March 2018 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 9. B B F


WHITEFIELD – I have been fortunate over the years to meet some of the most impres- sive boatbuilders, but there are a number that passed away before I began running up and down the coast. Not just to document their history, but to see how they practiced their trade. Some of these builders were so talented. They did not have the power tools we do today, but could turn out a fl awless product. One builder that was very talented was Bert Frost, son of Will Frost. Bert passed away in 1975, but I was for-


tunate to fi nd Harriet Vaughan, his daughter, who was willing to talk about her father and the Frost family. Harriet thought that Will Frost came


to Maine from Digby, Nova Scotia due to fi nancial issues in about 1912. When World War I broke out, the family had to return to Canada, as they were not U S. citizens. Bert graduated from high school in 1928 and her mother from Jonesport High School the following year. In September 1930, Bert married Ruth Ginn, whose father was Harry Ginn, the marine blacksmith of Jonesport. After they were married, they moved into the Frost house. At this time the Frost shop was over in Sawyer’s Cove in Jonesport. Will Frost had four sons, Merrill was


the oldest, followed by Bert, then Gerald and Ward. There were also six daughters. When Harriet was born in the mid-


1940s the family was living in Tiverton. “The story was, he didn't know my mother was in the hospital or anything,” said Harri- et. “They were trying to locate him, because it was a very desperate birth, breech birth, and they were trying to decide what would the husband choose. The story I always heard from my father was how devastated he was the day I was born because I wasn't that son he had been hoping for. He always had pity parties every few years, but he was loving and very warm.” She said she does not remember any-


thing about her time there, but did know her father was building draggers. One story that she heard was her grand-


father, Will Frost, had a boat shop there in the 1938 hurricane. Harriet added, “In the storm surge he ended up getting way up in the rafters to get on top of his shop and I guess it destroyed a lot of his machinery. That's given as a reason for the business failure. My sister said that they were just down there that day scouting out a place so who's story is true, I don't know.” It was also said they went to Somerville,


Harriet thought for the people that they built the rum runners for. They ended up working for a man who produced the Jone- sport-Baltzer boats. Harriet added, “I think they probably had no money. My mother said that they would get money for a boat, and without thinking how far you've got to parcel things out, it would be gone. They just didn't manage money well.” Harriet started school in Wakefi eld,


Rhode Island and her father was working for Hanson's Boat Yard in Wakefi eld. “Then his father summoned him home,” said Harriet. “One of my female cousins says it was a deception. My grandfather kept his records not on paper but on scraps of wood. He told my father one fi gure for the debts when it was many times more. When they fi nally saw what it actually was they realized that there was no way to make a go of it.” Ward Frost lived in Gardiner for a num-


ber of years. When Bert was building the schooner DEI GRATIA, later to be known as RACHEL B. JACKSON, Ward was building her masts. Harriet said, “Rita had cabins in Farmingdale and that is where they all were in 1940. I think the grandparents were living with her and Will was taking jobs here and there, he might've even been commuting to Boothbay. I do a lot of genealogy and in the 1940 Census my parents were on Riverside Drive in Tiverton and Riley Lowell and most of his family were in Tiverton. My sister said for a time in Tiverton all of them lived in one great big house.” However, Will was not in Rhode Is-


land, and Harriet could not fi nd him listed anywhere. “My cousin Bill was showing a photograph of Will sharpening a saw,” said Harriet, “and he says that it is in Farmingdale in about 1940 when that picture was taken.” In the late 1940s, Harriet remembers


her grandfather having a big old house with a shop on the back, like a barn, which was located at 1373 Washington Avenue, Portland. She added, “I don't remember them ever being together. I just think of my grandfather as being an old man in a room when we were taken into see him.” When the shop moved to South Port-


land, Harriet said that Bert was running it with a crew of men. Unfortunately, Bert found himself in fi nancial trouble in the mid- 1950s and they moved to South Yarmouth on Cape Cod. There Bert worked for Chester Crosby and Barnstable Marina. Harriet says her mother left and went


back and bought a house on Ferry Street in West Jonesport in the late 1950s. She added, “We lived there from 1958 to 1962 and he came up but their marriage was very tentative. I think he did some work at somebody else's boat yard down around Ellsworth. He would get an occasional boat to build. He didn't have a shop of his own and he would have to fi nd some space that somebody would rent him. There was a building on Ferry Street that he built some boats in. I was a senior in high school when all of a sudden we are hearing about David Scull and the Three Rivers Corporation. The Seacoast Mission found him a sponsor. From then on, everything was set up; he didn't own anything that he could lose. My mother said the contract had a clause built into it called cost-plus so he couldn't lose.” Harriet would graduate from Jonesport High School and headed off to college.


When at the University of Maine at Orono she met her future husband Chuck Vaughan and after they were married they settled in Boothbay for a number of years. In the years Bert


operated at Jonesport the list shows he built 34 boats. Most of them were lobster boats, but there were a few pleasure boats and a couple of sailboats. He can also be credited with organizing the lobster boat races on Moosabec Reach. The schooner DEI GRATIA was under construction when he got sick and she would be his last boat. Bert would pass away in 1975 and Harriet thought that he stopped going to the shop in 1974. An interesting as-


pect of this story is the tie this schooner has to the MARY CELESTE, which was found aban-


doned in the Atlantic Ocean with no one on board. The vessel that discovered the MARY CELESTE was the brigantine DEI GRATIA and her skipper was Capt. David Morehouse. Howland Stoddard, who was having DEI GRATIA built, was from the family that insured MARY CELESTE. Bert was related to the Morehouse family as Will Frost’s mother was Janet Morehouse. After Bert passed away, Stoddard died


and the schooner ended up in litigation for a couple of years. At one point, she was at the Hodgdon yard as just a hull and deck


Bert Frost


and someone thought she was a Murray Peterson schooner and they began tearing her apart. Fortunately, someone knew her history before they went too far and the work stopped. She would fi nally be fi nished off by the Emery brothers of South Freeport. They would change her name to RACHEL B. JACKSON, which was their grandmother who helped fi nance the project. Bert Frost was a very talented boat-


builder and hopefully we can fi nd more information about his career and the boats he built.


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