Page 24. MAINE COASTAL NEWS July 2017 HISTORY FROM THE PAST - Hancock Gazette - 1827 20 June


American Prisoners in Africa Letters from Gibraltar have announced


the generous attention paid by Mr. Everett, our Minister in Spain, to the condition of a number of unfortunate although misguided Americans confi ned at Cuta having been captured in a Colombian privateer. Mr. Ev- erett it appears, not only made a successful application to the Spanish Court, on the subject, but sent $64 to the American Acting Consul at Gibraltar, to be applied to the relief of their personal wants. His liberal example was followed by Mr. Henry, the Consul who opened a subscription at Gibraltar among the American residents there, and obtained $175 more. The following is Mr. Everett’s letter to the Council on the subject: – Madrid, April 9, 1827


Sir – I received this evening a note


from the Minister of State, informing me that in consequence of a personal applica- tion which I lately made to the King for the release of several American citizens now detained at Centa, H. M. has been pleased to accede to my request, and that the Minister of War has been this day directed to issue the necessary orders to that eff ect. I have already had some correspon-


dence with Mr. Henry on this subject, and have authorized him in the events of the release of these persons, and of their apply- ing for assistance and protection to furnish them with necessaries and to procure them a passage home in the usual way. I will beg the favor of you as Acting Consul in his absence, to attend to these instructions, and to inform the of your proceedings; I enclose a letter for


the Prisoners, informing them of the King’s decision in their favor, which you will please to transmit by the fi rst opportunity – and I availed myself of this occasion to assure you of my sincere respect and esteem. (Signed,) A. H. EVERETT R. M’Call, Esq. Acting Consul of the United States for the Port of Gibraltar


First appearance of the English in


China. – In a Chinese topographical account of Canton, it is stated that “In the winter of the 29th


year of Wanlee (about 1600) two or


three large ships came to Macao; the peo- ple’s clothes were red, their bodies tall, and their hair red. Their eyes were blue and sunk in their heads; their feet were one cubit two tenths long; they frightened the people by their strange appearance.” The English were not permitted to land merely on account of the extraordinary fi gure they cut; but in the 10th


year of Shun-che their ambassadors


were received, and “the Emperor, in con- sideration of the diffi culty of their voyage, ordered them to come once in eight years with tribute.


Should Capt. Parry proceed in his


expedition, as he has undertaken, from Cloven Cliff , in Lat. 79, directly north, a contemplated distance of 600 miles, will it not completely test Captain Symmes’ theory of an inner world? – B. Palad.


Among the crew of the privateer BO-


LIVAR, in prison at New Orleans, are the following Americans: George Williams, John Furlong, Robert Sherman, John King,


Continued from Page 5.


I remember his father, the story I heard him tell, when my father-in-law Millard was just a baby he and his mother went with his father lobstering off of Petit Manan. His father had traps in close so he would go in and watch and count the waves and go in and get his traps and come back out, but he got caught


behind a breaker and it broke on him. He got the boat headed around into it so they managed to get out of it, but it scared him almost to death. Another time he was setting on the engine box, just a small boy, and he had a knit sweater on and the shaft that ran the hauler ran over the top of the engine box and the raveling caught that shaft and it unravel that sweater completely off of him.”


John Donnelley, and John Johnson. The crew consisted of 37 men, 22 of whom were white.


The American schooner ANTOI-


NETTE, captured by the Colombian pri- vateer BOLIVAR, being tired of waiting for the latter, ran up the Mississippi to look for her, when she was taken possession of by Lieutenant Morris, from the U. S. Fort. Six of her crew were put in irons. The prize master jumped overboard, and got on board the brig AMIABLE MATILDA, after being wounded.


Portsmouth, NH, June 14 A Whale Caught. On Thursday after-


noon last, a whale, which had been seen in the offi ng several days previous, came into our harbor, and continued sporting near the navy yard for 2 or 3 hours, where the spectators had a fi ne view of him. A little before sunset, attracted thither probably by the large quantities of alewives in the river, he passed Portsmouth bridge. It is supposed he injured himself against the piers, and was evidently afraid to repass it. On Friday morning he was seen by many market people coming down the river. An expedition was immediately set on foot by Col. Decatur of the Navy Yard, and Mr. Z. Willey to take him, which was not successful till evening at 5 o’clock, when a harpoon from Mr. Willey took a fact, followed by two harpoons and four lances from Col. Decatur, near Pine Point, in the Berwick branch of Piscataqua, about 10 miles from town. He continued towing the two boats attached to him, till


“Daddy did have a thing about getting


Wednesday morning, sometimes going with the greatest velocity, and with eminent danger to the boats at the Horse races, which was nearly three hours, and from 5 to 7 in the morning was in view of thousands who fl ocked to see them, being then in sight of Portsmouth bridge. He was fi nally dis- patched at 7 o’clock, near the bridge, and secured in Spinney’s Creek, thence carried to Badger’s Island, where preparations were yesterday made for his public exhibition. From Friday to Wednesday morning the river has been fi lled with boats, either trying to take him, or to view the sport. The bridge and margins of the river have been thronged with spectators, especially on Monday after- noon, when he was in view the whole time, and the river perfectly calm. The appearance of a whale in any river in the United States would be considered as an extraordinary and gratifying circumstance, and for fi ve days our citizens have had that opportunity, which may never occur again. The length of the whale is about 50 feet, and his breadth about 16 feet, head is shaped like that of the horse, and he diff ers from all others that have been seen by those acquainted with that species of fi sh. His motion was undulatory, and it is the opinion of Col. Decatur that this is the very Sea Serpent which has so long been a visitor on our coast.


Sea Serpent. – A letter has been


published in one of the Irish Newspapers accompanied by the attestation of several respectable looking names, describing a monster of the serpent kind, seen upon a wreck which was fallen in with, by the


S   I  W B Mystic Seaport Shipyard Continued from Page 15.


tubes, as you can imagine after all of those years, were both scaled and even eroded. It took quite a while to fi nd a company willing to design it and submit the plans to the Coast Guard and get approval by them and then do the fabrication and testing. The boiler is now sitting in the shop and I just made ar- rangements this morning for the 12th


to have


a crane here to put the new boiler back in.” The boiler was designed and built by


Potts Welding and Boiler Repair in Newark, DE. This company was founded by Walter Potts in 1929, who started doing boiler re- pair. The company remained doing this until the 1970s when they began specializing in fabrication of boilers and related parts. Quentin added, “We have been able


to restore this boat with essentially three grants, one from the state and two from the federal government. We hope to have her operating by the end of July for our Antique & Classic Boat Rendezvous.” Last fall they hauled the whale ship


CHARLES W. MORGAN for the first time since her restoration, about 3½ years before. Quentin said, “Her bottom was in great shape, but after that much time a lot of her natural fi ber rigging was in need of replacement. So we did a lot of re-rigging, stripping her down to her lowers essentially last winter. The DUNTON has had her rig


out for the last three years since her last haul out, because one of the sticks was bad. She will be hauled again this fall and in the meantime we will put at least the lowers back in sometime early summer.” “Other than that summer will be routine


haul outs for our medium size craft and all of the small craft come out annually and they have all been done and put back in,” said Quentin. “We have got our liberty launch operating already and other than that, clean- ing up the grounds. The MAYFLOWER is a big footprint in the shipyard and there is a tremendous amount of timber gathered for it. We have had three good projects down in the south handling Live Oak timber from either roadbuilding projects or land clearing for powerline rights-of-way and a lot of that material has come here. We are also getting ready for a new Vice President of Watercraft Preservation starting on the 5th


. He was hired


through a fairly exhaustive search process which was done early this winter. He is an unlimited ocean master, graduate of Kings Point and spent probably 20 years at sea and now coming ashore to be the vice president here.” If you are heading south take the time


to stop by Mystic Seaport and visit the ship- yard. Also visit the new exhibit building, which is open and has some great exhibits in it.


caught in shafts,” said Willis. “Later on he had his own boat and this is when he was fi shing out of Kittery. He and the family moved to Kittery in company with his Uncle Lyman Alley, everybody knew him as Gus, he was quite a racer. Anyway Millard was about 18 years old and he got a new Frost built boat. His father and mother helped him build traps and got a gang of traps together and started lobstering. Well, he had a young kid going with him and they say he had put in a self bailer and he had asked his father to come look at it and he said, “Now Millard whatever you do don’t use that until you wrap that shaft. Wrap that up so you won’t get caught in those bolts. Well he said on the way out he thought he’d try it to see how it worked and he would be careful. He had a sweater on and sure enough he got his arm caught and it ripped the sweater pret near completely off of him, but he got clear. However, it gouged his arm on the inside part up towards his elbow. He wrapped it up the best he could and he told the kid with him you’ve got to get me home. They did get home and he walked up to his uncle’s house and his aunt was expecting a baby at the time and he didn’t want to alarm her so he stayed outside and got his uncle to come out to take him to the hospital. In the dragger he had a shaft that ran through the cabin door to a transmission and the transmission had a chain sprocket from that to the engine. The engine didn’t start well mornings, it didn’t have an automatic choke, and he straddled that shaft to choke the engine to start it and the transmission was supposed to have been in neutral but it wasn’t and when that engine started it grabbed his boot, and it spun him right into the bilge of the boat, shoulder fi rst. It just happened being cold it stalled. He was wound up in that shaft so he hollered to his father-in-law to shift the transmission to neutral and when he did it unwound. He said he felt like he was bleeding in both legs. He


took his clothes down, but it wasn’t bleeding and most people would’ve come home as that would’ve been enough for that day, but he didn’t he drag all day long and suff ered it out.


Robert added another Tall Barney story,


saying, “They caused so much trouble when they went into the bars that the bartender told them that he wasn’t going to serve them any alcohol. Barney got upset and he threw every chair and table out the door into the street and everybody that was sitting down he threw them out too. They got what they wanted to drink, helped themselves. He wasn’t very good when he was drinking.” Willis then remembered building his


house, saying, “My father-in-law and I built on it and we were working at the same time. It happened that Adrian Beal and Lester didn’t have any boatbuilding jobs so I hired them and they got a $1.75 an hour. Never forget it. They built the chimney and the whole thing. They were good workmen and of course we would help right along with them when we could. I can remember Millard and I put the windows in ourselves. I did put the footing down. They sent a crew over with a truck load of forms and I had never put any forms up before. We set the forms up and I had measured widthwise and fi gured it was going to be square corners. I measured from corner to corner and it was square. For some reason or another it didn’t come out square. I was kind of puzzled and I got looking the situation over and I had taken two 2 x 4s together the right length, tacked them in the middle, and they bowed down, and that pulled the middle in so it made the corners off square. I made another mistake, I was going to put windows in the foundation walls and I put one on each end and that is where the carrying beam needed to be set. I fi lled those in afterwards. There is no fi ller between the sills of my house and the cement wall so I think it came out pretty well. We live and lear n.”


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