I am so thankful to be permitted to write you of our terrible
experience in the hurricane of September 10.
God alone knows what I suffered in body and mind, knowing that if
the wind continued we should be cast upon a rocky coast where it
would be a miracle if any of us got safe to shore.
I arrived at Barbados Friday a.m. Saturday, weather looking bad,
I let go the second anchor. I went ashore. The barometer falling
slowly, I went to the weather bureau for information, but they
could not tell me where the storm was or how far off. I went on
board at 4 p.m., got everything secure, gave out all the chains. At
8 p.m., heavy squalls from N.E. to E. Had axes ready to cut spars,
for I knew if vessel parted and went broadside, she would capsize.
At 9 p.m. vessel started. The lightning and howling blast was
something awful. I put my mouth to mate’s ear and told him to crawl
forward (no man could stand) and cut lanyards. I took my hatchet
and got to main backstay and drew it across lanyard--could not
strike a blow, the wind was so fierce. The darkness and howling and
shrieking of the hurricane were beyond description.
All spars went by the board when she fell off side to wind on her
beam ends. Broken spars and flapping sails made a fearful noise.
I sent Leslie below, as it was no use for him or any one else on
deck. The vessel was then unmanageable. Both chains out, spars,
sails and rigging laying along-side and under her bottom. All we
could do was to hold on and let her drift. I knew that the other
vessels were somewhere near and it made me more anxious. I knew the
vessel would weather the gale if she didn’t go ashore.
It was 105 miles to the island of St. Vincent and I thought the
hurricane must abate before I drifted that far. The night wore
on. Such a night! God grant that I may not have to pass through
another! Leslie was upmost in my thoughts, but he kept up a stout
heart--only asked me once if there was any danger and that was when
I went below and told him the vessel was totally dismasted.
Sunday morning dawned upon a scene such as few men ever looked
upon. The heavens a mass of rolling clouds, the ocean lashed into
white foam and vessel laying on her side. Spars, sails, and rigging
were twisted and rolled up together. Three other vessels in sight
in same condition.
At 7 a.m., wind suddenly fell calm. I knew then we were in the
centre or vortex of the hurricane. We went to work and cut some
of the wreckage away; then the wind suddenly struck south and I
felt we were safe, for we would drift clear of the island, which I
judged to be 40 miles due west from us. At 8 a.m. it blew for one
hour, when it suddenly shifted to east, blowing with more violence
than before. I went below and told the mate, Frank Peterson, cook,
Geo. Morgan of Machiasport, and the boy, that if the wind held
where it was for four or five hours there was no help for us. The
vessel must go ashore. So take off your oil clothes said I, and put
on light clothes and shoes and be ready. Keep up a stout heart and
fight for life until the last. The coast was an iron bound one,
and I did not know of any sand beach on the windward side of St.
Vincent. We were nearer the dreaded coast than I thought, for I had
been giving the vessel a drift of 5 miles per hour and she had been
drifting 7, something unheard of.
While we were putting on shoes she struck bottom, the sea going
clear over us. Four times she was lifted high on top of a comber,
the last one landing her where she lay quiet. We shook hands and I
told Leslie if he got safe ashore to carry the sad tidings home.
We then went on deck--had to crawl to rail, couldn’t stand on our
feet. I looked but could see nothing. I looked down and there saw
dry sand where the sea ran off. Then my spirits rose for I knew we
were safe. I called the hands into the cabin and we got something
to eat.
We then got a small line and I put it around the mate, and he
jumped overboard and got safe ashore, after two attempts. I then
bent a line to Leslie and sent him.
We all got ashore the same way. The hurricane was then at its
height. We lay behind logs and bushes to keep from being blown
away, and to keep the sand from cutting our faces. After a while it
abated some. Then Leslie and myself started to find some town where
we could telegraph or cable.
We came across some people in the bush with their children and they
told us we could not cross the rivers. The bridges were all down
and there was not a house standing. Then we started to go another
way, but it was the same destruction everywhere. We went back and
stopped on the beach all night, soaked to our skins, and rain
falling in torrents.
Next day I tried again, but no use. Tuesday I got a horse and three
captains of us started for Kingston, 12 miles.
Three vessels are ashore within two miles of each other. We had
to swim rivers, climb mountains and fallen buildings. I can not
express the awful destruction this hurricane has caused. Hardly
a tree is standing, and in some instances where the tree stood
the gale, the bark is peeled entirely off. Dead bodies of cattle,
sheep, hogs, poultry and human beings are strewn everywhere. Not a
town outside of Kingston is standing. Every village we passed is
levelled to the ground.
Poor souls sitting around asking us for bread to eat, lost
everything they had, clothing and all. They were burying the dead.
Some in board coffins, some in trenches. They estimate the killed
at 500, but of the damage done to property no estimate can be made.
Capt. G. W. Cates
Bark Lapland[2]
Pete’s account of the experience adds a few details. There were three
other vessels in port when the hurricane struck, the barkentine GRACE
LYNWOOD of New York, the ship LOANDA of Windsor, Nova Scotia, and a
Danish barkentine that had just arrived in ballast. She capsized and
drowned all hands, the other two blew out of Barbados with the LAPLAND.
The first time Pete tried to take a line ashore through the surf, the
seas caught him and turned him end over end. They hauled him back
aboard and after a rest he made the beach on the next try, fastening
the line to a half-buried tree root. As the crew came ashore, Pete
counted them until all but two had made it, one of them Capt. Cates.
Finally the last two came through the surf. What had delayed them was
that the Captain had not waited until the old sailor just ahead of him
had reached the beach before starting along the line himself. Each man
tied himself by a loop over the line and slid it shoreward as he came.
The surf upended the old sailor, spun him around and kinked his line.
He was stuck and Capt. Cates couldn’t get past him. Several seas broke
over the pair before they got things unsnarled. In describing to Pete
what happened, Capt. Cates said, “If I’d had a n-n-n-knife, I’d have
s-s-s-set that old s-s-so and so adrift.”
The three captains and their crews, except officers and cooks,
proceeded on foot the twelve miles to Kingston where they got a Royal
Mail steamer to Barbados. The officers and cooks remained by their
respective wrecks. They were there ten days before the skippers
returned. In the meantime, on Capt. Cates’ instructions Pete had
given to the distressed natives all the stores and contents of the
slop chest. He said that they gladly took everything in the shape of
clothing except mittens. He had also built a canvas shelter on a wood
floor with stuff taken from the wreck which was almost rail-deep in the
sand. After the skippers returned, the wrecks were sold for a pittance
and they all sailed in one of the boats to Kingston and from there by
steamer to Barbados.
Pete and the crews of the LAPLAND and LOANDA went to St. John, New
Brunswick, on the Pickford & Black liner TAYMOUTH CASTLE. Pete
remembered that Capt. Dodge of the LOANDA, despite a missing hand,
played the violin well and that the Master of the steamer played the
piano so that the evenings were filled with good music. From St. John,
Pete had no trouble making his way home to Machiasport.
That December Pete joined the four-masted schooner SUSIE M. PLUMMER
as Mate. Capt. James E. Creighton was her master. At the time she was
discharging ship timber at Percy & Small’s shipyard. Pete made several
trips in the PLUMMER with coal to Cuba, and to Sabine, Texas; and one
with “dressed flooring” from New Orleans to Boston.
[Illustration:
_Schr. SUSIE M. PLUMMER, 920 tons. F.H.P. was Mate of this vessel
in 1899 and again in 1901._
]
In the Gulf of Mexico while bound for Sabine, Texas, they had a close
brush with a waterspout. They saw it approaching and realized that they
were in danger of being struck. Pete mentioned to the skipper that he
had heard that, if you fired a gun when a waterspout was close by, the
concussion would burst it. So Capt. Creighton fetched his double-barrel
shot gun and laid it on the coaming of the after house. Peter went
forward to douse the jibs just before the waterspout passed close by.
After it passed, he set them again and went aft. The skipper had not
fired the shotgun and when asked why he said he had become so excited
that he “plumb forgot about it” until it was too late.
It was while the PLUMMER was loading at New Orleans that a new federal
law requiring licenses for officers in sailing vessels went into
effect. On arrival at Boston, Pete sat for his examination for First
Mate in sail. He told me that, having to his credit plenty of time
in vessels over 700 tons, he didn’t have to do very much to get his
license. But this was just the beginning. Subsequently, he took and
passed the examination for Master of sailing vessels of unlimited
tonnage and then acquired licenses as First Class Pilot in practically
all of the coastal ports he had occasion to call at regularly: Boston,
Portland, Philadelphia, Newport News among them. In later years, after
he obtained the required time in steamships, he passed the examination
for a Master’s license for steam and motor vessels of any tonnage,
on any ocean, with so many First Class Pilot endorsements that they
completely filled up the space provided on the certificate.
After taking his Mate’s examination, Pete went home for the summer and,
as he had done on previous visits, to keep busy he went to work in
the sardine cannery. That fall, to help out Capt. Cole who was having
difficulty rounding up a crew, Pete went Mate in the three-master ABBIE
G. COLE from Machias to St. John. After rigging her down so as to pass
under the bridge, he went to Portland where in November 1899 he joined
the three-master ADDIE CHARLESON of Portland. She was one of the J. S.
Winslow & Company fleet and the first of many Winslow vessels that Pete
was to sail in.
He made several coal trips in the CHARLESON as Mate; to Galveston,
to Bermuda, and finally from Baltimore to Bath where he paid off.
Proceeding to Boston, he shipped in the Thomaston schooner JAMES B.
JORDAN, a 700-ton three-master. A couple of trips in the JORDAN took
him to Rockland where he paid off and went home again. He worked a
while again in the sardine factory sealing cans.
In September, 1900, he rejoined Capt. Creighton in the SUSIE M. PLUMMER
at Portland. His wages as Mate were $45 a month. She was due for her
half-time survey and repairs, so they proceeded to Thomaston where
several weeks were spent repairing, including setting four new masts.
On completion of the repairs and the survey, the PLUMMER went to
Baltimore to load coal and coke for Havana. While discharging this
cargo with the crew, one day after finishing work one of the crew came
aft and asked for a dose of salts. The Captain being ashore, Pete
went to the medicine chest, got the salts jar, and gave the man two
spoonsful with instructions to mix it with water and drink it. In a few
minutes, while Pete was washing up in his room, another seaman came aft
to report that the man who took the salts was in terrible agony. Pete
found him rolling about the deck screaming with pain. Just then Capt.
Creighton came aboard, and together they got the man to a drugstore
and summoned a doctor who pumped out his stomach. In searching for
an explanation, it was discovered that a supply of oxalic acid for
polishing brass had been delivered in an unmarked container and Capt.
Creighton, mistaking the crystals for Epsom Salts, had put them in
the salts jar. The injured seaman recovered but didn’t speak above a
whisper during the remainder of the voyage.
After a voyage to Havana with coal, and a trip from Pasagoula to
New York with railroad ties, the schooner was sold to San Francisco
parties. The new skipper, a Dane, arrived from the west. He wanted
Pete to stay as Mate to make the round voyage to San Francisco by way
of Cape Town, Australia, and Honolulu, but Pete decided not to. He
recalled that when the PLUMMER was loaded, the Danish skipper had still
not found a Mate so he came around to Pete’s boarding house to offer
him $75 a month, $25 above the scale, if he’d go. Pete told me, “I
didn’t like the cut of his jib and was afraid we both wouldn’t live to
reach San Francisco.”
That winter Pete stayed in New York and worked as a rigger, sending
down topgallant masts and bending sails. On March 4, 1901, he signed on
as Mate of a fine four-master JACOB S. WINSLOW, Capt. Simeon J. Smith
commanding. Wages were $50 a month. After a coal trip from Philadelphia
to Portland, they loaded lumber for Buenos Aires.
[Illustration:
_The first vessel commanded by F.H.P. was the fine schooner JACOB
S. WINSLOW, 910 tons, of which he was Mate from 1901 to 1904. He
relieved Capt. Simeon Smith on several trips in 1903. The WINSLOW
is shown here loading ice on the Kennebec River at Randolph, Maine._
]
In a paper concerning the offshore schooner trade, presented to the
1973 Symposium of the Maine Maritime Museum, Capt. Lewis Parker
described the lumber trade “to the River”:
Ahead lay a voyage of 7,500 or 8,000 miles by the circuitous
route followed by sailing vessels. First they ran out into the
Atlantic on a course of E × S or ESE about 2,000 miles until they
picked up the northeast tradewinds. Then on a course of about SSE
they carried the trades in glorious flying fish weather to about
five degrees north of the Line, thence working their way through
the doldrums on a course about SSW so as to cross the Equator
between 27 and 30 degrees west longitude. On southwesterly they
sailed through the southeast trades to the mouth of the River, the
approach to which was heralded seventy-five miles at sea by the
change in color of the water which became olive green with the
mud of the pampas. With luck they might escape a dusting from a
pampero, one of those sudden violent storms from the southwest for
which the La Plata estuary was infamous, and within a day or two,
with pilot aboard, our schooner would come to anchor in Montevideo
Roads, for orders, or carry on another 123 miles past Punta Indio
light vessel to the anchorage off Buenos Aires.[3]
Capt. Parker says further that the average passage was about sixty-two
days. The WINSLOW did a bit better than average, arriving after a
fifty-four day passage.
The JACOB S. WINSLOW no sooner arrived than the entire crew except one,
including the Second Mate, jumped ship. The one who stayed, a young
fellow from Eastport, made the return trip to New York as Second Mate.
Their return cargo was bones from the slaughter houses, a stinking bug-
and worm-infested mess. On the passage north they passed to windward
of the Boston bark NUUANU loaded with sugar from Hawaii. The vessels
passed close enough to exchange greetings and no doubt the horrid
stench revealed the schooner’s cargo. Capt. Joscelyn of the NUUANU
called out, “I can see a bug on the end of your jibboom!”
Pete was Mate of the WINSLOW for three years during which he made
several trips to Demerara with ice laced with fresh fish, vegetables,
and apples, and topped by a deckload of lumber. Then Capt. Smith
decided to stay home a trip and asked Pete to take the schooner. On his
return to Portland with coal from Philadelphia, Pete learned that there
was in the market a cargo for Demerara but that Capt. Smith didn’t want
to go because of a smallpox epidemic that was raging there. Eleazar
Clark of the J. S. Winslow Co. asked Pete if he was afraid to go and
when he said, “No”, they chartered the schooner.
The voyage out was frustrating to a young man eager to make a good
showing. Calms, and a SW wind where no SW wind should have been, gave
the WINSLOW the longest passage to Demerara she ever made. There were
4,000 cases of smallpox and several hundred deaths during the week the
WINSLOW was there discharging. But everybody on board was vaccinated
and nobody contracted the disease. With a clean bill of health, they
went to Trinidad for pitch. The trip back to New York was another
disappointment. It was long and marred by a heavy gale off the Virginia
Capes which smashed the fore gaff, tore up the reefed foresail, and
blew out the jib. They arrived with the food supply nearly exhausted.
In January, 1904, Capt. Smith resumed command and Pete stayed on as
Mate. They loaded for Havana and shipped a black crew. Shortly after
the crew came on board at Pier 11, East River, a mob of union sailors
came onto the pier determined to take the crew out. Pete got the crew
into the fo’c’sle and locked them in. Going aft to get his revolver,
he met the Captain in the companionway and warned him not to go out
there without a gun. The skipper had already armed himself and he went
forward to guard the fo’c’sle where he was approached by a leader of
the mob who was wielding a club. As he came closer, the man challenged
the Captain, “You son of a bitch, you don’t dare to shoot.” He kept on
coming until he was only a few feet away when the Captain fired. The
man dropped, shot through the mouth. His friends got him onto the pier
and someone called the police.
Capt. Smith readily acknowledged the shot but refused the invitation
to come onto the pier so that the police could arrest him until he had
some protection for his crew. One of the officers asked if the Mate had
a gun and he replied, “Yes.” The police officer then turned to Pete
and told him to shoot the first man to set foot on the rail, and not
to be afraid to shoot. Capt. Smith’s parting instructions to Pete were
to take the schooner, when the towboat arrived, to an anchorage off
Staten Island and then come and find him. He said that if he could not
get bail, Pete should ship a Mate and go as Master.
At the Tombs Court, when the Judge asked if there was anyone present
who would post bail for Capt. Smith, Mr. William H. Swan came forward
and said that he would do so. Mr. Swan, whose firm continues to this
day, was a well known and highly respected ship chandler. He supplied
the needs of many of the schooners and enjoyed the friendship and
respect of hundreds of shipmasters in the coastal fleet. The WINSLOW
sailed next morning for Havana.
From Havana the WINSLOW sailed light to Brunswick, Georgia, where she
loaded railroad ties for Philadelphia. On arrival at Portland with
coal from Philadelphia, the vessel’s agent came aboard and told Pete
that he wanted him to go immediately to Norfolk to take command of the
MAJOR PICKANDS, as her Captain had left her. Pete had planned to make
a visit home to Machiasport before making another trip but Capt. Smith
warned him that if he turned down the offer it would be useless for him
to continue in the Winslow Co. employ, as they would never again give
him a command. So off to Norfolk he went on the Merchants & Miners Line
steamer.
[Illustration:
_Schr. MAJOR PICKANDS, 984 tons, F.H.P.’s first regular command. He
was Master of this vessel for about three months in 1904._
]
On his second coal trip, while bound for Boston, disaster struck.
Before reaching Block Island, heavy fog was encountered. Confident of
his position, Pete kept on running for the Vineyard Sound lightship.
The deepsea lead seemed to confirm his dead reckoning, but just as they
were taking the lead forward for a second sounding, the schooner struck
bottom. There was a considerable swell running and the vessel pounded
on the rocks. Pete guessed that he must be too close to the Sow and
Pigs, but before long the fog lifted and he saw that he was on No Man’s
Land.
The Navy was having target practice off Martha’s Vineyard that day,
and their tug PEORIA saw the PICKANDS distress signal and came over
to help. She pulled the schooner off without much difficulty, and
started to tow her to Vineyard Haven. However, it soon became apparent
that the schooner was leaking too badly and was in danger of sinking.
Pete signalled the tug, and they beached the PICKANDS at Gay Head.
The entire crew spent that night on the tug, and next morning only
the schooner’s forecastle deck was showing above water. During the
forenoon, one of the Boston T Wharf tugs arrived with a wrecking master
to look the situation over. They built cofferdams around the hatches,
pulled out all the chain from the lockers and set up a centrifugal pump
on the forecastle deck with the suction at the bottom of the chain
locker. In a short time, the schooner floated and was towed to Vineyard
Haven and anchored. There a diver found two holes in the bottom, one
of them fifteen feet by six feet right to the frames and the other
six feet square. The mizzen sail was then unbent and pulled under the
vessel over the holes and the diver nailed battens over it. The tug
first took them to Boston where the coal was discharged and then on to
Portland for repairs.
Capt. Thomas Laithwaite, who owned the Master’s interest in the
PICKANDS had sold his shares to Capt. Orville Pinkham, and it looked
as if Pete was out of a job. However, Capt. Pinkham had not yet sold
his shares in the three-master D. HOWARD SPEAR and said that if Pete
would take her and fulfill her charter, he could buy the Master’s
shares on his return. That looked good to Pete so he took the SPEAR to
Florida with coal and back to New Bedford with lumber. On his arrival
he received a letter from J. S. Winslow & Company saying that they had
sold the Master’s interest in the SPEAR to Capt. Harold Foss and that
when Capt. Foss relieved him, he should come to Portland as they had
“something better” for him.
[Illustration:
_Schr. D. HOWARD SPEAR, 547 tons, commanded by F.H.P. for four
months in 1904._
]
The “something better” proved to be the Bath-built 1000-ton four-master
ALICIA B. CROSBY, fifteen years old but a fine sound vessel. The CROSBY
was to be home to Pete for more than seven years. He took her in
January, 1905, and left her in May, 1912.
[Illustration:
_Schr. ALICIA B. CROSBY, 1113 tons. F.H.P. took command of this
schooner in January 1905 and remained her Master until May 1912._
]
In March, 1906, Pete effected a rescue at sea that attracted
considerable favorable publicity when the crew of the foundered
schooner JOHN S. DEERING was landed safely at Philadelphia. The
story started in February when the CROSBY was in Bridgeport, having
discharged a lumber cargo there. The vessel was chartered to load coal
at Philadelphia for San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Pete was ready to sail,
awaiting only the arrival of a crew from New York. While he was in the
towboat office, the captain of a newly-arrived three-master came in.
The two skippers got acquainted and when the new arrival learned that
Pete was waiting impatiently for a crew, he said, “You’re not going to
go to sea tonight, are you?” Pete replied that, as the wind was north,
he planned to leave as soon as he could and get around Montauk before
the wind hauled ’round to the no’theast, and “I’ll have a good run to
Philadelphia ... maybe.” The other remarked, “Maybe’s don’t grow on
gooseberry bushes in February, and if you’ll wait until tomorrow you’ll
have plenty of time to get around Montauk.” Pete told me that later
he wished he had taken the advice because after getting around Montauk
but not halfway to the Delaware Capes, the wind backed to northwest and
blew a gale. He had to run before it, right out across the Gulf Stream.
Finally the wind abated enough to let them set sail, and they headed
back toward the coast. Shortly, before the sea had moderated much,
they spotted a schooner in distress. Coming down to her they found the
Bath three-master JOHN S. DEERING which was bound from Wilmington,
North Carolina, for New York with lumber. She was wracked, waterlogged
and dismasted with only the foremast standing. The eight-man crew had
taken refuge in the coach house where they had been for seventy hours
without food, water or heat. They were pretty well used up when they
saw the CROSBY approaching.
Pete hove to to windward and, as he had no Mate, sent the Second Mate
and four sailors in the boat, telling them to hang on to leeward of
the wreck until he could come around to leeward of them to take them
all aboard. Unfortunately, after getting the shipwrecked crew safely
into the boat, the Second Mate had failed to hang on to the wreck as
instructed. The boat drifted well to leeward before Pete was able to
find them in the failing daylight and take them aboard the CROSBY over
the stern. Capt. Manage of the DEERING gave the reporters quite an
earful when he finally got to Philadelphia. He was full of praise for
his rescuers.
In the spring of 1907, Pete let the owners know that he wanted to take
a trip off in order to get married. He rather planned to take this step
following arrival in Newport News from Portland, but those plans were
thwarted when the northbound schooner BENJAMIN A. VAN BRUNT, running
free, slammed into the CROSBY which was by the wind and sailing light.
She was cut into between the fore and main rigging on the starboard
side, down to the water’s edge and into the hatchcoaming. The VAN
BRUNT lost all her headgear and suffered severe bow damage. She filled
and, floating on her cargo of railroad ties, was towed in to the
Delaware Breakwater. Pete hauled all his booms to port and, shifting
everything readily movable to list the schooner, nailed a sail over the
great wound in the vessel’s side so they were able to sail in to the
Breakwater. There he made the patch a bit more substantial with some
plank, and then proceeded to sail to Portland. From there, the CROSBY
was towed to Bath, to the Percy & Small’s yard.
[Illustration:
_Portland Harbor about 1906. This remarkable photograph of
coal-laden schooners includes two vessels commanded at different
times by F.H.P. These are the ALICIA B. CROSBY, the dark-painted
four-master in the right foreground and the white five-master
DOROTHY PALMER in the middle distance at the extreme left._
]
[Illustration:
_This Bath newspaper clipping reveals the “fearful hole” in the
ALICIA B. CROSBY with which, covered only by a canvas patch, F.H.P.
brought the vessel safely to Bath._
]
Soon after arrival, Capt. Sam Percy came down to look the situation
over. He inspected the huge open hole in the CROSBY’s side after the
canvas patch was removed, contemplated what he saw for a minute or two,
shook his head and said, “Well, Peterson, I don’t know what to think
about you. You’re either a right smart sailor or a damned fool.”
Pete had asked the agent if he wanted him to keep the crew together
for witnesses to the collision but the agent replied that it wouldn’t
be necessary as the VAN BRUNT was clearly at fault, had practically
acknowledged it, and would probably settle before the repairs were
completed. That’s not the way it worked out. The VAN BRUNT’s owners
libelled the CROSBY, kept their crew together for over a year, drilled
them well in their false testimony, and won the case. Belated efforts
to find members of the CROSBY’s crew were futile. Pete was the only
witness available to testify and the Judge may have believed that the
CROSBY’s owners were unwilling for the crew to testify. It was an
expensive lesson.
While the CROSBY was repairing, Pete went to Philadelphia to be
married. The bride was a sweet-natured blue-eyed Scottish lass whose
parents had brought her to Philadelphia when she was a child. Her name
was Margaret Hynd. Peggy was to share Pete’s life for more than fifty
years. She was a cheerful, good-humored, companionable lady when I
knew her. It required but little imagination to realise that she must
have been a mighty attractive young woman when Pete met her during one
of his many trips to Philadelphia. A friend from down home, who ran
regularly to Philadelphia in a coastal steamship, had become acquainted
with Peggy’s step-father and he introduced Pete to the family. Pete was
thirty-one and his bride twenty-six.
[Illustration: _Captain and Mrs. Frank H. Peterson at about the time of
their marriage in 1907._]
When the CROSBY sailed from Bath, Pete was accompanied by his bride.
She continued to go to sea with him until early in 1909 by which time
their first child was on the way. Son Frank James was born on the first
of June, 1909, at his grandparents’ home in Philadelphia. It doesn’t
appear that Pete was on hand for that launching as the CROSBY was in
Brunswick, Georgia, on that date.
In January, 1909, Pete brought the CROSBY to Boston with lumber from
Jacksonville. While there he was admitted to membership in the Boston
Marine Society. The oldest organization of its kind in the United
States, having been established in 1742, the Society was a veritable
fraternity of shipmasters, linked together for fellowship, for the
improvement of navigation, and the relief of distress among needy
members and their families. Thirty years later, Pete was to be elected
Secretary of the Society and administer its affairs.
Another important event at that time was his joining the Masonic order.
During his earlier visits to Machiasport, he had received the first
two degrees in Freemasonry at Warren Lodge No. 2 in East Machias. As
a courtesy, Faith Lodge in Charlestown, Massachusetts, gave Pete the
essential Third Degree by which he was admitted a member of the East
Machias lodge. In taking this step, Pete became a brother to the vast
majority of the shipmasters with whom he would be associated during the
rest of his life.
When Pete arrived in Portland in December, 1909, with more lumber from
Jacksonville, he was a sick man. He had pneumonia and had to go home.
He was relieved by Capt. McIver of the JAMES W. ELWELL. Not until the
following April was Pete able to resume command of his vessel.
Speaking to me of the ALICIA B. CROSBY, Pete said, “She’d run in
anything that ever blew. I never had to heave to.” He also said that
she was “hard, flat on her bilges, and broke a lot of gaffs.” Her best
passage of any length was from Fire Island to Cape Henry averaging
better than fourteen knots. On that occasion, she had been becalmed
off Fire Island in company with the ELEANOR A. PERCY, waiting for a
wind. When it came, the PERCY “ran away and must have averaged sixteen
knots to the tug off Cape Henry because she was already loading when we
arrived.”
[Illustration:
_Schr. ALICIA B. CROSBY as seen by the Boston artist S.F.M. Badger.
This painting was presented by family and friends in memory of
F.H.P. to the Maine Maritime Museum at Bath, May 1981._
]
In May 1912 Winslow offered Pete command of the five-masted JAMES W.
PAUL, JR., a vessel of 1800 tons gross. Their second son, John Hewitt,
had been born to Pete and Peggy in November of 1910. With a growing
family, Pete wanted the greater income that a larger vessel promised
and he gladly took over the PAUL.
[Illustration:
_Schr. JAMES W. PAUL, JR., 1808 tons, loading railroad ties at
Brunswick, Georgia. F.H.P. Was Master of the PAUL from 1912 until
1916 when the vessel was sold._
]
The JAMES W. PAUL, JR. was an unusual vessel in some respects and
possessed some distinctive characteristics. She had been built on
Verona Island, opposite Bucksport, in 1901 by McKay & Dix. For a
keelson she had a big steel I-beam. She also had steel hanging
knees. Occupying much less space than conventional wood members,
these features were intended to provide greater cargo capacity. They
undoubtedly had done so until, earlier in her career, her limber antics
had broken the I-beam. Repairs had consisted of constructing a heavy
timber keelson around the I-beam. Unlike other schooners, she carried
her running lights in lighthouses on top of the forward house and she
sported a spike bowsprit. She was, however, a good sailor and Pete was
happy with her. He told me, looking back, “I had wonderful luck with
the PAUL.”
Joining the vessel at Bath in June, 1912, he was in the coal trade
continuously for two years, running between Newport News and Bangor or
Portland with a couple of trips to Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas.
On one occasion, the PAUL ran from Portland to Cape Henry in fifty-two
hours under reefed jigger and forestaysail.
One might easily imagine that running back and forth between Newport
News and Boston, or between Philadelphia and Portland, could become
deadly boring and offer small challenge to a shipmaster. But, if you
thought so, you would be wrong.
In his classic book on the great coal schooners,[4] Capt. Lewis Parker
has drawn a graphic description of their real world:
The men and vessels which navigated the coastal waters northward
from Cape Hatteras are deserving of no contempt because they seldom
ventured far from land. Indeed, for this very reason they should
be held in the highest regard. The jagged lee-shores, fog-hidden
headlands, and sandy shoals along this coast exacted from the
successful coasting master a high degree of skill, knowledge and
vigilance, strengthened by intuition. In addition to these natural
dangers one must add the omnipresent risk of collision with the
constant congestion of vessels scurrying in and out of the dozen or
so important ports along this seaboard. In comparison, the open sea
is far safer.
The big coal schooners plied nearly the whole length of these
waters from Hampton Roads north to the Penobscot, running the
gauntlet of collision, summer fog, autumn hurricanes, and winter
blizzards. Their course cut directly across the steamer lanes from
Europe and the West Indies to Philadelphia, New York and Boston,
three of the busiest ports in the world in those days.
The master of a large coastwise steamer trading to the southward
of New York, in speaking of the days when the schooners were
plentiful, stated that rarely a year went by when one of the
company’s steamers did not sink a schooner.
With all these dangers, Pete had many encounters in the course of his
long career, losing a few but winning most by far.
During the seven years Pete was Master of the ALICIA B. CROSBY, he made
fifty-seven trips with cargo and thirty-seven return trips light. Of
the cargo-carrying voyages, forty-three were with coal. Thirty-five
of the coal-carrying trips were to Boston, Portland or Bangor, while
eight were to the southward or to Puerto Rico. There were eleven lumber
cargoes north, and one trip with ice from Boothbay to Alexandria, one
with sugar from San Juan, and one with empty barrels from Portland to
Philadelphia.
Freights on coal coming north ranged from $.60 to $1.20, averaging
about $.80, per ton. The CROSBY would carry 1850 to 1875 tons, thus
producing a gross freight of about $1,500 per trip. In 1908, she made
seven coal trips to Portland and one to Jacksonville, returning to
Boston with lumber. Gross freights for the year totaled $19,545 on
which the Master’s primage would have been $977. Wages at $50 per month
added $600 to personal income. Dividends on the 1/64 Master’s interest
added probably no more than $200. Put it all together and you come up
with about $1,800. It is easy to see why the competition for command of
larger cargo-carrying schooners was so keen. Bigger cargoes equalled
more personal income.
Pete’s first year in the JAMES W. PAUL, JR. produced gross freights
totalling $29,000, which was $10,000 more than the CROSBY produced in
the same length of time. Coal freights in 1912-1913 were at $.90 per
ton and the PAUL could carry 2,800 tons. Pete’s primage for the year
was almost $1,500, and total personal income probably approximated
$2,400. In terms of purchasing power, that translates into over $30,000
today.
Quoting again from Capt. Lewis Parker:
There were few commands more sought after by Yankee shipmasters
than those in the great five- and six-masters. The Master of
such a vessel was entrusted with a ship and cargo which together
might represent an investment of $200,000. Such a trust compelled
the constant exercise of caution and yet at the same time, the
earning power of the schooners was determined by the number of
cargoes which they carried, a consideration which was productive
of hard sail-carrying.... The successful Master had to strike a
nice balance between prudence and daring, qualities which could
be reconciled only by superb seamanship, constant vigilance and
intuitive knowledge of every mile of coast in fair weather and foul
such as is never exacted of the deepwater mariner.[5]
Between July and November, 1914, the PAUL was laid up with no business.
Then she was chartered on coal to Puerto Rico. There Pete received
orders to proceed to Progreso, Mexico, to load sisal for Mobile. On
arrival at Progreso, Pete reported the vessel ready to receive cargo.
As he had no charter party, he asked the consignee if he could see
their copy. He was told that the only copy was at the head office
in Merida, but if he wanted to go there to see it, they’d supply an
interpreter for him. Early next morning, while waiting for the train to
arrive, he noticed a steamer coming in and asked the interpreter what
ship it was. He said that the HONDURAS was due and he supposed it was
she. When the ship got as close as she dared come, she started firing
shells at the railroad station. One shell hit the station roof, and red
tiles flew in all directions. Pete and the interpreter did the same;
they ran out in the country and hid in the bushes. Hundreds of others,
many in their nightclothes, did likewise. They stayed there until dark
when Pete went to the beach well below the town and hired an Indian
with a canoe to paddle him back to the schooner. It was all part of the
Carranza Revolution.
The PAUL had a six-month time charter on sisal and made several trips
between Progreso and Mobile, occasionally bringing out as passengers a
few Americans eager to leave that revolution-torn country. During that
summer of 1915, Mrs. Peterson and the boys accompanied the Captain.
In October, lumber was loaded at Gulfport for Rio de Janeiro. On that
voyage, shortly after crossing the Equator, the Mate informed the
Captain one morning that the Cook could not be found. The ship was
searched but all that was found were his slippers on the rail. It was
noticed that the cover of the lazarette hatch on the poop was missing;
likewise the cat. Apparently the man had jumped overboard taking his
cat with him. Then it was remembered that the Cook had been acting
queerly for a few days but nobody had attached much importance to it.
They arrived at Rio after a fifty-three day passage. The American
Consul sent a clerk to take an inventory of the Cook’s personal
effects. It was then that they discovered that the man had two wives,
one in Port o’ Spain, Trinidad, and another in Liverpool, England.
“Enough,” said Pete with a smile, “to make any man jump overboard.”
From Rio they proceeded to Buenos Aires to load linseed for Baltimore.
While Pete was at Buenos Aires, in February 1916, his mother died at
Machiasport at the age of seventy-six.
Pete had proved himself always a dutiful son, regularly sending home
to his mother part of his pay. Among Pete’s papers I found a record of
such remittances dating back to 1898. During the ten years he was in
the CROSBY and the PAUL, he had J. S. Winslow & Co. send his widowed
mother $30 on the first of every month.
Shortly after leaving Buenos Aires, they were caught in a pampero
which necessitated putting in at Barbados to check a bad leak that had
developed. The PAUL was forty-seven days to Baltimore via Barbados.
On arrival, Pete learned that the vessel had been sold and he was
instructed to deliver her in New York. When that was done, he went home
to Portland. Winslow had bought the PAUL for $14,000. They sold her on
the inflated war-time market for $125,000.
While he was relaxing with his family, Pete heard that the Mengel
Company of Louisville, Kentucky, was building a vessel at Percy
& Small’s and wanted her Master to be there while she was under
construction and then take her to West Africa for mahogany. Pete came
to Bath, saw Capt. Percy and got the job. The four-master C. C. MENGEL,
JR. was launched in August, 1916, the first vessel to be coppered on
the stocks in more than twenty years. She was coppered eleven feet up
with 1750 copper sheets and a half-ton of copper nails, proof against
marine borers.
[Illustration:
_Schr. C.C. MENGEL, JR. on her arrival at Pensacola, Florida from
West Africa with mahogany logs, March 1917._
]
Pete took her to New York and loaded a general cargo for West African
ports. The iron bark SNOWDON loaded for the same ports, and the MENGEL
took her berth when she left. Mengel’s agent told Pete when he was
ready to sail that if he beat the SNOWDON to Sekondi he’d buy him
the best hat to be had in New York. Pete told him that his money was
safe because the bark had nearly a two weeks’ headstart. However, the
MENGEL arrived and discharged at several different ports, and then beat
back to Axim to load mahogany, before the SNOWDON arrived at Sekondi.
Whether or not Pete got his hat must be left to conjecture, but it
seems doubtful in the light of subsequent events.
Loading mahogany logs in the open roadstead off the West African coast
is a tough job, as the swell from the southeast trades causes a vessel
to roll. Some of the logs were six feet in diameter and weighed as
much as fourteen tons. Loading was done with the schooner’s own gear,
a special boom being carried for the purpose. In loading the deckload,
the Mate was struck in the chest by a swinging log and went to the
hospital with broken ribs and a punctured lung. He missed the voyage
home and the Second Mate was promoted in his place.
When they reached Pensacola from Africa in March, 1917, Pete submitted
his resignation to the Mengel Company. They offered him the big steel
four-masted bark DIRIGO, but when he learned that she was chartered for
a French Atlantic port and then to load mahogany at Axim, he refused
the offer. He explained, “I figured that it would take so long to load
that ship, with her small hatches, that by the time she was loaded
she’d be so foul she wouldn’t be able to get out of her own way.” As
requested, however, he did take the MENGEL to New Orleans where she
was to load grain for the Canary Islands. His decision regarding the
DIRIGO proved to be a wise one. The vessel was sunk on May 31, 1917, by
a German U-boat southwest of Eddystone, England.
After a short time at home, he went to New York in search of a command.
A broker offered him the HARWOOD PALMER at $600 per month to take her
to France. He turned it down. Shortly after that he was offered $800 a
month to take the HARWOOD. This gave him pause. He asked, “What about
the captain who is already in her?” He was told that that captain
wouldn’t go to France. Pete decided to talk with him and went to see
him. He told Pete that he could get him $1,000 a month. Pete replied,
“Well, let’s go and get it!” So the two went to the office of the
France & Canada Steamship Company where they met the president of the
company. Pete agreed to take the HARWOOD PALMER for $1,000 a month. A
contract was drawn which included a prepaid war-risk life insurance
policy for $15,000. Pete said that before signing he’d like to clear
things with his wife. She didn’t think much of the idea of his going
to France but the next day he telegraphed that he would take the
schooner. He got a reply saying that they had already found a Master
for the HARWOOD but to come to New York anyway as they had bought the
J. S. Winslow fleet and also the WYOMING from Percy & Small.[6] The
upshot of this was that Pete got the six-master EDWARD J. LAWRENCE.
When she arrived in New York, he relieved Capt. “Billy” Kreger, and
after drydocking and refitting, loaded 4,990 tons of six-inch steel
projectiles for La Pallice, France.
[Illustration:
_Schr. EDWARD J. LAWRENCE, 3350 tons, on arrival at La Pallice,
France in August 1917._
]
In July, 1917, the LAWRENCE sailed in company with the schooner CARL
F. CRESSY. A faster vessel, the LAWRENCE reached La Pallice three days
before the CRESSY. Pete was twenty days to the Bay of Biscay, but
having no charts of the area other than a general chart, he approached
cautiously, made the light in the early evening, and anchored. Shortly,
a French patrol boat spoke them and said that if they remained where
they were a U-boat would get them before morning. When told by Pete
that he had neither chart nor pilot, the guard boat skipper instructed
him to get under way and follow. This they attempted to do but lost
their guide in a rainstorm and the darkness. When a sounding revealed
six fathoms, Pete anchored again. In the morning they found themselves
swinging just clear of a rock ledge. Soon the guard boat returned and
offered a tow. They proceeded in and anchored in the Roads. When Pete
inquired the charge, he was told that there was no charge but that if
he wanted to make a present to the boat crew it would be appreciated.
The France & Canada representative who came over from St. Nazaire
authorized a gift of $100 in francs which Pete passed to the guard boat
captain. Somewhat to Pete’s surprise, he distributed it all to his
crew, keeping nothing for himself. That evening the guard boat crew
descended upon the LAWRENCE bearing cigars, wine and cheese, and an
invitation to Captain Peterson to go ashore with them and see the town.
Pete confessed that he consumed more than his share of vermouth that
evening, but had a fine time.
German prisoners of war discharged the LAWRENCE under the watchful
eyes of armed French guards posted at each hatch. She was empty in ten
days and moved to an anchorage in the Roads again. Two weeks later the
French government sent a gunboat to tow the LAWRENCE to sea. Another
gun boat took the CARL F. CRESSY in tow at the same time. Two hundred
miles due west they let go the hawsers and both schooners filled away
on the starboard tack for the south’ard. The LAWRENCE was equipped with
wireless and at ten o’clock that evening they received a warning from
Brest that U-boats were reported about sixty miles ahead on the course
they were sailing. The CRESSY had no wireless and didn’t learn of the
danger. Pete tacked ship and headed northwest. Next morning the CRESSY
was sunk by a U-boat, the crew being picked up later by the French bark
QUEVILLY.
In spite of instructions to return by a southerly route, Pete held to
a northerly course all the way to Cape Race. They had strong westerly
gales and the vessel, being light, made heavy weather of it. One day
the Second Mate roused the Captain from his desk to report that he
thought the vessel was breaking up. He conducted Pete amidships and
showed him that the scarphs in the stanchion rail were opening and
closing four inches as the vessel worked in the seaway. Reassured by
Pete, they continued their flexible way, arriving in Norfolk after a
passage of thirty-five days.
Two weeks before reaching Norfolk, Capt. Peterson suffered an attack
of rheumatism that for a time almost completely incapacitated him. On
arrival he asked the boarding doctor to take a telegram ashore and thus
notify the owners that he was sick and wanted to be relieved. Two days
later, the France and Canada port captain arrived with a doctor who
confirmed Pete’s condition and said that he wouldn’t be able to work
for two months. On the strength of this declaration, Pete went home to
Merchantsville, New Jersey, where his family was living at the time. In
due course, he settled up with the France & Canada Company, though they
wanted him to stay in their employ.
After fully recovering from his bout with rheumatism, Pete went over
to Philadelphia where he dropped in at the office of Haldt & Cummins,
ship agents and brokers. When he learned that Pete was “at liberty”,
Mr. Haldt asked him if he’d do them a favor. He said that Mr. Cummins
was in Bermuda where he had bought for $40,000 the Italian steel bark
FILIPPO DE NEGRI, had arranged to put her under U.S. registry, and
wanted a skipper for her. They proposed to tow her to Philadelphia and
fit her for sea. Mr. Haldt said, “You won’t have to do anything but lie
in your berth and read. You won’t even have to navigate. And we’ll pay
you well.”
[Illustration:
_Italian bark FILIPPO DENEGRI, 857 tons, at Bristol, England some
years before she arrived at Bermuda in distress and was hulked.
F.H.P. had a frightful experience as Master of this vessel in 1917._
]
Off he went to Bermuda where Mr. Cummins met him. The bark was at
St. George’s where she had lain for eight years after arriving in
distress. During that time she had been used as a storage hulk. A
local shipmaster had been engaged by Mr. Cummins to prepare the vessel
for the tow to Philadelphia. He had hired a diver to clear away the
barnacles which had grown to a length of two inches all over the
bottom. The diver claimed to have accomplished that job in three days
for which he was paid $75. Captain Peterson later wrote, “I don’t
believe that forty men could have properly cleaned that bottom in one
day.”
They took aboard about 240 tons of scrap iron that somebody wanted
transported to the States gratis, but as this was all the ballast they
could get, all the yards were sent down and stowed on deck with the
topmasts and topgallant masts. Pete shipped eight Bermudians as crew
and laid in a month’s supply of food and water.
Later in December, the 500-ton steamer YENRUT (ex-DOROTHY) after
discharging a cargo of gunpowder in Cuba, arrived to take the hulk in
tow. They finally got under way on December 28, 1917. Before sailing,
Pete reached an understanding with the steamer’s captain that in case
he had to let go the hawser he would stand by to take off Pete and his
crew.
The bark was so foul, and the steamer of such low power, that they
could not make six knots in good weather. Before they got halfway to
Hatteras, they took a strong gale from the northwest and the steamer
could not keep her tow head to the sea. Endangered by falling into
the trough, the skipper of the steamer simply let go the hawser and
took off. Perhaps the hawser parted, but Pete never thought so. At any
rate, the steamer did not stand by as agreed. With no canvas there
was nothing for Pete and his crew to do but drift at the mercy of the
wind and sea. One man was washed overboard while trying to set a light
and the hulk rolled so fiercely that even with all tophamper on deck
she rolled her mainmast right out and it went over the side. Next
day it was still blowing a gale. A Gloucester fisherman under reefed
foresail ran down by them and hove to. Her skipper said that he’d take
them off when it moderated but the vessels parted company during the
night and in the morning the fisherman couldn’t be seen. He did report
the derelict at Bermuda and in due course a cutter was dispatched to
their aid. Under a steady northwest wind, the hulk had drifted so far
to the southeast of the Islands that the cutter never found them. For
eighteen days Pete and his crew drifted about on that derelict bark
searching the horizon in vain for help. They saw several steamers and
flew signals of distress, but the ships all sheered off and wouldn’t
approach through fear of U-boats and decoys.
At daylight on January 17, the lookout reported a sail in sight.
As there was very little wind, Pete called all hands, loaded their
possessions and stores into the lifeboat and made for the sail. It
proved to be the homeward bound Spanish brig PEPITA of Barcelona.
Unable to make the Spaniard understand what they wanted, they rowed up
under his lee, grabbed hold of his fore-sheet, threw their dunnage on
deck, and followed it over the rail. When they were finally able to get
through to the Spanish skipper, he took their boat aboard and made them
welcome.
There were now fourteen men aboard the little brig, twice its normal
complement, so everyone went on short rations. She was overcrowded,
cold, and uncomfortable, but the Spaniards did all they could and
shared what they had. The Spanish skipper said that he would put them
aboard the first ship they met and, in any event, Pete could leave in
his boat at Gibraltar. But they didn’t meet any ships and they passed
Gibraltar during the night, which was no time to attempt to row ashore
at that armed and trigger-happy place.
The wind headed the brig after she passed Malaga so the skipper put
about, landing his passengers there about four o’clock on the afternoon
of February 16, just a month after they had clambered aboard.
Pete described his arrival in Malaga as follows: “I was cleaned up
ready to go ashore the minute the anchor was down and I hailed a
bumboat. The skipper told me that the American Consul’s office would
be closed at that hour. I replied, ‘But the hotels will be open, won’t
they?’” Then the skipper asked Pete if he had any money and, when told
that all he had was British and French money, the skipper went below
and came back with fifteen dollars, Spanish, to give it to him. I went
to the hotel just at suppertime and went right to the dining room. When
the waiter came for my order, I simply pointed to the menu and said,
‘Todo’, or ‘all of it.’ I don’t know if he brought it all or not, but
it was the best meal I have ever eaten. Then I went to the room clerk
and asked for a room. He tried to tell me that the hotel was full but
that he would give me a cot in the hall for the night and that next day
I could have a room, but that was too much Spanish for me to absorb.
At that point a lady who had been listening came over and explained in
English what the clerk had been trying to tell me.
“The next morning I took my crew and visited the American Consul. He
sent his clerk to the steamship office to get steerage tickets for all
of us on the Spanish steamship MONTEVIDEO sailing from Barcelona to New
York with a stop at Malaga. I told the Consul that he need not get a
steerage ticket for me and though I may have arrived in Malaga lousy, I
did not propose to arrive home that way. When he asked what I would do
I told him that I’d cable home for money. He then said that if I’d have
the money sent to him he would advance it to me so I could go on the
MONTEVIDEO. But before I sent the cable we got word that the sailing of
the MONTEVIDEO had been cancelled.
“While waiting at Malaga for a ship, a Newfoundland fisherman arrived
with a cargo of dried fish. He had sustained some heavy weather damage
and called for a survey. The Consul named me as one of the surveyors.
The skipper of the fisherman mentioned to me that in Gibraltar, where
he had stopped for orders, he had met a Captain Willard of the American
schooner JOHN B. BIEMILLER. I knew Captain Willard well and sent him
a telegram inquiring if there was any prospect of getting a ship home
from Gibraltar. Captain Willard’s reply said nothing about a ship
but said that he would let me have any money I needed. I showed the
telegram to the Consul who asked if I wanted to go to Gibraltar. When I
suggested that we might as well be there as in Malaga, he arranged for
me and my crew to travel by rail and ferry to Gibraltar. He also wired
the American Consul there, who with Captain Willard met us at the dock.
My friend handed me $300 and the Consul had made a hotel reservation
for me and boarding house accommodations for the crew.
“I was in Gibraltar for a week when, one Sunday morning, I met Captain
Shanks of the S.S. ROBERT M. THOMPSON. He asked me what I was doing
there and when I told him that I was trying to get a ship home, he
said, ‘Come with me. I’m on my way to the Consul right now.’ Although
he didn’t have space for my crew, I signed on as Mess Boy. We sailed
next day in a convoy of ten-knot ships. On the following day my crew
were put aboard an Italian passenger liner, which made much better time
than our convoy.”
Pete got back to the United States on March 21. The crew had arrived
in New York a week earlier, and Mr. Cummins had journeyed from
Philadelphia to pay them off and send them back to Bermuda. They had
been hired “by the run” at the rate of $15 each. Some run it had turned
out to be!
When Pete reached New York, he was offered command of the bark CALLAO,
a 1000-ton vessel, thirty-three years old, that had just been put under
the American flag. He told the broker that he’d have to go home first.
The broker said, “If you’ll take her, you can stay home for a week.”
Pete later told me, “When I told my wife about the offer, she said, ‘If
you ever mention the word “bark” to me again, I’ll leave you!’.”
Pete continued, “I was home several days before I went to see Mr.
Cummins. He treated me fine, paid me from the day I left home until
I got home again, and paid the highest wages the Shipping Board was
paying to Masters. I didn’t see the skipper of that steamer that was
towing us until a couple of years later. I was having dinner in New
York with three other shipmasters when this fellow came along, put
his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Well, I never expected to see you
again.’ I said, ‘I never wanted to see you again and I don’t want to
see you now.’ He turned and went out of the restaurant.”
After a couple of weeks at home, Pete went to New York again,
looking for a ship. He learned that W. S. Job & Company was having a
five-master built at Percy & Small’s yard in Bath, so he went to see
Mr. Job. The next morning he was on his way to Bath. He was in Bath for
a month before the ST. JOHN’S, N.F. was launched. Thereupon he took
her to New York where she was to load general cargo for Rio. He had
his family with him on the run to New York. Son John remembers that
many people who came to see the handsome new vessel at her Brooklyn
pier guessed aloud that the ‘N.F.’ in her name must mean ‘Naval Fleet’.
He recalls that they sailed past Cape Cod at the very time a German
U-boat sank some barges and shelled Orleans.[7] Before the schooner was
loaded, Pete had some sort of disagreement with Job’s port captain and
left the vessel. Whatever the problem was, it must have been personal
with the port captain because Pete wrote, “Mr. Job was one of the
finest men I ever met.”
[Illustration: _The newly-launched ST. JOHNS, N.F. at Bath, July 1918._]
Pete next went to work for the Government inspecting lifesaving
equipment on Army transports. He had in his charge a squad of a dozen
inspectors and reported to an Army major. He didn’t stay with this long
because the pay wasn’t enough to permit him to live in New York and
support his family in West Collingswood, New Jersey. So when the France
& Canada Co. wanted a Master for the CORA F. CRESSY, Pete applied and
got the job. The CRESSY had arrived from the Argentine with a cargo
of linseed. She had been through a bad blow and was badly strained
and damaged. After she was discharged, she went to Tietjen & Lang in
Hoboken to repair.
As it worked out, Pete didn’t stay in the CRESSY after supervising her
repairs. They raised her drooping stern and stiffened her with a 16
× 16 continuous timber fastened through the tweendecks waterways and
installed a lot of heavy fastening. At the time the CRESSY’s repairs
were completed, the owners notified all their Masters that after a
certain date their wages would be cut. This precipitated a general
exodus, a number of the captains signing up for Lieutenant Commander’s
commissions in the Naval Reserve. Pete was about to follow suit when he
was offered command of the four-master ELEANOR F. BARTRAM, which had
been built in 1903. Pete said, “She was the finest vessel I was ever
in.”
After a coal trip to Puerto Rico, and carrying ship timber from
Gulfport to Norwalk, Connecticut, the BARTRAM was chartered on coal
to Pernambuco, Brazil. At that time, though the Armistice had just
been signed, the war-time rules required shipmasters going foreign to
report to the Navy for sailing instructions. So, after clearing at the
Custom House, Pete proceeded to the Navy office where a Reserve officer
started dictating instructions to a stenographer. The officer looked
vaguely familiar, and then it dawned on Pete who he was. “Were you
ever Mate in the ALICIA B. CROSBY?” Pete asked. The officer looked up
startled and replied, “Yes.... Are you Capt. Frank Peterson?” Then he
said to the stenographer, “Never mind that. He knows how to go.”
[Illustration:
_Schr. ELEANOR F. BARTRAM, 1114 tons, of which F.H.P. was Master
from September 1918 until the end of 1920. “Finest schooner I was
ever in.”_
]
After a fair passage to Pernambuco, he received orders to load logwood
at Jamaica. They towed out of Pernambuco and filled away on the
starboard tack. But the wind headed them and as they were getting close
to Olinda Reef they attempted to tack ship. Bad luck! She missed stays.
Trying to wear her around, the BARTRAM struck the Reef and stayed
there, pounding heavily. The following day, tugs pulled her off and
took her back to Pernambuco where they libelled the ship for $40,000.
Pete cabled Emery that he thought the claim was excessive. They told
him to make the best settlement he could and cable them for what funds
he needed. Pete hired a diver to examine the bottom. The diver reported
(falsely as it turned out) no serious damage ... just some oakum out
which he could fix. Pete finally got the salvors to settle for $30,000,
and to pay all port charges and tow him to sea.
Not long after they sailed for Jamaica, the schooner began to leak
badly. Pete decided that in her condition the vessel could not load
any cargo, so he proceeded directly to New York. When she was hauled
out on the railway at Perth Amboy, it was found that her keel was gone
flush with the garboards and the bottom planking on one side was badly
damaged right to the turn of the bilge. Pete speculated that the lying
diver at Pernambuco must have thought that he would strengthen the
salvage claim by making it appear that they had saved a sound vessel.
When the repairs were completed, the BARTRAM chartered on coal to
Genoa, Italy, at $20 per ton prepaid. On their arrival there, after a
sixty-three day passage, a ship broker came aboard seeking business. As
the freight had been prepaid and Pete had no letter of credit, he told
the broker that he’d be glad to give him the ship’s business but didn’t
know what he’d use for money. The broker asked, “Who are your owners?”
When he learned that John S. Emery & Co. owned the vessel the broker
said, “You can have all the money you want. When we settle up, I’ll
write a letter to Emery Co. stating what I have done and how much they
owe me. You sign it, and that will be all that is needed.”
The BARTRAM was forty-two days beating back to Norfolk against
persistent headwinds. The vessel was light and “tender”, and listed
badly on both tacks. When the crew came to be paid off, Pete was
surprised to see the Cook asking to be paid off too. Asked why he
wanted to leave, he replied, “Cap’n, I’m so damned sick and tired of
tryin’ to cook on the side of a stove, I jes’ want to get off this
vessel.”
The schooner was next chartered on five coal cargoes to Bermuda. She
was never more than five days going out, and on one occasion made the
run in seventy-two hours. Pete stayed home one trip to take his family
to Seaside Park for a vacation at the beach. When he rejoined the
BARTRAM at Norfolk, the schooner was lying at anchor. Her appearance
surprised him. She was so deep in the water that he suspected something
seriously wrong. On going aboard, he asked the Mate if she had water in
her. He replied that she did not leak. Pete asked why she was so deep
in the water and was told that there was a lot of coal left in her by
the stevedores.
When the vessel docked to load cargo, Pete had them estimate the amount
of coal that was already in her and they figured it at seventy tons.
Pete asked the shippers to add it to his Bill of Lading so that he
could collect freight on it, but they would only record the amount they
had put aboard. On arrival at Bermuda, Pete told the consignee about
the seventy tons that had been left aboard. He said that if they wanted
it, they’d have to pay the freight on it. They couldn’t agree to pay
freight twice on their own coal, so when Pete estimated that there was
about seventy tons left in the hold he told the stevedore to knock
off and put the hatch covers on. When he went to collect his freight
money, the consignee was surprised to learn that the schooner was all
discharged as the stevedore had estimated that it would take all day.
Pete told him that it would take all day if they discharged that last
seventy tons. They paid the freight and the stevedore discharged the
last of the coal.
After the Bermuda charter was completed in the fall of 1920, Pete was
lured away from the BARTRAM by the offer of the command of a large
yacht. Unfortunately, the intended buyers were unable to complete the
deal, so the whole thing fell through.
[Illustration:
_The handsome schooner JOHN R. FOX, 741 tons. F.H.P. was Master of
this vessel for three months in early 1921._
]
The following February, Pete was engaged by the New York firm of Cohen
& Zeman to take command of the pretty little raised-deck four-master
JOHN R. FOX. She had been built by Bowker at Phippsburg in 1918. He
took her to Norfolk where coal was loaded for Vera Cruz. Returning
light to Tampa in July, Pete was ordered to shift over into the
four-master CECILIA COHEN which was already loading with phosphate
rock and nearly ready to sail for Philadelphia. In passing through the
Florida Straits, the vessel stranded on Conch Reef. Pete reported to me
the circumstances of that stranding:
“We were beating up through the Straits. After we made Alligator Reef
light, I went below leaving the Mate in charge. The wind headed her
and the Mate let her go onto Pickel’s Reef. I tried to wear her off,
but we swung wide onto Conch Reef and stayed. A tug pulled us off and
towed us into Key West leaking four inches per hour. There were no
facilities to haul out, and a diver reported only that he found the
false keel split through. Informed of the problem, the owners insisted
that we proceed. When I remonstrated with them, they said that if I
wouldn’t bring her east, they’d find somebody who would. So we took
aboard all the gasoline we could get, to run the engine which she had
to power the winch and the pumps, and started out. I soon found that it
was impossible to tack her, probably because the keel had been twisted
in the stranding. The leak increased in heavy weather encountered on
August 6, and the pumps had to be kept running continuously. Sixty
miles east of Hatteras we ran out of gas, and on August 7, 1921, we
abandoned her with twelve feet of water in the hold. Just before being
taken off by the freighter WEST KEENE, we set her afire so she would
not be a menace to navigation. She must have sunk very shortly.”
[Illustration:
_The ill-fated CECILIA COHEN, 1102 tons, as she looked on launching
day at Bath in 1920. F.H.P. was Master for just one month when she
foundered off Cape Henry in August 1922._
]
Later that year Pete learned that Capt. Alfred Frost of Portland had
formed a company and had purchased several big schooners from the
France & Canada Steamship Company which he planned to operate in the
coal trade. Pete went to Portland to see if there was any chance
of getting one. Capt. Frost told him that the only one not already
assigned was the DOROTHY PALMER, and she was then lying in the James
River in Virginia, full of water. He said that they had been obliged to
buy her in order to get the other vessels. When Pete said he’d like to
buy the Master’s interest in the PALMER, Capt. Frost asked him if he
was “crazy”. Pete replied that he didn’t think so and, being thereby
reassured, Capt. Frost proceeded to sell the other shares while Pete
went to Virginia to get the vessel, float her, and repair her. They
paid $16,000 for the schooner and spent another $6,500 putting her in
shape for sea. Pete then made about eleven trips in her with coal to
Portland, Boston, and New York. During the summer, his wife and two
boys accompanied him. In November he sold his interest to Capt. Willis
Hutchins of Saco. The next February Capt. Hutchins had the misfortune
to lose the vessel on the Stone Horse Shoal in a snowstorm.
[Illustration:
_Schr. DOROTHY PALMER, 2872 tons. F.H.P. made eleven coal trips in
this schooner in 1922._
]
In March 1923, Pete was in New York looking for a ship when he
encountered Capt. Hutchins on the street. Hutchins said that he was
about to go to Pensacola to take command of the Cities Service tanker
HAGOOD. He suggested that Pete come along as Mate. To learn the ropes
of tanker operation, Pete went as Mate with his friend for five months,
running between Tampico, Mexico, and Philadelphia. Then he went Second
Mate for one trip to Boston in the Hog Island freighter ARTEGAS which
was under the command of one of his former Mates in the ALICIA B.
CROSBY.
In August 1923, Pete was offered the command of the 2000-ton motorship
JAMES TIMPSON engaged in the Central American mahogany trade. The
TIMPSON was a wooden ship equipped with two 500-horsepower Winton
diesel engines, the largest engines of their kind then available. The
engines had one serious failing: in the absence of reverse gears, they
were difficult and uncertain to put in reverse rotation. On their
return from Cuba and Belize with a mixed cargo of cedar and mahogany,
they were ordered to Steinway. The Sandy Hook pilot said that he’d
take them as far as the Statue of Liberty and Pete could then get a
Hell Gate pilot. Pete sent word that he wanted a Hell Gate pilot and a
tug. The pilot showed up without a tug and, when Pete inquired why, the
pilot replied that none was needed. “This is a twin-screw ship and you
can do anything with her.” As they approached the dock, Pete suggested
quietly that it might be well to slow down as she didn’t always reverse
when you wanted her to. The pilot said he knew what he was doing, and
kept on at the same speed. When he finally rang for “full astern”, they
waited and waited until it was too late to drop anchor ... and they
went right through the dock. Pete told me, “I asked him then if he knew
what he was doing, but he made no reply.” That was enough of the JAMES
TIMPSON for both Pete and the Chief Engineer, and they resigned. It was
just as well because the following year the TIMPSON was lost in a West
Indies hurricane after her engines broke down and her mahogany deck
load got adrift.
[Illustration:
_The wooden motorship JAMES TIMPSON, F.H.P.’s first command after
abandoning sailing vessels for a time. Appointed Master of the
TIMPSON in August 1923, he resigned in May 1924. He returned to
schooners for three years before going back “into steam.”_
]
During much of 1924, Pete was engaged in a joint enterprise with one
William C. Magee building a dwelling at 304 Cattell Avenue in West
Collingswood, New Jersey. Just what the arrangement was is unclear from
the records, but son John says that his father put up the capital and
Magee supplied the building experience. Pete apparently undertook the
responsibility of handling all the financial records and disbursements
for the project. He drew hourly wages for his services, and there are
a few entries during the summer which indicate that sons Frank and
John occasionally worked a few hours during their school vacation.
The family lived in Collingswood while the boys were in high school.
Later, in the early ’30s, when Captain and Mrs. Peterson wanted to sell
the house they found no buyer for a long time because of the economic
depression. Eventually the house was sold without profit.
Pete spent September, 1924, in Norfolk repairing the four-master
SNETIND only to have her libelled when the job was done. He left her to
take command of the schooner MARY L. BAXTER in New York. He was in her
until the end of the year, making one trip with coal to Bangor and then
to Boothbay for repairs.
In January, 1925, he took the four-master ELIZABETH BANDI on one
round-trip from New York to Georgetown and back with lumber. Pete
described the BANDI (which is now the retired German training bark
SEUTE DEERN at Bremerhaven) as “a nice little schooner that would sail
like a son-of-a-gun.” He left her in March to take the big West Coast
five-master BRIGHT to Norfolk and back to Boston with coal.
[Illustration:
_Schr. BRIGHT, 2176 tons, F.H.P. commanded this big West Coast
built vessel for one coal trip in the Spring of 1925._
]
Pete took command of his last sailing vessel when, in June 1925, he
bought the four-masted schooner ANNIE C. ROSS. After the vessel was
scraped and painted at Perth Amboy, he was joined by his wife and
two sons, now sixteen and fourteen, and sailed for Georgetown, South
Carolina. The elder son, Frank, was signed on as Bo’s’n/Second Mate.
They brought lumber back to New Bedford and Bridgeport. This was the
last time that the Peterson family sailed together, although son John
spent a summer vacation from college, four years later, as an AB (able
seaman) in the tanker DILLWYN which his father then commanded.
[Illustration:
_F.H.P. bought the schooner ANNIE C. ROSS in June 1925 and sold
her in November 1926. The ROSS was one of the last surviving
four-masters. Active through the 1930s she wound up as a stationary
training ship for Sea Scouts on Long Island and eventually
“dissolved”. She is seen here with the S.S. LEVIATHAN._
]
Those of us whose shore-based lives have been characterized by a work
schedule that has permitted us to live at home with our wives and
families, to come home daily after work and share the dinner hour,
to watch our children grow week by week, month by month, to share
in their encouragement, guidance and discipline, to help meet the
inevitable crises of every family, to console our mate when consolation
is needed ... we, the fortunate ones, must realize and reflect on the
fact that these vital elements of domestic happiness are sacrificed
to a great degree by the families of men who follow the sea, as well
as by the men themselves. Away from home for long periods, the father
sacrifices many of the joys of parenthood, and the years pass without
the growing closeness between father and child that is nurtured by
a father’s always being there when needed. The burden of being both
father and mother, a virtually impossible task, falls to the lonely
wife who remains at home. There must be great love and forebearance
for a marriage to survive such prolonged tests, and Frank and Margaret
Peterson had such a marriage.
Saying goodbye once again to his family, Pete loaded the ROSS at
New York with a general cargo for Miami, then in the throes of its
building boom. As a deckload, four big Mack trucks were set on board
by a Merrit-Chapman lighter and derrick. Pete inquired of the shipper
how they proposed to discharge them at Miami. When told that a derrick
would be arranged for, Pete offered to discharge them himself for $75.
His offer was quickly accepted without question. In Miami, Pete simply
used his main and mizzen throat halliards to lift the trucks over the
side ... making a quick $75 for himself.
While on a passage from Miami to Pensacola, light, he got ashore on
Santa Rosa Island lured there, you might say, by a light shown from
the stranded schooner ROBERT L. BEAN which had gone ashore on the
Island only shortly before. Pete mistook the BEAN’s light for that on
the sea-buoy. Tugs got them both off, and after repairing some minor
damage at Pensacola, the ROSS lay idle from March until June. Two more
lumber cargoes, one from Mobile to Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and the other
from Georgetown to New York and Norwich, Connecticut, wound up Pete’s
sailing career. He sold the ROSS to Capt. Zuljevic at Norwich late in
1926.
[Illustration:
_The ANNIE C. ROSS, 791 tons, ashore on Santa Rosa Island near
Pensacola, Florida, March 1926. The stranded schooner ROBERT L.
BEAN may be seen faintly at the extreme left of this picture._
]
For the next three years, Pete commanded tankers of the C. D.
Mallory Company of New York, running between Gulf ports and New
York or Baltimore, with at least one run to Montreal and another to
Halifax. Between May, 1927, and May 1930, he made approximately forty
round-trips with petroleum cargoes in six different 7000-ton tankers.
These vessels were the S.S. IMLAY, MALACCA, MATINICOCK, DURANGO,
ARDMORE, and DILLWYN.
[Illustration:
_The tanker IMLAY, first of six 7000-ton tankships that F.H.P.
commanded for the Mallory Co. between 1927 and 1930._
]
Pete was usually an even-tempered person but he would not be imposed
upon by anybody; and as a mariner of “the old school” he would brook no
insolence from a crew member. When aroused, he had a formidable temper
and was quite capable of taking care of himself in a fight, as a couple
of instances may illustrate.
During the 1896 voyage from Philadelphia to Boston when he was Mate
of the schooner HUMAROCK, one of the sailors gave him some insolent
back-talk, or may indeed have threatened or struck him; I no longer
remember the detail. In any case, Pete and the sailor “went at it
hammer and tongs.” Pete beat him up so thoroughly that, to avoid
possible police inquiry on arrival in Boston, Capt. Veazie thought it
prudent for Pete to leave the vessel as she passed through a drawbridge
before docking. This he did, pay in hand, and caught the next steamer
for Rockland and home.
Twenty-seven years later, when he was Mate of the tanker HAGOOD,
another revealing episode occurred. During the discharging of the cargo
of petroleum at Philadelphia, Pete was supervising operations when
something so angered a crewman who was operating valves that he said to
Pete, “If you weren’t an old man, I’d hit you.” Pete promptly struck
the first blow, whether in response to the threat or the reference to
his age we can’t now be sure. Capt. Hutchins, who had observed the
altercation from the upper deck outside his quarters, was on the scene
immediately and told the crewman something like, “I saw you strike the
Mate. You get your gear and get off this ship now, or I’ll turn you
over to the police.” And that was the end of it.
In 1930, Pete was offered the post of Secretary to the Board of Pilot
Commissioners at Boston. He and Mrs. Peterson moved to Medford,
Massachusetts, purchasing a new home there the following year. In May,
1931, following the death of Pilot Commissioner Robert Johnstone,
Governor Joseph B. Ely appointed Pete to succeed Capt. Johnstone on the
Board.
[Illustration:
_Capt. and Mrs. Peterson with son John at the time of their golden
wedding anniversary, June 1957._
]
Pete’s skill and reputation as a coast pilot, navigator, and ship
handler were such that by 1932 he was being engaged repeatedly to
go second in command to Capt. Joseph I. Kemp, widely known former
towboat master, on builder’s and acceptance trials of new ships of
every description. Capt. Kemp, who was then Secretary of the Boston
Marine Society, was a consummate ship handler and unsurpassed in the
management of a fleet of towboats to control large vessels in confined
waters. But Capt. Kemp’s license was restricted to bays and inland
waters on vessels of limited tonnage. Consequently, it was Pete’s
license on which the vessels were navigated legally. It was he who
provided the coast piloting skills on the trips to Rockland for the
speed trials over the measured mile, and for the many other performance
tests to which the vessels were subjected.
Every vessel built at Fore River by Bethlehem, as well as many turned
out by the New York Shipbuilding Co. and the Newport News Shipbuilding
& Drydock Co., and probably some destroyers launched by the Bath Iron
Works, came under his hand. The roster of such vessels is astonishing
in its number and variety. It includes such passenger vessels as the
liners AMERICA, PRESIDENT HOOVER, MARIPOSA, and MONTEREY; warships of
nearly every type, and even the Corps of Engineers’ ocean-going dredge
GENERAL GOETHALS. Among the Navy ships were the cruisers INDIANAPOLIS,
BOISE, NASHVILLE, PORTLAND, TUSCALOOSA, QUINCY, and VINCENNES; many
destroyers, including FARRAGUT, MAHAN, PHELPS, MOFFETT, CUMMINGS,
CRAVEN, BALCH, GRIDLEY, and DUNLAP; also the aircraft carriers RANGER,
ENTERPRISE, and YORKTOWN. He also had one or two submarines built at
Groton, Connecticut, by the Electric Boat Company.
These opportunities to practice his profession kept Pete’s spirits
high, his skills keen, and enhanced his income. He continued to go on
the trial trips for Bethlehem throughout the War.
Pete continued on the Board of Pilot Commissioners until November,
1942, when he was elected Secretary of the Boston Marine Society
following the sudden death of Capt. Kemp. The Secretary and the
Treasurer are the two salaried positions maintained by the Society, the
former being full-time. The office of the Society had been for many
years in the Grain Exchange Building at 177 Milk Street. In February,
1935, they had moved, together with the Pilot Commissioners and the
Port Wardens, to 88 Broad Street. It was there that I spent many happy
noon hours.
[Illustration:
_A noontime cribbage session at the Boston Marine Society about
1943. Left to right: F.H.P., Capts. Eugene McKown, Lorenzo Crowell,
and Orville S. Pinkham, and the author._
]
The little group of semi-retired shipmasters who constituted the
afterguard on the trial trips were a highly compatible body of men
who enjoyed each other’s fellowship at other times as well. One of
them owned a camp at Billerica, Massachusetts, and a half-dozen of
these friends would gather there after work on Thursday afternoons
and evenings during the pleasant months for a few hours of pitching
horseshoes, supper and a card game. Each fall in deer hunting season,
Pete would join two or three friends for several days in the Maine
woods, either in the Rangeley area or in Washington County, and several
years he came home with venison for the larder. The first venison I
ever tasted was at his dinner table.
[Illustration:
_A successful hunt at Rangeley Lake, Maine, October 1934._
]
[Illustration:
_A gathering of shipmasters at the Boston Marine Society, February
1935. Left to right: Capts. Joseph I. Kemp, William E. Rutledge,
Frank H. Peterson, Lorenzo Crowell, Orville S. Pinkham, Aquilla P.
Bartow, and Otis W. Clarke._
]
[Illustration:
_Part of the trial trip afterguard with Bethlehem Shipbuilding Co.
executives. The three central figures are F.H.P., Capt. Birney
Hallowell and Capt. Charles Snow. It was Capt. Hallowell who owned
the camp at Billerica where F.H.P. spent many happy Thursday
afternoons with friends._
]
In December, 1956, having passed his eightieth birthday, Captain
Peterson resigned as Secretary of the Boston Marine Society, and
retired. In June, 1957, he and Mrs. Peterson celebrated their golden
wedding anniversary. A little slower, a little more stooped, a bit more
frail in health, he retained the good humor and genial spirit that had
won him a host of friends. Then, on November 8, 1958, his valiant heart
suddenly stopped. Mrs. Peterson survived him by only two years. Today
they lie in Puritan Lawn Cemetery at Peabody, Massachusetts.
When his father, Capt. James Peterson, died in 1910, it was recorded in
the Machias newspaper that “he said he did not care to have anyone say
anything at his funeral suggestive of any virtues he might possess as
his faults were so many.” Yet, like his father, to those who knew Frank
Hewitt Peterson his virtues were many and his faults few indeed. He
pulled his full weight on his oar throughout his long life, and he has
left a proud heritage to his six grandchildren and their children.
[Illustration:
_F.H.P. at home, 1935. Photo taken by the author during one of
countless evenings of conversation, reminiscence, and oral history._
]