January 2018 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. R S D H B S F
SOUTHWEST HARBOR – One of the most noted boatbuilders of the State of Maine is Ralph W. Stanley of Southwest Harbor. His career began in the mid-1900s and ended when he passed the business on to his son, Richard in the early 2000s. However, Ralph was more than a great craftsman he also learned about his family history, his town’s history and then wrote it all down for future generations to enjoy. This has come in the form of an e-book titled “The Stanleys of Cranberry Isles…and Other Colorful Char- acters” off ered by the Southwest Harbor Public Library’s Digital Archives. Ralph added, “It is a history of the
Stanley family more or less and then people I knew growing up and a lot of the summer people that came to Northeast Harbor. I started writing stuff years ago because when I was out sailing with Mrs. Montgomery I would tell her some of these stories and she’d say you must write this down. Albie Nelson wanted me to put it in a book because all of the stuff I knew was going to be lost. So I took all of the stuff that I had written and added some more to it. It is an e-book and right now you have to go to Southwest Harbor Library to get it.” Ralph understands the advantages of
doing a book of this type as an e-book. Mistakes can be changed, additional infor- mation can be added and you can hyperlink to related archives. Still many of us are clamoring for a hard bound copy. “Well, I started with George Stan-
ley who came to Beverly, Massachusetts probably about 1660,” added Ralph. “The story that came down through the Stanley family was that the Stanleys were chased out of England for stealing sheep. It may be true, because at that time in England the landowners could make more money raising sheep and they turned the tenant farmers off of the land. So it could be true that they were deported for stealing sheep. George married Bethia Lovett and they had quite a number of children and some of them went down south, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia. My ancestors settled in Marblehead and they were Grand Banks fi shermen. In about 1754 the French started seizing colonial fi shing vessels on the Grand Banks, so two Stanley Brothers shifted their fi shing operation up on the Maine coast and they came to Cranberry Island. Eventually they settled there.” Ralph continued, “My great grandfa- ther was Enoch B. Stanley and he had seven
diff erent fi shing schooners. One of them was the ROSELLA, built in 1840 in Essex. His favorite schooner was the S. L. FOSTER, built in Damariscotta. He was born in 1820 and lived till 1903.” In the 1870s, tourists were beginning
to come to Mount Desert Island. One of the places built to house the tourist is the well- known Claremont House at the end of Clark Point in Southwest Harbor. Ralph added, “Well, my grandfather, Ralph Robinson, his mother was Henrietta Clark and she was a daughter of Seth Clark and Lucy Ward. Henrietta’s sister married a sea captain, Jesse Pease, from Rockland. He retired from the sea and in 1884 they built the Claremont for a summer hotel. Of course Seth Clark’s brother, Deacon Henry Clark, built the Island House, which was his home and he kept expanding it.” After Capt. Jesse Pease died, the Cla-
remont was sold to Dr. Phillips, but Jesse’s wife continued to manage it for a number of years. Dr. Phillips kept it going until he died and then his son took it over. The Claremont is still going today and is one of the nicer resorts on the coast. Capt. John L. Stanley was a major deal-
er in fi sh at Southwest Harbor. Ralph added, “Uncle Jimmy, who owned this house, used to buy fi sh on Cranberry Island and bring it up to John L. Stanley so the fi shermen down there didn’t have to run up to South- west Harbor to unload their catch. John L. Stanley was a descendent of one of the two brothers, John and Sands. His place burned down a couple of times. After it burned the last time that ended it.” When asked if he was the fi rst boat-
builder in the family, Ralph said, “No, I think my great grandfather built some small boats in the house before the house was fi nished off . Small boats I think, maybe they were little centerboard boats, 15 feet long or something like that. “Lewis Freeman Gott was a boatbuilder
in Bass Harbor and he built a number of boats,” added Ralph. “I don’t know how many. He built one sloop, it was a center- board sloop, which looked like a Friendship sloop, but it had a centerboard. He entered a lot of the races around here. Over at Eagle Island they had a cup and he won the cup because he won the race three years in a row. That cup is now over in the Tremont Historical Society.” What about the summer people Ralph
A four-masted schooner sitting off Southwest Harbor.
got to know? One was Erastus Corning, 2nd who was the mayor of Albany for life (nine consecutive terms). Ralph said, “He took care of business pretty well but every once in a while he would go on a drunk for two weeks.” This is an interesting chapter of how Erastus Corning, Sr. amassed a 12 million dollar fortune in the mid-1800s, only to have his son, Erastus, Jr., end up in debt at the time of his death. Erastus, Jr.’s sons would build back the family fortune and his grandson would become the mayor of Albany and a frequent visitor to Northeast Harbor. Ralph’s uncle Lou was hired by the
Milliken’s after the war. Ralph said, “Mrs. Milliken knew the family was growing and she wanted Uncle Lou to fi nd somebody to help him with the boats. He said, ‘why don’t you call her up or write a letter, so I wrote a letter. Well, they talked it over and decided
that Uncle Lou could do all that needed to be done. One day they wanted to go out fi shing and they called up uncle Lou to bring the boat over, but Uncle Lou was under the weather and he said he would send me up. I took them out to Baker’s Island and we caught some codfi sh and they had a good time. Then I got a call from Mrs. Milliken to come over and see her. So I went over and I got hired for that summer. I work for them the next year then I got sick so I had to take a year off and when I came back to work for them they put me in charge of the NILIRAGA for Mrs. Montgomery.” A great story Ralph told was sailing
NILIRAGA with the two Miss Lambs. He added, “Mrs. Montgomery had loaned the NILIRAGA for a day to the two Miss
Continued on Page 19.
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