This is the story of one Maine shipmaster who started his seafaring
career before the turn of the century in a small coaster, progressed
over a period of twenty-five years to command some of the largest
multi-masted schooners, moved on into steam, and finally retired from
the sea to become secretary of the oldest marine society in America.
His name was Frank Hewitt Peterson. It is a story that he could have
told you so much better than I. But he has been gone from these shores
for more than twenty years, so my memory and notes, and his journals
and scrapbook, will have to substitute for him.
In many respects his career was typical of those of captains of large
schooners between 1890 and 1920, but it is a career distinguished by
high achievement, professional excellence, modesty, personal integrity
and universal respect. However typical his career may have been, it,
like the man, was far from average.
The subject of this paper was born December 16, 1876, in a comfortable
saltwater farmhouse at Machiasport, Maine, the son of Captain James
and Mary Hooper Peterson. They named the baby Frank Hewitt. The new
arrival was a ninth generation descendant of George Soule who came
over on the MAYFLOWER and whose daughter married John Peterson of
Duxbury, Massachusetts. He was also descended from John Peterson of
Bath, Maine, (1744-1825), one of the first shipbuilders in this town.
In practically a half-century of seafaring, Capt. Frank Peterson
experienced strandings, collision and shipwreck, fire and hurricane,
gales, labor violence and war, good times and hard times. He sailed
in fore-and-afters and square-riggers, in steamers and motorships, in
dry cargo vessels and tankers, in passenger liners and in warships
from destroyers to aircraft carriers; in most of them as Chief Mate or
Master.
Of his early years I quote from something he once wrote:
Machiasport was a seafaring town. One did not have much choice of
career; either go to sea or to work in the woods with some of the
logging teams from Machias or Whitneyville. The lumber sawed in
Whitneyville was brought to Machiasport for shipment.... There were
always vessels loading lumber there or nearby, so there was always
an opportunity to go to sea.
Young Frank’s first job, after two years at Washington Academy which
served the town as a high school, was in a quarry. There he received
fifteen cents an hour for a ten-hour day, and he paid fifty cents a
day for board. As he recalled many years later, “It was hard work and
I decided that it would be better to go to sea as my elder brother had
already done.”[1]
[Illustration: _The Peterson home at Machiasport, birthplace of F.H.P._]
So it was that in July, 1892, at the age of fifteen Frank Peterson
shipped as a green sailor on the two-masted schooner REGINA, Capt.
Frank Sanborn commanding. REGINA was a new vessel then. In her
declining years she achieved certain fame as the Kennebunkport studio
of author Booth Tarkington. But when she sailed that time for Boston,
with lumber, she was just an ordinary coasting schooner. Still, it was
enough to launch Frank Peterson on a seafaring career.
[Illustration: _Schr. REGINA of Machiasport, 108 tons. F.H.P. went to
sea for the first time on this vessel. The year: 1892._]
Arriving in Boston one evening, REGINA anchored until the tug appeared
next morning to dock her. In those days it was customary for the crew
to work cargo, and as they were towing up the harbor the captain asked,
“Boys, do you want to work cargo all day or work ‘tide work’?” The
boys elected to work “tide work” but as Pete (we shall call him “Pete”
hereafter, with no disrespect) recalled, “We worked all that day and at
high water that night the skipper called us out to go to work again.”
The cook who also had to help discharge the cargo observed wryly,
“Boston is a damned funny place. The tide here stays up all day and
then comes up again at night.”
Over the next five or six years Pete voyaged up and down the eastern
seaboard and occasionally to the West Indies in a dozen different
small Machias schooners and brigs, first as ordinary seaman, then as
able seaman, then Second Mate and eventually as Mate. Generally, these
vessels laid up during the winter and did not start out again until
March. Town Meeting Day, the first Monday in March, was also the day
when the skippers shipped their crews.
Pete was introduced to square-riggers in March, 1894, when he signed
on as AB on the 20-year-old brig ELLEN M. MITCHELL, Capt. Job Small
commanding. She was loaded with lumber for Cuba. As Pete was signing
on, Capt. Small remarked, “Well, Frank, we’re bound for Cardenas, the
finest port in the Island of Cuba!”
[Illustration: _The hermaphrodite brigs or 1/2-brigs ELLEN M. MITCHELL
and MARY BARTLETT were similar to this unidentified visitor to Boston.
No pictures of the MITCHELL or BARTLETT have been found._]
[Illustration: _Portland Harbor about 1902. The little coasters seen
here are the very sort of vessel that F.H.P. sailed in during his early
years at sea._]
Capt. Small was then well along in years and in poor health. For
security, should anything happen to the skipper, the owner signed on
as Mate a man who had commanded several small schooners. However, the
Mate had never been in a square-rigged vessel and the first time he had
occasion to brace the yards on the wind, he braced them all just as far
as they would go. When the skipper came on deck, he took one glance
aloft and exclaimed, “Go-o-o-d Je-e-esus, Mr. Phinney, you don’t know
scarcely nawthin’, do ye?”
When they reached Cuba, Pete, as the youngest aboard, was made boat
boy. A sail was rigged on the longboat and Pete sailed the captain
ashore, remaining by the boat until his return from conducting the
ship’s business. The skipper didn’t look a bit happy when he rejoined
the boat and as they sailed back to the brig he remarked, “Frank this
is the Goddamnedest gunk hole I ever was in.” Pete reminded him that
he had told him earlier that it was “the finest port in the Island of
Cuba,” but Capt. Small replied, “Never said no sech thing.... Nosir!”
That voyage nearly put an end to young Frank Peterson. From Cuba the
MITCHELL went to Mobile where, up the Tombigbee River, she loaded
lumber for New York. They no sooner got to sea again than the crew
commenced to come down with malaria. The cook was the first to fall,
and Pete went into the galley. Everyone was overjoyed when the cook was
finally able to resume his duties. Finally Pete himself came down with
the disease and had to take to his berth. Unfortunately, by that time
all the medicine had been used up. By the time the brig reached New
York, Pete was too weak to stand. They lowered him over the side into
the quarantine doctor’s launch, and he was in the Marine Hospital on
Staten Island for two months. The doctor told him, “Another few days on
that brig and they’d have buried you at sea.”
After two months in hospital, during which he dropped from a muscular
206 pounds to 145 pounds, Pete went home; by rail to Rockland and to
Machias on the steamer CITY OF ROCKLAND. When his strength returned he
signed on as AB, and later as Mate, on a succession of small schooners.
Then in September of 1896 he joined the 600-ton bark LAPLAND in New
York as Second Mate. This Bucksport-built vessel was owned by John
S. Emery & Company of Boston and commanded by Capt. G. W. Cates of
Machias. She loaded general cargo for Demerara and went out there in
thirty-two days.
[Illustration:
_Bark LAPLAND of Boston, 649 tons. F.H.P. was Second Mate in
1895-96 and rejoined her as Mate in May 1898. He remained with her
until her loss in a West Indian hurricane in September._
]
Pete spent some thirteen months as Second Mate of the LAPLAND. This was
a valuable learning period in Pete’s life, and the year spent in the
little bark sharpened his professional skills and provided practical
command experience.
The skipper was accompanied on the voyage by his wife. It happened
that the LAPLAND sailed from Boston in company with the three-masted
schooner LAURA, another Emery vessel also bound for Demerara. The bark
made a slow passage and just before they arrived Mrs. Cates observed to
her husband, “I’ll bet that the LAURA is here and discharged.” Capt.
Cates replied, “She may be here but I’ll b-b-b-bet you a dress against
a b-b-b-box of cigars that she isn’t discharged.” The first question
they asked the pilot was, “Is the LAURA here?” His answer was, “No.”
The LAPLAND had completed discharging her cargo and was in the stream
taking on sand ballast when the LAURA finally arrived. As the schooner
sailed in by, Mrs. Cates called and asked where they’d been. Capt.
Lamson of the LAURA called back, “Where was old Moses for forty days?!
In the wilderness!”
The following day, the LAPLAND sailed for Port o’ Spain, Trinidad, to
load asphalt for Philadelphia. Pete described the operation thus:
The asphalt comes from the crater of an extinct volcano and they
call it the “pitch lake”. Whatever pitch was taken out, the lake
would be all filled in again by the next day and one would never
know that any had been removed. It was sent down the mountain in
tubs carried on an overhead wire which ran all the way down to the
dock. There the tubs were dumped and returned on a parallel wire.
I went up in one of the tubs to have a look. There were wisps of
steam coming up through cracks in the pitch and it was very soft
and hot in the center of the lake, but hard enough around the edges
to be dug out with pickaxes.
During the voyage to Philadelphia, they took a gale between Bermuda and
Hatteras and the vessel was hove to for several days, washing heavily.
When the wind would shift so that the bark could not head the seas,
they would have to wear around. The skipper’s wife was standing in
the after companionway one day as they were wearing ship, and noticed
that when the wind came aft the bark would become very steady, so she
said to her husband, “Why don’t you run her?” He replied, “G-G-God
damn’er, I’ll r-r-run ’er all right if the wind ever comes to the
s-s-s-south’ard.”
After discharging the asphalt, they loaded West Virginia spruce lumber
for Rosario, Argentina. They arrived at Buenos Aires without event and
towed up the river to Rosario. Having no charter, they anchored in the
stream after the lumber was discharged. The crew deserted promptly, all
except the Mate, the cook, and one seaman, in addition to Pete.
While lying at anchor one day, a native brig came downriver and
anchored under the LAPLAND’s stern. When he tried to get under way
the following day, he could not fill away from his anchor so he ran a
hawser up to the bark and asked them to hold it until he got his anchor
up. When he filled away, he sang out for them to let go the hawser. The
mate of the LAPLAND, however, called out that the hawser was jammed and
he couldn’t release it, so they had to let their end go. The hawser was
hauled aboard and coiled down on top of the after house. When Capt.
Cates came aboard he noticed the hawser and asked where it came from.
On being informed, he ordered the Mate to put it in the boat in the
morning and take it ashore, as the brig belonged there. Next morning
was a hot one, and they had to drag the hawser up to a warehouse. Pete
remembered, “We were sorry then that we had not let go of it when the
brig filled away.”
After swinging at anchor for two weeks, they finally chartered to load
hay for Santos, Brazil. The hay was loaded at a small dock about five
miles upriver above Rosario. Then they went again to an anchorage while
trying to get a crew. Eventually the shipping master brought a crew and
they proceeded. This was an interesting operation. The current in the
river was strong and with a headwind, so instead of tacking ship as the
bank approached, they would simply back the yards and go stern first to
the other side and then repeat the performance.
Once at Santos, the crew again deserted and had to be replaced before
the bark could go again to Trinidad for another cargo of asphalt for
Philadelphia. When he learned at Philadelphia that the vessel was to
load barrelled oil for Ireland, Pete asked to be paid off. Wanting to
go home for a spell, he found the three-masted schooner HUMAROCK bound
for Boston and in need of a Mate. Pete took the berth and on arrival
paid off and went home.
He was soon off to sea again, this time as Mate of larger schooners,
three-masters and the big Morse four-master CHARLES A. CAMPBELL of
which he was Mate for about eight months. In April, 1898, Capt.
Cates of the LAPLAND saw Pete in New York while he was Mate of the
three-master ABBIE G. COLE, and asked him to come back to the LAPLAND
as First Mate. The captain said that after discharging coal at Boston,
the bark was chartered on Medford rum and general cargo for Sierra
Leone and Konakry, West Africa. Pete agreed to go and then began a
never-to-be-forgotten experience.
[Illustration:
_Schr. CHARLES A. CAMPBELL, 1503 tons. F.H.P. was Mate of this
vessel for nearly a year in 1897._
]
He rejoined the LAPLAND at Lewis Wharf in Boston on May 28, 1898.
On June 9, they sailed. After a passage of thirty-four days, they
arrived at Sierra Leone during the rainy season. By the time they had
discharged and sailed on August 8 for Barbados for orders, the sails,
which were never furled during the whole time on the coast, as well
as much of the running rigging, had started to rot. They had a long
passage to Barbados.
My notes record many amusing incidents reported by Pete. Capt. Cates
was a comical man without intending to be so. As you have already seen,
he stuttered badly, especially when excited; and when he cursed, which
was often, it could be very funny. Every morning he would read aloud
from the Bible before coming on deck, and in a voice loud enough so
that the man at the wheel could hear him. Then he’d come on deck and
swear like a trooper at anything that didn’t suit him.
Capt. Cates stood on the top of the after house one day looking at the
vessel’s wake. Finally, he hailed the helmsman, “Mind your helm there!
S-S-Somebody’ll c-c-c-come along and th-th-think a s-s-sea s-s-serpent
has been through here!”
On another occasion, Pete told me, “One Saturday afternoon we painted
the fly-rail which extended all around the stern of the ship. On
Sunday, the Second Mate (who was the captain’s young son, Leslie)
suggested that we try to harpoon one of the sharks which had been
following us for some time. He got out the iron and poised himself for
a throw, while I held and prepared the line. Finally he heaved the iron
into a good-sized shark, and I hastily took a couple of turns of the
line around the first strong support I could find. It happened to be
the rail. In his frantic efforts to free himself, the shark carried
that line along the top of the freshly painted rail from one quarter to
the other. We got the shark aboard after a while, but the newly painted
rail was an awful mess. The captain heard the commotion as we hauled
the shark aboard, and came on deck. He took one look at the rail and
then commenced to swear in his own inimitable fashion, “J-J-J-Jesus
C-C-C-Christ!!! Can’t a sh-sh-shark c-c-c-come around without some
G-G-G-God-d-damned f-f-fool wanting to h-h-harpoon him?”
Pete went on, “I remarked to the captain one day that, having received
no mail in Africa, we should get some at Barbados as they’ll have had
time enough to get it out here. He replied, ‘It’ll be s-s-s-so damned
yellow with age that you can’t r-r-r-read it.’”
Not long after arriving in Barbados on September 10, the approach of a
hurricane was reported. The subsequent events are well described in a
letter from Capt. Cates to his wife: