The three-masted schooner ANNIE L. HENDERSON burning mid-Penobscot river at Bangor, Maine in 1901

The three-masted schooner ANNIE L. HENDERSON burning mid-Penobscot river at Bangor, Maine in 1901

The three masted schooner ANNIE L. HENDERSON burning in the middle of the Penobscot River at Bangor, Maine in 1906. The HENDERSON was built at the H.M. Bean Yard, where Wayfarer Marin is currently located, in Camden, Maine in 1880. She was 140' in length with a 32' beam, a draught of 12' and a gross tonnage of 428. On the morning of Saturday, Sept. 1, 1906, fire broke out in the coal sheds of Bacon & Robinson Company where the HENDERSON was tied up and being emptied of her cargo; during this period, the Bangor waterfront was a ticking time bomb of many inadvertent sources of tinder and fuel--warehouses filled with coal, lumber, tarpaper, hay, etc. As the morning winds fed oxygen to the blaze, stevedores working in the hold and crew members onboard were forced to abandon ship. The HENDERSON's rigging and crosstrees had caught fire, and while a barge tethered adjacent to her was being towed out of the way by the tug BISMARCK, the burning coal stage at Bacon & Robinson toppled across her decks, trapping her for several minutes. She was finally freed and drifted out of control across to Brewer, where her burning jib boom set fire to a storage shed. Brewer officials ordered the BISMARCK to drag her out to the middle of the river to prevent further damage to their waterfront; the crew of the tug employed the vessel's fire pump in an attempt to extinguish the blaze, but their efforts came too late. The HENDERSON was then towed to her final resting place on the flats downriver, secured against drifting, and left to burn through the day and well into the night. Fire crews in Bangor were abetted in their efforts to contain the flames by the fact of the breeze moved offshore that day; they were able to keep the fire from spreading to the costly new buildings of the Eastern Steamship company nearby, and the city was spared a potential calamity. Unfortunately, five years later, the Great Fire of 1911 destroyed much of the city. The HENDERSON was not insured and was a total loss for her owners. Her charred remains were raised and dragged ashore to facilitate a federal dredging project 3 years later. [information taken from a Bangor Daily News article by Wayne E. Reilly, July 2009--ARTICLE ATTACHED IN MEDIA]