From collection Charles Coombs Collection
Myra B. Weaver later Pendleton Satisfaction
Schooners HENRY B, FISKE, MYRA B. WEAVER (later the PENDLETON'S SATISFACTION, JOHN DEXTER, ABDON KEENE at the Gilchrist Shipyard in1901, The vessel under construction at George A. Gilchrist's shipyard on the Belfast waterfront is the four-masted schooner Henry B. Fiske. The large three-masted schooner at the outfitting wharf is the Myra B. Weaver (behind the smaller schooner) built in Bath in 1889. The vessel had recently been purchased by Belfast interests after it had been wrecked; under the new ownership, the schooner's name will be changed to Pendleton Satisfaction. The small schooner well up on the marine railway is John Dexter, built in Stonington, Connecticut sixty-one years earlier. The other small schooner is the Abdon Keene (masts only - to the right of the hull), built in Essex, Massachusetts in 1860. According to newspaper accounts this photograph is likely to have been taken in May of 1901. HISTORY: The schooner MYRA B. WEAVER slid from the ways of John McDonald's shipyard and was taken in tow for Horse Island where she will load ice for Key West (1889). The MYRA B. WEAVER is a three masted vessel 154.5 feet long, 35 feet broad and 12.5 feet deep with a net tonnage of 498. she is a single deck keel schooner with Virginia Oak frame, built for service in the coasting trade, and her timbers indicate that she is designed to bear the rough usage which vessels always meet in winter along the North Atlantic shore. The cabin is finished in ash, walnut and whitewood and remarkably coz. the captain's room shows a bright colored Brussels carpet and is furnished with a handsome plush sofa , easy chair and heavy cherry writing table which has ample accommodations for books and papers. The after cabin is furnished in plush and a polished oak center table, these with the easy chairs make a very comfortable looking apartment. The other rooms are small but nicely furnished, ranking this part of the vessel, like others, as first class. She will be commanded by Captain J. B. Weaver and is named for his wife. The supplies are all aboard and the cook is on duty but the sailors will not be engaged until the loading is finished. She is handsome, able looking craft and should make a long and honorable record. Her managing owner is John McDonald, the builder. BOSTON, Nov. 10, 1900 - The three masted schooner Myra B. Weaver was wrecked in the Vineyard Sound early this morning and six lives were lost. The names of those who perished are: Captain Vannaman of Philadelphia; Steward William Peterson of New Orleans; Charles Magnussen of Bergen, Norway; John Hejman of Aland, Finland; Miss Mary Emerson, Aged 23 of Mobile, Miss Ella De Bose, Aged 25 of Mobile. Miss Emerson Was A Sister-In-Law of The Captain and Miss De Bose was her niece. The details of the disaster were learned upon the arrival here this afternoon of the steamer City of Macon, Capt. Savage, which rescued the four survivors while on the way here from New York. Those saved are: First Mate John Kearney of Calais, Me; Second Mate Rasmas Olsen, and Seamen George Johnson and Axel Oggla. The Weaver left Fernandina, Fla. Oct 16, with a cargo of lumber. At 5 o'clock Thursday afternoon the schooner anchored six mile West of Handkerchief West in Vineyard Sound. The weather was threatening . All day long the vessel tugged at her moorings, and at nightfall it was blowing almost a hurricane, and the crew were ordered to lash themselves to the rigging. Capt. Vannaman assisted Miss Emerson to the main rigging, where she was securely lashed. Mate Kearney lifted little Ella de Bose to the cross trees, where she was lashed, and the mate remained near her speaking words of encouragement throughout the awful night. Early in the morning the lashings to the deck load parted and the seas dashed high up on the masts and reached those lashed to the rigging. The force of the wind and waves finally parted her heavy anchor chains and she began to drift. Miss Emerson grew weaker from exhaustion and fright, until at 9 o'clock she breathed her last, and her lifeless body hung by the lashings in the riggings. The waves soon tore the clothing from the body. When Capt. Vannaman found that Miss Emerson was beyond all earthly aid, he climbed to a higher position in the rigging near the mate and the little girl. Little Ella began to suffer from the effects of the cold, and the mate cut pieces from the sails and wrapped them about her body. Capt. Vannaman began to show signs of weakness, and was also given pieces of sails to wrap about him. As morning approached he was on the verge of collapse. At 3:30 this morning the schooner struck off Handkerchief Shoal, capsized, and lay with her starboard side and three masts under water. The mate was plunged beneath the waves, but succeeded in clinging to the mast. The Captain and little girl, the steward and the two members of the crew, Magnussen and Hejman, were drowned. Mate Kearney reached a position near the mast, where the four men held on for over an hour, when the City of Macon hove in sight at 4:30 A. M.. A lifeboat was lowered and after nearly two hours the boat reached a point where it was possible to throw a line to the men. Second Mate Olsen and the two sailors, Johnson and Oggla grasped the line thrown to them and were drawn into the lifeboat. Mate Kearney was almost unconscious and was pulled into the lifeboat, which returned to the steamer where the sailors were given every attention. Mate Kearney was still confined to his stateroom tonight and it will probably be several days before he is able to be about again. The other men, save for bruised limbs are in fairly good condition. Captain Vannaman was married two years ago to Miss Emerson of Mobile. His wife , who died a year ago, was a daughter of Judge Emerson. Miss Mary Emerson, who lost her life, had made several trips to the South. Capt. Vannaman was in Havana Harbor at the time the Maine was sunk, in command of another schooner. He rescued several of the crew. WRECK: BANGOR, Me., May 31, 1901 - When the three masted Schooner which has been known since the day of her launching from McDonald's yard in Bath, in 1888, as the Myra B. Weaver, leaves Bangor on her first trip since being rebuilt at Belfast, she will bear the strangest name ever given to a vessel, an thereby hangs an interesting tale. The Myra B. Weaver, a vessel of 498 tons net register, was, for twelve years engaged in general coasting and met with good success until in November last, while on the passage from Fernandina to Boston with a load of hard pine, she was capsized and almost totally wrecked in Vineyard Sound. It was one of the most pitiful wreck stories of the year, that of the Myra B. Weaver. Capt. Vannaman and his wife who had been married in Jacksonville, Fla. on Oct. 10, and who were making their wedding trip in the vessel, being los, as were also Miss Ella Du Bois of Mobile, Ala., Mrs. Vannaman's niece, the mate and two sailors. The vessel was afterward righted and towed to Boston, where after discharging her cargo, she made temporary repairs and proceeded to Belfast, Me. where permanent repairs were to be made. FUNERAL: MOBILE, Ala.. Nov. 19.- The dead body of Ella Dubose. daughter of Mr. J. M. Dubose of this city, reached here Sunday from Boston, Mass., near the harbor of which seaport the girl met a horrible death in the rigging of the schooner Myra B. Weaver. Two others perished with her in a frightful storm that raged on Vineyard Sound on Friday, the 9th of November. The funeral took place to-day from the home of her mother. There was a constant stream of callers at the house from early morning till the hour of the funeral and the little coffin was buried from sight under a mass of white flowers. The little girl was universally beloved and the burial was one of the saddest here for many months. News of the tragedy reached the parents of the dead girl after the ill-fated schooner, a dismantled wreck, had been towed to a wharf in Boston harbor, the girl and two seamen still swaying dead in the rigging, from which it had been Impossible to detach them until the vessel was moored to a dock. For an hour or more hundreds, if not thousands, of persons crossing: the East Boston ferries, and on both the Boston and East Boston shores, saw this awful spectacle, perhaps never before witnessed in the harbor of a civilized city. Near the North ferry is Leighton's wharf. Shortly after 1 o'clock the tugboats Mercury, Zetes and Juno brought to the wharf the wrecked Weaver. Lashed to the rigging, high up on a broken mast near the crosstrees. was the partly nude body of Ella Dubose. A rope about the waist was fastened to the masthead, and as the body swung back and forth the head and arms almost touched the feet. Below the head hung down the long brown hair of the girl. Why was the body not removed before the schooner was made fast to the wharf? was the question on every witness' lips. The wreckers said that, as there was a hole in the boat, and as it was floating only because of its cargo of lumber, it was impossible to board the vessel and climb the mast before It was secured to a wharf. The tug Mercury, which was the first to find the derelict vessel, took the wreck in tow on Sunday morning twenty-three miles east of Sankaty Head. Nantucket. When Captain R. S. Vannaman knew that his vessel was doomed in Vineyard Sound his and Mate Kearney's first thoughts were of the two women aboard - the captain's deceased wife's sister and niece. The former Miss Mary Emerson, 23 years old. it is understood, was soon to become the captain's second wife. The two young women were lashed to the masts beside the captain and mate, but when the vessel partly capsized, then righted itself, Ella Dubose's body alone remained upon the mast. The mate and three of the crew, holding to part of the rigging, were rescued. The two seamen whose bodies became entangled in the lower rigging were John Hayman and Charles Magnussen, the former a native of Finland and the latter of Norway. The bodies of all three victims of the ocean's fury were not removed from the vessel until a medical examiner arrived. STRANGE NAME: After she had been hauled out at Belfast and when, on Feb. 18, the work of repairing had fairly begun, trouble arose between Capt. Field Pendleton of Islesborough and the pother owners as to how much money should be laid out on the vessel. As it seemed to be impossible to reach an agreement, Capt. Pendleton proposed to either sell his share to the other owners or by their interest, but the other owners refused to do either. Then, to bring the matter into court to settlement, Capt. Pendleton libeled the vessel, and after some delay the case came up for trial in the United States Court in Portland. The Court decided in favor of Capt. Pendleton, saying that the proposition was perfectly fair and the only way out of the difficulty. That settled it and Capt. Pendleton bought the interest of the other owners. Repairs on the vessel proceeded, and recently she was launched, practically a new vessel and on Wednesday night she was brought to Bangor to load for New York. Desiring to change her name, Capt. Pendleton applied some time since to the United States Treasury Department for permission to do so. Up to the time she left Belfast Wednesday, no word had been received from Washington, but on Wednesday night, after she had arrived here, and while Capt. Pendleton, also was in Bangor, a telegram came saying that the desired permission had been granted -- that the Myra B. Weaver's name might be changed. Then it was that the new and strange name was announced for the first time. Capt. Pendleton had anticipated the permission, and had caused to be made a fine new set of colors for the schooner, upon one of which, the burgee, appears the name under which the vessel, will henceforth, sail, "Penleton's Satisfaction". The Islesborough Captain was so pleased at his triumph over the other owners of the Myra B. Weaver in the long and costly legal fight that he determined to give expression to his feelings on the vessel's colors and on her stern, hence "Pendleton's Satisfaction".
