Page 22. MAINE COASTAL NEWS May 2014 Continued from Page 21.


HISTORY FROM THE PAST - Bangor Daily Commercial - Early 1900s 7 July 1906


A glance at the record runs of the clippers shows what a falling off there has been in the speed of sailing craft since their time. Nowadays vessels bound from the British Isles, or the Atlantic coast to San Francisco, make the passage in anywhere from 130 to 150 and sometimes 175 days. Compare this with the FLYING CLOUD’s marvelous work.


In 1851 the SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS reached San Francisco from New York in 102 days, 14 of which were spent lying off Valparaiso, where she ran into a gale that partially dismasted her. After discharging at San Francisco she sailed for Honolulu, and arrived thence at New York in 88 days without starting a tack. In ten consecutive days, she made 3300 miles. From New York she said for Liverpool, was becalmed in the banks of Newfoundland and when she got a chance ran from there to the Mersey in fi ve and a half days. This passage, including the time she lay becalmed, occupied only 13 days and 19 hours. In the following year the same ship bound from San Francisco to New York covered 6245 miles in 22 days, being an average of 283.9 miles a day. Her best run on this passage, noon to noon, was 419 miles. Once she topped this by a day’s work of 437 miles.


The NATCHEZ was another famous vessel, and once made the passage home from Canton to New York in 76 days. All told, she made but six voyages, and the longest time spent on any one was 98 days from Hong Kong.


The SURPRISE OF LONDON, a contemporary of the NATCHEZ, sailed to San Francisco on her maiden trip in 96 days and her topsails were reefed but twice during her entire voyage. From San Francisco she cut across the North Pacifi c to Canton in 31 days, loaded tea, secured six pounds a ton freight money and it is said by the time she reached London she had paid for herself, all her expenses of sailing and maintenance and left a balance of £10,000 in her owners’ pockets.


The SAMUEL RUSSELL of Boston, in 1854, made 318 miles in one day, homeward bound from Whampoa. In 30 consecutive days she covered 6,722 miles, or nearly half the distance between New York and China. The English clipper ship CHRYSOLITE of Liverpool, in 1851, went from the latter port to Anjer, Java, a distance of 13,000 miles in 88 days. The ORIENTAL of New York followed his up in the same year with a record of 89 days.


In 1852 and 1853 the FLYING DUTCHMAN of New York went to San Francisco, discharged, loaded and rounded out the voyage, covering 27,220 miles, wharf to wharf, in six months and 21 days. She sailed form the Golden Gate to the horn 6,380 miles, in 35 days. In 1858 the TRADE WIND of New


York reached home from San Francisco in 75 days. The LIGHTENING of Boston in 1854 crossed the Atlantic to Liverpool in 13 days and few hours. The ship prior to the beginning of the war was sold to England, changed to a bark and entered in the Austrian passenger service. She sailed once from Melbourne to Liverpool, 12,190 miles, in 64 days.


On the heels of these performances, down to 1870, others occurred quite as remarkable. The COMET of New York went from Liverpool to Hong Kong, 18,040 miles, in 84 days; the RED JACKET of Boston, built at Rockland, Maine, from Sandy Hook to Liverpool pier in 13 days, one hour, and 25 minutes and from New York to Melbourne,


12,720 miles, in 68 days, 11 hours; the MARY WHITREDGE of Baltimore, from Cape Henry, Virginia, to Liverpool, 3,400 miles, in 13 days and seven hours, and the bark DAWN of New York, home from Buenos Ayres, 6,010 miles in 36 days. The DREADNAUGHT. The DREADNAUGHT, whose life was a race against all contenders, and invariably in her favor, in 1865 sailed from Honolulu to New Bedford, Massachusetts, 13,470 miles in 82 days. The year before her smashing run of nine days and 17 hours, New York and Queenstown, she was driven across the Atlantic from Sandy Hook to Liverpool in 18 days and eight hours.


This ship was a remarkable creation. She was built in 1853 at Newburyport by William Currier and James T. Townsend, noted shipwrights of that time, on the order of Gov. E. D. Morgan, Capt. Samuels, her master, and others. She soon became known on account of her marvelous speed as “the wild ship of the Atlantic,” the “Flying Dutchman” and names of a like character. The year after she was launched she reached New York from Liverpool as soon as the Cunard steamship CANADA, which carried the English mails and sailed a day ahead of her arrived at Boston. The DREADNAUGHT carried on her


foretopsail a fi ery red cross, and by this she was easily distinguished at sea. She was 200 feet between perpendiculars, 217 feet on deck, 49 feet beam, 26 feet deep, gross tonnage 1443, net 1227. Strictly speaking, she was only a half clipper but her additional breadth gave her the ability to stand up under press of sail where the sharper model went plowing under.


In 1869, when her fame was at its height, the DREADNAUGHT was piled up on Cape Penas, to the northeastward of the island of Terra del Fuego, while bound from Liverpool to San Francisco. Her loss was attended by terrible sufferings on the part of the crew of 34, including a woman the stewardess and baby. The wreck occurred on July 4, and for 17 days they subsisted on shellfi sh. They were fi nally rescued by a Norwegian bark. Many were frostbitten and some had to undergo the loss of fi ngers and toes by amputation when they reached civilization.


Capt. Samuels had given over the command of the DREADNAUGHT three years before this to Capt. Mayhew. He sailed the yacht HENRIETTA in the ocean race against the VESTA and FLEETWING in December 1866, and won an international reputation. Shortly after he retired from the sea and now resides in Brooklyn, New York. The ship JAMES G. BLAINE, built by Donald McKay of East Boston, had a record of 420 miles for a day’s work, which was paralleled by the FLYING DRAGON. The latter bound from Sidney, N. S. W.; to Hampton Roads, covered 2267 miles in seven days and beat the English mails, which were transmitted by way of the Red Sea and Mediterranean to New York by three days. The ANDREW JACKSON of Boston sailed to San Francisco from New York in 89 days four hours; the NORTH WIND of New York from England to Port Philip Head, Australia, 2,500 miles, in 76 days; the YOUNG AMERICA of New York from Liverpool to San Francisco, 13,800 miles in 96 days; the ENTERE of Rockland, Maine, from New York to Calcutta, 12,700 miles in 78 days; the RICHARD BUSTEED of Boston from Sydney, N. S. W. to Calcutta, 5800 miles, in 42 days, and the bark OCEAN TELEGRAPH of Boston, home from Callao, 9970 miles, in 58 days. The NABOB of Boston.


There was the NABOB of Boston,


which made the port of Rangoon, 75 days out of New York. A man who sailed on her as an ordinary seamen on that voyage delighted in telling of it, and vowed that the NABOB’s old man was the hardest one for driving a craft that he had ever been shipped with. On that passage he insisted that they carried away 75 atun’s’ls “cracking on.” As soon as one would go another would be sent out. Booms went by the board, as if they had been so much matchwood, until fi nally all the spare ones were used up, and the old man fell to using long boat oars. Although American sailing ships have deteriorated in number and fl eetness, they still hold the lead in the latter quality. Occasionally one forges out of the ruck and recalls the past by making a passage of merit. About eight years ago the HENRY B. HYDE of New York sailed from that port to San Francisco in 102 days.


Another particularly good bit of going was that of the S. D. CARLETON of Rockport, Maine, in 1892, on a passage from New York to California. She arrived off the Platte in 49 days, the Horn in 76, and reached her destination in 106, after spending 18 days rolling around in a winter gale between the gulf stream and Hatteras. The home ports of American deepwater ships have always been on the Atlantic coast, but within the last ten or 12 years a movement has set in that has changed the registry of the small fl eet remaining to places on the Pacifi c seaboard. Some are being used in the Alaskan cannery business, some carry Australian coals, others “go coasting,” and rarely one gets as far away as the west coast or Cape Town or a China port with a cargo of lumber.


The annexation of the Hawaiian island and the passage of a shipping law preventing the engagement of foreign bottoms in the trade between the group and this country opened a fi eld for additional tonnage. But there is no longer any beauty in


them. The brightly scraped yards and masts are dressed now in some dirty-hued paint, the white work and the brass around the rails that were the delight of the deep water skipper are neglected, and so long as the hulls hang together that is all that those who have money in them care about.


6 July 1906 Crew of Schooner GEO. EDWIN Arrives at Eastport


Eastport, July 6.


Capt. Howard Norwood of Boston and his crew of three Portuguese sailors arrived here Friday and reported the sudden sinking of his two masted schooner GEORGE EDWIN of Bridgeport, Connecticut bound from Fredericton, with coal. The schooner sank three miles off the south end of Grand Manan island Wednesday night, going down so quickly and unexpectedly that the men were obliged to leave in their boat in a half, dressed condition and without food or water. For 19 hours before reaching land they were tossed about in the little boat in the Bay of Fundy, during the wild storm of Wednesday night. In an exhausted condition they fi nally managed to effect a landing on Grand Manan island Thursday afternoon, Capt. Norwood in describing his experience, said a section of the bottom seemed to have dropped out and the schooner fi lled and sunk in a very few minutes. She had no previously been leaking, although terribly strained by the storm.


The GEORGE EDWIN was 99 gross tonnage, built at Northport, New York, in 1871, and hailed from Bridgeport, Connecticut. She was 88 feet long, 26.3 feet beam and 6.2 feet deep.


The CALEB CUSHING


Interesting Account of Revenue Cutter’s Capture in Portland Rebel Crew Captured


The Daring Plan of Confederate Naval Offi cer Frustrated – Many Maine People Remember the Event


(John M. Todd in the Portland Press) On Saturday, June 27, 1863, the sun rose in all its regal splendor, fl ushing both earth and sea. Old ocean look as placid as a lake, there being not a ripple to mar or a billow to disturb its bosom. The citizens of Portland were early astir, going to their daily task when the news spread rapidly through out the city that the cutter Caleb Cushing had been stolen fro her moorings or captured and taken to sea with those of her crew who were on board. On the arrival of the Boston steamer FOREST CITY it was reported that she was seen being towed out through Hussey’s sound at the north of Hog island, now Diamond Island. To overtake, recapture and bring her back to the city was the all important question and what means could be used to perform that task was not an easy problem to solve, for there were no ships of war in port or on the coast that could be reached in season to capture this around cutter. Still, retaken she must be. Mr. Jewett, the collector of the port, came into my shop to be shaved and he was greatly excited. “I suppose,” said he, “that you have heard that the cutter has been captured?” “Yes, I heard that she had left the harbor, but it is not known whether there is a mutiny on board, or whether she has been captured by the rebels. What are you going to do about it, Mr. Jewett?


“What are we going to do about it? Why, we must and shall recapture her.” “That is easier said than done,” I replied. “Come,” said he, “hurry up and shave me, for I never was in a greater hurry. By the way, John, you have been to sea, and now come and go aboard the steamer and, help take her.” “Mr. Jewett, I feel as the clown felt not long ago – I am willing to live for my country, but not to die for it. Now to be serious, Mr. Jewett, if you attempt to capture with the Boston and New York steamers that armed cutter, the boats with all on board will go to the bottom.” “Well, that is what we propose to do either capture or sink the cutter with those steamers, the FOREST CITY and the CHESAPEAKE, or go to the bottom. John, you have courage enough to swing the razor, but you have not enough to will the sword.” To me it has ever seemed marvelous or providential that the steamers with all on board were not sent to the bottom and I have ever felt that those noble men and patriots who would not inform those who captured the cutter where the ammunition was concealed, even when in irons and with pistols placed a the heads, should have their names go down in history beside those whose names are enrolled on the scroll of fame. I have been to the custom house to fi nd the names of these men, but there are no records left – none at least to be found. They have either been lost or were burned in the great fi re of 1866. The only name that I can learn is that of Thomas Hoffron, who was at one time employed in the post offi ce. On the morning the Boston boat arrived she reported seeing the cutter being towed to sea. Then the hustling on board began. Mr. Jewett, the collector of the port, and Capt. McLellan had decided to recapture the cutter


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