FOUR SCHOONERS IN PORTLAND

FOUR SCHOONERS IN PORTLAND

Four schooners anchored in Portland, Maine harbor. Sea is calm, all have some sails up, possibly for drying. In foreground, left to right, are schooner-3 HORTENSIA, schooner-2 ALASKA of Sackville N.B., and schooner-4 ALICIA B. CROSBY of Portland. Behind is another, unidentified, schooner-3. This image, credited to D.K. Lee, appeared in the Fisherman's Voice, March 2010, Volume 15, No. 3, page 1. It was accompanied by an extract of text by William H. Bunting from A DayÆs Work, A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860-1920, Part II. Published by Tilbury House Publishers, Gardiner, Maine, 800-582-1899. "Peaks Island Roads, Portland Harbor, early 1900s. Four windbound coasting schooners lie at anchor. The Hortensia of Machias, loaded with spruce spiling, is at left. Built as a two-master at East Machias in 1868, she was rebuilt into a three-master about 1904. The two-master in the foreground is Alaska of Sackville, New Brunswick, laden with laths. Forward, her towing hawser is hoisted to dry; aft, her heavy mainsail is reefed, indicating she may be sailing shorthanded. The big four-master to the right is the Bath-built Alicia B. Crosby of Portland, of the J. S. Winslow fleet. Riding light, she has doubtless discharged a cargo of bituminous coal. The smaller schooners are likely headed to Boston, New York, or somewhere in between. The Crosby is ultimately headed back for a middle Atlantic coal port, although she may first load a return cargo of Kennebec River ice. Success in the command of a big and costly coal schooner required a certain degree of impatience; the many hazards of passage-making in such a vessel might keep an overly prudent man forever swinging at anchor. On June 15, 1897, the Argus reported that the Crosby, under Captain George W. Bunker, had entered Portland flying in before the wind: The Crosby heeled over from the force of the gale almost like a yacht and threw the foam and spray in every direction. She was traveling at the speed of a racehorse as she came in past Spring Point Light, but she came to anchor as readily as though there had been merely an ordinary sailing breeze."