July 2017 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. S I W B
BEALS – It does not matter where on the coast one might be if you fi nd the right person or persons you can learn a lot about the area and its people. There is always a few that paid attention to what was going on and it is them that keeps much of our history alive. On Beals Island one great resource for the history of the island, especially about the boats, is Willis Beal. This is the third and fi nal article on some stories he told me this past spring. There are a number of stories about
Tall Barney. Willis said, “What about the time that Tall Barney fi red a three barrel shotgun? All three barrels fi red at once. It was after supper, I believe it was Alton Rog- ers who invented the gun, he came over to Tall Barneys to have him fi re it. They went outside and he was standing just ahead of a clothes line and it reeled him back enough that it knocked his hat off . They got quite a laugh over that. I guess there was quite a few gathered to watch. I believe that Ferrell Beal has got that gun. One barrel is painted red, one white and one blue. When Tall Barney wasn’t around to fi re it they would leash it to a fence post or a fl agpole or something, they used to fi re it at 4 July.” Another story: “Of course we know a lot
of stories about Tall Barney. Some are told diff erent than others, you know how folklore goes. He was down fi shing in Canadian waters, ground fi shing, and the Canadian patrol came to arrest him. When one started to come aboard the boat he picked up a 9 foot oar and cut his ear off . So they started aboard with a gun and he grabbed the gun and bent it up. He said, “There that’ll do to shoot around corners,” and after that they left him alone,” said Willis. “He used to go gunning birds a lot and
back then they loaded their own shells and they made sure that they hit something when they fi red,” said Willis. “He had a dory and he would have the birds lined right around the risings when he came back. They would carry them to the house a washtub full to a time. Of course his wife helped pick them. They didn’t have deep freezers then they had capped them off in jars and keep them that way. So there was a lot of work to it. She was a small woman, but I have heard my grandfather say that she could put a barrel of fl our under the cupboard herself. Another thing that I have heard him tell about, he said when Grampie Barney was around they didn’t have to get the block out to lift
the barrels of water on board the vessel. He would get down on his knees and pick it right out of the dory and set it on the deck. He had seen him do that. He was a powerful man.” “My grandfather and father, Alfred and
Alton Beal, they were off to Smith’s Reef, in a 30 foot torpedo stern boat with the spray hood and a little hauling house behind it,” said Willis. “They hadn’t been out for quite a long time and they wanted to go check their traps to see how they weathered the storms that had gone by. They were soft wood traps, round bow. They get out there and there wasn’t any wind but they could hear this roaring and it was blue looking. The sky was real dark blue. They were tempted not to go but decided they would. They get out there and I don’t know whether they hauled any traps are not, but the wind struck northwest with snow. They decided that they would go back and the boat would jump, the bow under and when she came up the stern would go under but they managed to get home. “Another time they got caught out there,
but they were in a Harold Gower boat, my father’s boat a 36 foot boat 9 feet wide, house and cabin and Daddy had the windows put in with safety glass, automobile glass, he had it cut special. It was a good thing that he did because they get caught out and he said the mast for the riding sail would buckle right up it was blowing so hard. It shut down snow again and they headed in. They didn’t have the markers that we have today. He was afraid that if he didn’t make the right course he would get into the breakers. He decided to run for the Brothers, get in the lee and get some bearings. They worked their way home and the boat would jump her bow under and the water would go right up over the windshield into the cockpit. They didn’t have these automatic pumps then or bilge pumps run by belts, they pumped by hand. When they got up into the lee side of Mark Island my grandfather went down below to check and see how much water they had and bailed out what he could with a bailing dish. He couldn’t get out of the cabin until they got into the reach because it was so rough, blowing so hard. All he had then was a compass and a watch.” Robert, Willis’ brother added, “Father
happened to see one of his trap buoys and knew where he was and he got in through the breakers that way. It was snowing so hard he couldn’t see anything.” Robert added, “Another time they were
At Smith's wharf in West Jonesport, APRIL AND KRISTI, built by Willis Beal in 1990.
off Smith’s Reef and the engine broke down. My father always carried a 12 foot oar and it is here in the shop somewhere. They had a big oar socket that they fastened it to the side of the coamings on the boat and I think that that was a torpedo stern boat. They rowed with that oar and they were just 5 or 6 miles south of Libby Island and they kept rowing and rowing to up outside of the Brothers and the tide turned fl ood and they knew that they would lose ground with the fl ood tide so they anchored. They hoped that my grandfather’s brothers would come looking for them. They said that it had got dark and they still hadn’t come, but they heard en- gines. Then my grandfather always kept a burlap on a stick in the bow and he had some coal oil and when the sound of the engines got close enough he soaked that down and lit it up and held that pole-up and then they heard the brothers say, “There they are right there.” They towed them in and my father said he got to the house at 10 o’clock and
started eating supper and one of the neigh- bors came in and he was covered in snow, it had come down a bad snowstorm. He said if they hadn’t found them when they did they would’ve never found them they would have frozen to death right there.” Robert said, “The only story that I re-
member Daddy told was, the Wallace family built a sailboat and they did it mostly on Sundays, I guess when they had days off . They were from Roques Bluff area. They were sailing, I guess in fog and they ran onto a ledge, which is now named Wallace Ledge. They climbed up the mast and fastened themselves to the mast, but they drowned. Willis added his father-in-law had a
number of close calls. Willis said, “He prit near got hauled overboard a couple of times. He was always one of these fellows that was in a hurry. He worked fast and sometimes he got himself into trouble and didn’t realize it.
Continued on Page 24.
Bring your boat to New England’s most capable yacht yard for the care she deserves. Repairs, refi ts, storage and dockage available for vessels up to 200 feet and 480 tons.
Belfast,Maine 207-930-3740
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
