENZO PERROTTA, left derelict in September, 1887, when 600 miles northeast of Bermuda, came ashore at Watling island, 536 days later, after a devious drift of over 3,000 miles; and the TELEMACH abandoned in October, 1887, when 450 miles west of the Azores, appeared to have broken up some 600 miles nearer the American coast after a lonely cruise of 3,200 miles in 550 days. “There is nothing doubtful about these


cases, or of any here quoted. Ship after ship passed those derelicts, sent in the necessary information to Washington through one of the branch Hydrographic offi ces around our coasts, and thus made it possible to trace the course and distance made by them from the time of their abandonment till either stranding or dissolution supervened. The three-masted schooner FANNIE E. WOLSTON is another and more marked, example of the tenacity worthy of a better cause with which wooden derelicts sometimes cling to existence under most adverse conditions. Abandoned in October, 1891, near Cape Hatteras, this vessel was last seen just three years later not far from the position where she started out on her record drift. She proceeded due east almost as far as the Asores; hung around there for nearly a year, then traveled a few degrees to the southward, afterward moved northwest until not far from Florida; then shot northeast and disappeared, after cruising nearly 10,000 statute miles. “Two similar schooners, the ETHEL


M. DAVIS and the DAVID W. HUNT, were abandoned almost at the same instant during a cyclone of November 1888. The former


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