 Thank you very much Again welcome everyone to the first or the second in our lecture series called celebrating Portland our story through architecture My name is Hillary Bassett and I'm executive director of Greater Portland Landmarks and I'm so glad to hear to see all of you here We are delighted to have the second in our series of lectures and just to remind you that Greater Portland Landmarks mission is to preserve and revitalize Greater Portland's remarkable legacy of historic buildings neighborhoods landscapes and parks He was born in Norway, Maine And I just learned through a great article in the in the Portland Sun the Previous newspaper for Portland that he went to a one-room school house and also that he had a chance as a young person to meet Governor Percival Baxter and that is where Herb got inspired to spend his career in the study of history and Public service and he has continued to do that He is it in on the faculty at Southern Maine Community College as a professor of social science And then he has served on many many volunteer committees the Portland School Committee Portland Friends of the Parks Parkside Neighborhood Association And he was an eight-term member of the Maine House of Representatives serving Portland's district 119 He is a very special person. I think you'll really enjoy his presentation tonight And I would like to thank her for being here and welcoming welcome him as our speaker. Thank you. I Did know governor Baxter It was governor almost a hundred years ago But I was lucky to be among the raft of his little kid friends the last raft of them a wonderful man and worthy of a lecture another night it Is a sweet September day It is late fall September 28th 1844 We are Standing at the far end of 4th Street in Old Portland town Next to captain Stevenson's mansion. He is suffering us all to stand on his lawn our big crowd It's across For a street where we could see a lovely Curving pebbly beach of white sand Seagulls cry overhead in the salt wind Next to us is an open field of Hancock Street full of wood chips and our fellow citizens What we are watching is the launching of a ship Thousands of people writes the Argus the very next day men women children in Carriages and on foot were gathered together near captain Dyer shipyard on Saturday 4 noon to see the steamboat General Warren launched She ran down over the ways Beautifully till she nearly touched the water when some portion of the ways gave way and she settled so much That went about half her length was in the water. She stopped Now we learn from captain D that the boat is not injured in the least and it will get off without difficulty at 12 o'clock today an Old man by the name of Warren who was slightly Demented had been lowered aboard dressed in full uniform with a sword at his side as The vessel went over the seawall and the way is parted and she stuck in the mud With a somewhat disastrous effect to the marshal looking Warren who is thrown on the deck in a most undignified manner So ends the eastern Argus as The last launching of any vessel in this area It's somewhat fitting you know that the ship slipped past the Stevenson mansion Which have been the birthplace of Henry Wadsworth long fellow his aunt and uncle's home The author of the poem the building of the ship and the site of George Cleves and mr. Tucker's pioneering homestead in 1632 Within a few years of this event four street shipyards would be replaced and Indeed they would be by rail yards The port this part of Portland where we are standing is so far out from the center of town and is nicknamed Jaffa a place far away But it is the center of our story This is where old Portland was born and to which we will return in our story Portland its face to the mountains its feet in the sea For 300 more and more years the sea has been our resource our savior our neighbor and Sometimes our friend It has been said by one historian of Portland that across the years the city successfully switched and Handled well about 11 different lines of commerce From mast pines for the Royal Navy to shook meaning barrel staves for molasses To sea haves of all kind to today's tourists an entertainment and a container port All proving despite all dangers all disappointments all disasters our city slogan Resurge them I shall rise again Now ironically the path that the general Warren took that day Being launched from Dyer's shipyard to the sea can be walked and traced today no difficulty It starts in what would be the front yard of the shipyard brewing company hence the name Then through the middle of the building of a hotel Then across old four street to a parking lot then across a railroad then across Reconstructed Thames Street through another parking lot and then straight through the ocean gate terminal Back to the sea The beach is long gone Replaced by maybe a thousand feet of asphalt and iron But the route to Portland's harbor is the route we're going to take tonight Portland's story the journey from the age of sail to the age of rail to the age of the auto and Back to the age of the ocean again Portland's past to our present. It's worth tracing again Now along the way we're going to meet merchant princes prizes of great value decisions and Disasters of lesser value, but I've also given you something to be helpful I hope and that is the rig silhouette that some of you have been so fortunate as to pick up To those who came before us a ship meant a specific thing a Brig meant something else a bark yet again something different a y'all or a brigantine or a schooner All meant different things as familiar to the children of that world as the latest Halo game is on the internet to the students of today So this if you are fortunate enough to have one is meant to help as we march along For a hundred and twenty-five years vessels had been launched in the dire yard General Warren is the last launching from that yard. It is a screw steam Propeller the words they used for it then it's symbolic to it had both mass and a steam engine and a propeller It's a hybrid. It's in transition in a time of great transition If this is the nick of time when Portland is making the transition from a ship building port to a ship Port and the difference is profound But to begin at the beginning as Dickens always said Portland's first shipyard you can still sort of find it was at the foot of India Street today Would be buried under commercial Street and the filled land and the docks and the parking lots our own Reverend Thomas Smith who came to Portland in 1772 and stayed and wrote about us for almost 70 years in August 1727 tells his diary the sloop built before my door was launched today Now Reverend Smith lived in what would be Today more or less the front lawn of temple at Zion on Congress Street facing down India It was a straight shot down India Street to the sea in those days much closer than of course And the yard would be under commercial today, but he could have seen all that was being done Now that too is part of Portland's story as a city of ships And the merchant princes that made them Their world in their waterfront is totally gone Absolutely banished Buried forever under commercial street not to the transit to that is part of our story tonight If you walk the old waterfront with old reverence Smith or with young Henry Longfellow You'd be walking the crooked wandering four street which hugged the harbor shoreline An early shipyard was Lemuel Dyer's father of the joseph Whose yard launched the general warren and it was on four street at clay cove You may stand to talk clay cove exactly today where the cask of a island transit district Packing garage and ferry slip are That part of commercial street This was portland's first industrial center Here the Dyer's in this case lemuel father of joseph Built in launch small brigs And brigantines For the west indies trade Here Where the dire ways Entered the sea was a marine railway and they called it that they were parallel wood tracks Up which a boat could be winched or down which it could slide into the sea The wharves the dyers built stretched out on all sides And in fact enclosed a small salt lagoon Their ships were short launched into clay cove Which uh lagoon Was filled with logs which would pile up in front of the bows of the oncoming ship And lessen the momentum and prevent them from rushing out into the flats To get them out of the cove One had to pull up the planks of the bridge Which connected tims street T.h.a.m.e s to the main railway That the dyers ran had to pull the vessels through the gap out into the harbor And then build it all back again so you could continue to use the bridge And we think it's tough to cross commercial street today Lemuel dire passed in 1847 Accidentally working in the woods in Hiram and oxford county main not far from where I come Felling timber for the next year's work And his yard will not much uh last longer than he as we shall see but Let's walk continuing westward toward a much larger yard Toward where today the portland south portland bridge Is or close to the next yard over no planks to take up there Was known for the vast vessels that it built. This was the robert night yard On there he would build magnificent vessels with names to match the astrakhan of 536 tons The ozark of 392 Tums this in the days of manhulled winches and hands-on hammering The astrakhan was a full rigged ship It was kettle bottomed fast and big for the cotton carrying trade Um coming home from calcutta legend says once she made 10 knots a day for 10 days straight Which if true is absolutely incredible? And set the tone for portlands fast sailing ships Next continuing toward the bridge would be the ralph kellyard Where he built the corral in in 1848 one of the best vessels ever built at portland It was the first transatlantic sailing packet between new york city and glasgau And then above the bridge that is going up the fore river past today's portland south portland bridge Was the gw laurence yard exactly on west commercial street, and i mean exactly Where into the 1950s the burnstein and jacobson salvage docks were located You can still see some of the pilings and the old wooden docks there gray and ancient in the water And where today sprays expanding yacht repair complex is Exactly that spot Here laurence built the largest vessels ever built in portlands inner harbour laurence built fast and he built big The ship sabago of one thousand two hundred and fifty eight tons was built in 1864 four Followed by the eugenie of four hundred and fifty four tons And probably the largest vessel that i can prove was actually built within the city limits of portland the majestic in 1866 well named one thousand one hundred and seventy tons The majestic was a downeaster that means it was somewhat like a clippership long narrow Shark vows cop the water rather than plowed it But it was not quite so sleek. It was square rigged like a ship And it swept all of the seven seas was still in service in december 1892 When she disappeared with all her crew going from seattle to san francisco she's perhaps Portland's very last city built ship still on the waves of the world when she vanishes in 1892 Now during the civil war the laurence yard built ironclad double-ended gunboats for the united states navy Uh double ended so they could go up and down the narrow rivers of the west and the south without having to turn around um grand names the agawam and the pontusick built in 1863 and the monitor the wassak built in 1864 Toad down the harbor they were fitted out with high high performing mighty iron engines Uh today at today's portland company Complex they were tested by running at full speed but tethered to the dock for 90 hours straight Indeed successful When the confederates in fact raided portland harbor in 1863 They were after the agawam and pontusick but the portland company was simply too mighty to invade It's a story for another lecture But one of the most successful confederate invasions of the north and the northernmost naval battle fought in american waters in the civil war Is the battle of portland harbor And the explosion of the ships that they took and the failure of their mission in june 1863 Long covered over long forgotten because the battle of gettersburg takes the newspaper headlines within a few days after that occasion Now but we're at the portland company. We've walked back that far Oh, it's good to stop there It is the reason portland is not a ship building hub after the year 1850 The portland company was built by john alfred pour A railroad man not a sailing man And a remarkable man The name j a pour meant railroads and railroads meant commercial street He's the first of the merchant princes. We're going to visit tonight It's remarkable fellow. He'd be remarkable today He boomed once in his newspaper main is the region of the earth where physical exertion is a pleasure Where continuous labor invigorates rather than exhaust the human frame quote-unquote. I wish I had students like that No one fits that description better than john a pour himself. He's the father of what we call commercial street today He's a prophet. He is a gospel speaker Um, he's the father of commercial street promoter extraordinaire Who uh brought the future to the portland waterfront in a burst of steam and boundless energy in the 1850s Few men ever did more to change the face of main in the age of the iron horse than he He was born in and over main a tiny town in oxford county Uh in 1808 he's one year younger than henry wadsworth longfellow He's the son of a country doctor And he's a very promising young lawyer who'd even argued cases with daniel webster when at the age of 26 He was thunderstruck by the sight of the first steam locomotive in all new england Chugging off from boston toward newton massachusetts And I reflected in my later years he wrote that the locomotive engine grew into a greatness in my mind Left all other created things far behind it as marvels and wonders In 1843 he abandons his law practice for portland and there he preached to a willing audience the gospel of the railroad all his life We don't have much time to speak about him and I regret that Because nothing he ever dreamed of was ever small In the 1840s he envisioned main as the nexus of a vast international railway It was two words in those days Of steamships and railroads that would be built here And funnel the commerce of canada and the wealth of europe through portland main Like a grand panorama he wrote and the coast of main Shall be lined with cities surpassing those found on the english channel and the Baltic sea Many of us may know of his great adventure that Resulted in portland being the winter wheat port for canada portlands closer to europe then and now By sail than any other port in america But boston's bankers were much closer to the politicians of montreal in 1845 or seeking a winter port for canadian trade John apore single-handedly turned the tide By driving non-stop alone in an open slay From portland to montreal through dicksfield notch In a howling february blizzard And bursting in on the astonished canadians with a torrent of facts and figures promoting portland He nearly died When his presentation was over he went to his hotel room and slept for 17 hours His bare skin coat was frozen upright in the slay and only part of it that could move was the whip arm And yet he streams down the central streets of montreal with an american flag streaming behind him and exhausted horses that died In their tracks when he arrived absolutely amazing um Very few things could contain john apore's dreams He dreamed of a transcontinental railroad to be built from portland to california via chicago And the european and north american railroad that would link portland and bangor to london via steamships Your train would roll onto a steamship here in portland the tracks would interconnect Your cars would roll onto that you'd cross the atlantic and in london you'd pull up to another dog And your train would roll off again. You could spend the whole voyage by train in your berth Remarkable We have to jump ahead unfortunately um His great dreams in this sense don't come true But he believes that if you connect portlands to railheads foot of india foot of uh state street With a single railroad two words in those days Then you would have a great commercial way that he called it 100 feet wide one mile long 20 feet in the rail in the middle of it for the railroads Forever because there'll always be sailing ships and railroads, right? And this would therefore make portland the place to both land and to leave the united states of america This idea is presented to an international convention in 1850 at portlands bunting bidet city hall with johnny porris chairman And it adjourns portlands papers proudly noted with three notable and astounding cheers Well, what it what happens here? Is that a commercial street? Literally buries portlands old waterfront the existing wars which you can walk down today Were simply extended out from the four street shore out into the bay Commercial street was built using as uh johnny porr proudly pointed out esteem power horses and a lot of irishmen quote unquote Who cut down hills and filled it all in? If you go to the land side of commercial street You can find that there are still buildings there with two level basements that back up to four street So you could offload your ship whatever the tide higher low And on the water side of commercial Many of them are exactly the same to see the original harbour seawall of portland Go into the old port tavern and go to the side that faces commercial street That is the brick wall that held back the atlantic. That is the granite that held the piers where today portland Now goes out in land But what this does is seal portland harbour off from shipbuilding Now You can't build there any longer. So where do you go? Now it may be of interest to you to know that it's hard to imagine But vessels were actually built on back cove near deerings bridge Today, this is solid land on forest avenue near where kennebec street and marginal wane join forest avenue Just north of the portland post office if you're going out of town It's our right by deering oaks The cloverleafs of interstate i295 come down upon it now Believe it or not ships were built there. Hiram Jordan built the brick emden there in 1825 and the bark canada in 1841 you could launch them directly into the waters of back cove Back till 1904 you could have rowed a small boat from the ponds of deering oaks under the bridge We're directly into back cove That all ended when they built the extension of state street So why not back cove? Well the problem then and today Is that it's 60 acres of shallow mud flats and that's the reason if it had been a deep water ocean inlet It would be very different today and portland's history would be different But tukey's bridge and the flats there Um pretty much keep the water very shallow. It's still shallow still muddy So we have a dilemma portland waterfront is turns it back on shipbuilding Back bay is a bathtub of mud. You can't use it We go a little further northward to what they and their day called north portland Which today we call east deering And while we trudge toward north portland Let's look over our shoulder That shoulder on which we're carrying a shipbuilder's axe and an ads are going to look back toward town Because you can smell molasses there It was said that sailor mass had her east indies in the 19th century and portland main had its west indies And from the west indies we brought back portland's treasure Examples 1787 of 89 vessels clearing out of portland harbor 73 were bound for the west indies and the caribbean in 1826 six years after statehood One tenth of all shipping from around the entire world the globe bar nothing That entered Havana harbor one tenth of all the vessels were from portland main In 1860 over six million gallons of molasses in one year entered From Havana into portland main Now we send them cattle timber wood and shook shook meant the makings of the barrel barrel Staves or the makings of a box flattened one package one box one package of shook one barrel Um in return they send us molasses Now what do we use molasses for? Ah sugar making Ah and rum making Neil dow I could tell this was a prohibition crowd. So I thought I'd have to explain that Neil dow not was standing Uh Portland main was the third largest sugar exporter in the united states for much of the 19th century Granulated sugar would look no different than what you find on your table today And we are one of the top three rum exporters in the united states This is quite aside from the personal importing that despite the law went on all the time And this is our second merchant prince that makes it possible The Horatio Alger story has nothing over john Bundy brown j.b. Brown A commercial street's most remarkable merchant prince who rises from rags to riches on a taste of sweetness That is born to portland's waterfront Now he was born in 1805 in Lancaster, New Hampshire One of the 10 children of a tavern keeper and he comes to portland as a one dollar a week Grocery store an alpheus shaw's very first shaw's store down on middle street at 23 The ambitious young man brown joins his fellow clerk saint john smith and their own grocery business And they are soon importing large quantities of sugar and molasses and it's molasses That spells success for with a shrewd eye for what the public wanted Brown seizes upon new technology That refines humble brown sugar like you still use to cook today Into fancy yellow and white He knows what the public wants and in short order The his sugar house two words capital s capital h thought to be the third largest in america Standing at york and maple street was a resounding success He employs 200 people processes 30 000 hogs heads a hog said is 164 gallons You could climb inside a hog's head. That's how big the hog's head is um it goes through 30 000 of those a year and puts out 250 barrels of sugar a day all carried away on his own ships Now we know the story of portland success goes up in smoke on july 4th 1866 And burns his factory to the ground Except that shrewdness saved the day for he collects his insurance and solid gold from scottish and english firms Now he rebuilds the sugar house part of the building that exists today The corner of of maple and commercial is part of the 1866 structure But he pours his fortune instead into building enormous structures throughout the rest of the city He builds the land caster building in monument square remember luring short and harman That's the land caster building land caster because this where he was born by caster new hampshire Builds a 240 room falmouth hotel. It's the very largest north of boston I don't remember it. There may be a few in the audience that do is torn down in the 1960s He builds the majority of the main general hospital today a main medical center Um by 1880 he is portland's single largest landowner He pays one 30th of the entire city's property taxes and his vast estate bram hall Which stood atop our hill of the same name boasted lawns that stretch literally a quarter mile in every direction from his front door You know, we're all mortal He dies in 1881 from a simple fall on the ice Of all things and his obituary in a boston paper Declare as he was emphatically the architect of his own Fortune and the fortunes of many another man And he won his way upward to a proud summit by dint of industry Which knew no relaxation and perseverance which never quailed before obstacles and indeed it never did You know portraits of this he looks as a very grim looking gray for boating pouch-eyed stern Capitalist and he always posed in great fur collars To emphasize his wealth and yet there was another side to him He left a very generous scholarship to bodin to help promising little boys from portland Who like himself started life with ambition and one dollar And the brown medals named for his son john o'brown who died young which is still given at portland high to uh young students who do well academically if you stand With the portland school of art at your back or renny's and look across the street To the brick building which occupies an entire block there. Look above the center door. You'll see the name j.b. Brown Inscribed Blown up and inscribed when it fills In the wintertime with snow. It looks just like somebody sugared it. He'd like that very much It was born of success on commercial street Well, now while i've been talking we've reached east deary and here in the yards of east deary Which would be if you're heading northward out of portland, of course on the land side Uh, where the coves that held one of portland's most remarkable but unremembered merchant princes Who plays a huge part in the city's story and the story of portland main at sea He was my favorite shipbuilders name is jacob s winslow Now he lived at 14 dearing street and you can still stand on his stoop today as i did just coming here tonight Now he comes from pembroke main born december 19th 1827 main had been a state only seven years at that time and he grew up in lubeck The furthest corner east of the united states near canada facing sunrise and the sea He went to see at age 14 and commanded his own small vessel at 17 in the year 1846 The young united states has gone to war with mexico that year Young abraham lincoln has entered his one Undistinguished term in congress and henry david throw is living at walden pond that year But he thrives and he works hard in 1861 at age 34 He retires from the quarter deck and he establishes the firm of j.s winslow and company in portland And he stands at that helm for 41 years Now winslow company is a shipbuilder and a ship chandler That is meaning he builds vessels and then provides for their needs There are still ship chandlers in portland and very ancient ones who do well In these yards at east dearing main and in yards and bath where he had an interest In time he creates owns and controls the largest fleet Of sailing vessels on the east coast of the united states Which is saying something No one person From main or for that matter From american history that i configure has ever owned alone So many vessels not the great donald mackay the builder of of of clippers Not the great general hide at bath Those are built for other people winslow built for himself And sails them under his house flag Which was a famous blue w on a white field Simple and visible it floated at the mast head of ships Briggs barks schooners in all parts of the world for almost half a century I'm going to divert a minute here to tell you about the names of these vessels Now there's a great deal of superstition that surrounds the lore of the sea Much superstition about building naming and running ships There's a lot of belief in signs and in luck and in the stars You know the stars guide the ship at sea so they might guide it at birth and in birth as well Such as no ship is ever launched on a friday Bath iron works still will not launch a ship on a friday Names beginning with an a were considered unlucky Men's names were unlucky as rule Since the sea is feminine i.e Unpredictable alluring whimsy driven and mysterious His words not mine Thus ships are feminine Even if their name for a man or a mountain Ships are still referred to as she and they still are Now in time successful men's names were okay Kings admirals explorers the famous captains of men and captains of industry Like the winslows and their friends And in time many vessels do bear names beginning with a in fact the last full rigged A wooden ship built in america the arian is one such and It is considered extraordinary unlucky however to change the name of the vessel Unless it's with the change of ownership to The julie end the ship that hit the bridge here in portland so many years ago And doused the harbor with the largest oil spill in history Even then they would not change the name of the julie end Until it was sold and the name was changed It would have been too unlucky to have done so And there's many an example where an old salt could say well i told you so you should have followed the rules But the sea runs the show always You know in time the sea speaks to all But it answers to none And after all as shakespeare reminds us the fault dear brutus lies not in our stars, but in ourselves All the big winslows schooners are eventually named for people Except one the very last Which was built in the persian small yard Up in the bath in which winslow had a share and that would be the wyoming the longest and the biggest of them all And the last Now even in time and at last one vessel is named for jacob s winslow himself The j.s winslow built in east dearing main 1869 a little bark of 524 tons In time jacob winslow entices A fellow townsman from pembroke george russell to relocate from pembroke to portland with his four mighty brothers And they go to work in the winslow yards in east dearing And they go to work with a will for him With that mighty quintet The hammers never stopped falling in dearing From 1864 to 1891 From the great first breath to the very last sigh of the wooden ship the russell yard the winslow yard Bills 51 wooden sailing vessels And they go all the way from the little tiny rachel of 403 tons their very first built 1864 To their very last the road island of 1891 643 tons They build sailing vessels of all kinds. They're on your handout barks schooners bark and tines They build three ships. I mean properly ships real ships What we think of when we think of a ship Square rigged three high mass Sails spread across the width of the vessel the bow ideal of a ship in the classic sense The largest ship built in that yard here in portland main was the william c davis 1668 tons thus the largest ever built in portland main And the best ship the rufus wood 1875 she was swift and sweet She once ran from the golden gate san francisco to queen's town australia in 108 days That's a miracle And once laden with grain she rounded cape horn around the bottom of the world And ran over 200 miles a day For eight days straight in the arms of a mighty wind One day making 307 miles and a second day making 296 miles These are maximums. These are records for wooden ships Which still stand and they will stand forever Because we're not making any wooden ships now to challenge them a portland ship Such were the portland vessels which slipped from dearing ways and went around the promenade Went below the observatory Past portland headlight out to the winds of the world I should explain what is a schooner and what is a ship Winslow builds mostly schooners a ship would have three masts The sails are astride the ship like the seats on a bus A schooner on the other hand has sails that run for an aft along the vessel Like the aisle in a bus Winslow is known as the schooner king on your handouts now. You know what to look for To historians who write about them and to americans who built them schooners are known as the quote last stand of sail And they are Schooners are vessels used in the coast wide trade and america's last big wind driven vessels ever built Winslow's fleet of big foreign afters are coast wise. They're practical. They're economical. They're speedy They hugged the coast and they hopped from port to port harbor to harbor They could and they did go to the caravan to the west indies and to central american ports Carrying coal and lumber and case oil the oil in cases Um And they thus take main pine and spruce and ingenuity into southern waters But out in the open ocean, they were out in the deep blue water And the long voyages into the atlantic far from land Out in the fist of the open winds schooners were says one historian invariably disappointing Disillusioning even disastrous You could run them however with a smaller crew than a large square master A square rigged ship took usually 54 men plus officers at least To wrestle all those sails by hand There were 204 running lines on a three-masted ship Standing rigging is the black tarred rigging that holds the mast upright. That's the stuff you see Captain jack sparrow and his men clamoring up to get up into the yards Um, there are 11 lines Which means the ropes the running rigging you would be a landlubber if you call them ropes their lines That maneuver every sail there are 16 commands To each of those 11 ropes to make the sails do what you want. It's all done by hand You going up there to do it Whatever the weather one hand for the ship one for yourself is the phrase Now a schooner however you could raise and lower the sails using steam power And a crew of 18 could handle a schooner or as few as 11 The wyoming the biggest wooden sailing ship we built in main Almost as big as the state for which it's named the largest and last of them all have it a crew of 11 The problem with vessels that big is that they were ungainly. They were lazy. They were logi They were hard to control if you were standing at the stern of the vessel in a heavy sea You could see the waves coming down the vessel. That is the wood would flex You'd see the wave coming in the ship like this toward you Enough to give you concern The top building years for the windslow yards were 1875 to 1877 as we said and here's a sample These are ships of long life That sail out of east dearing's coals the carrie reed 1870 1362 tons She was still sailing and sold to the germans still at work in 1910 The some evidence she may have sailed for the kaiser in world war one Or the j.b. Brown name for our own man 1874 1551 tons it was auctioned off at last In portugal for parts in the year 1903 still sound still sailing very long lives There were some tragic lives too the james bailey 1878 1,530 tons lost at sea hong kong to san francisco in 1880 no trace of it ever found Just like the vessel with five main graduates from castine upon it that vanishes has been found but all hands lost Well the filamine windslow 1876 2170 tons on a voyage um Loaded with coal from cardiff to singapore. She's lost in the south atlantic Or the st. John smith 1883 named for j.b. Brown's old partner It's a bark of 1820 tons and from liverpool to san francisco she simply Quote went missing Never seen never found They sail off into mystery By 1891 all main scone schooners are bound for that same mysterious shore Why? Well steam power is invented now steam power can hoist the schooner sails and replace crew men And it soon replaces the schooner itself For example the great portland company founded in 1846 During this era is churning out Ironically the very replacement for the schooner They produce in their allotted years of the portland company over 600 steam locomotives What you think of when you think of a steam locomotive big black booming brassy bossy Roaring away And america looks westward now by rail not east by sail And down those long ribbons of steel rolls manifest destiny Go west young man writes the editorialist not Go seek two years before the mast young man Bath ironworks is also created during this period of time the era of iron ships built by iron men as the phrase goes No iron ships are ever built in portland except the Vessels for the civil war that i have mentioned During this very nick of time sarah oran jewett writes her sweet book Country of the pointed furs it's about a way of life along coastal main that's passing as she pens it and she knows it It's sailing away as she writes as it were You know i think jacob winslow knows it too The last of portland's great shipbuilders passes away with the century Perhaps it was the perfect time to go if there such there be it was said of him That he helped more young men to start in life than almost any man in portland And among his captains and all employees his name shall stand above all others For integrity and kindness and fair dealings and all This ends with his death jacob winslow Lived across the street from john a poor john a poor lived and died and had his funeral from one side of dearing street Exactly opposite his house jacob s winslow lived and died and had his funeral in the year 1902 more symbolic About the age of rail and the age of sail you couldn't imagine You know, you cannot see any of jacob s winslow's life work now All his ships are gone to the embrace of the sea where they lived They're only in memory or in photographs that try to capture them, but king neptune eventually took them out however You can see captain jacob s winslow if you want His resting place nevergreen cemetery is topped by a fine full length Granite statue of jacob s winslow very tall very strong Looking across the green fields and treetops toward the distant horizon You know, he faces the sea It is one of only two sculptures in granite ever done by that Excellent eminent carver of ships figureheads portlanders own wood carver edward salver griffin The only other statue of his that you can see in granite is that of the portland firefighter Which stands in front of central fire station on congress street The irony is almost none of his wooden figure work survives today either Maybe a handful of filigrees and fragments in a few museums It's all at the bottom of the sea Just like the winslow fleet and so memory and so elegy Now we're back at dyer's boatyard now the general warren is launched It's finally gotten off the ways we've come to the end of our walk around the waterfront Old portlands shipbuilding coves are buried beneath commercial street But you know we still celebrate Its heritage and restaurants bars and pr our seafront heritage And we still set sail to the islands of casco bay every day from the casco bay lines Which stand directly atop clay cove where all of this started You can see a little bit of these dearing yards There the roads roar by some pilings and old stone walls Of the ancient yards look quick as you rush by you might see a bit of it And where the general warren went to sea Now tourists arrive by sea it's called ocean gate And vessels they leave are built larger than ever were dreamed of in dyer's day So we've gone from building ships to birthing ships Merchant princes john alfred poor john bundy brown jacob s winslow men of that vision are gone now Today's merchant princes of course are real lawyers bankers developers Well, so we're all those other fellows mr. Poor mr. Brown mr. Winslow once Is there anything made by man? We can love as he does a ship as charles francis adam secretary of the navy for our president hoover And it's a very good question One of the greatest historians of the age of sail Mr. Chappelle writes in his final book One by one these great vessels meet the common fate of ships and of men Men like ships never quite live out their days Now men such men and such ships are gone How still they lie the dead captains of ships of men of industry Once so alive now they rest on quiet new england hillsides think eastern cemetery Overlooking the white flecked waters for which they held a love surpassing the love of all things How languidly they dream away the hours who once lived years in moments Whose souls clashed with the lightning and hurricane and gloried in the tempest with a strange calm glory Gone are the mountain surges the graybeards of the sea the steady drone of the storm the mighty rushing waters The shrill of orders bugle clear above the gale the call to more than human deeds In their place the softly falling snow The grasses slowly stirring the sound of gently rustling leaves and friendly wren the stomach the stately gulls the old The old captains are dreaming now and their ships are outward bound It's never wise to get a politician the podium Because now if though we're right at the witching hour if you have some questions, I'll try to answer them If you've been expressing them up personally yes Are the are the poor house and the The wind's law still The poor house indeed the woman who lives in it calls it that she says i'm proud to live in the poor house Very much still exists. I know the person that lives in poor's apartments Downstairs where his funerals held and the wind's low house is right across the street Absolutely. In fact, the house to which it is joined was the Harman house Remember lauren short and harman charles harman had lived in that house who was lost at sea oddly enough Many years later. So they're there. They're very lovely and they're in good hands the wind's low house in fact Had been lived in by a doctor And his son can't remember the son's name just passed His son who grew up in the wind's low house on dearing street wrote the song lemon tree that song here again So all sorts of stuff on dearing street Yes, yeah, steve. I think yeah, steve. It was my understanding that the poland fire museum the big Wooden carved eagle up on the wall is a piece of edwards south of griffin's handy work So that you all may hear my friend steve asks Yes, it's so that the big eagle which is at the portland fire museum on spring street now the carve wooden eagle Was a work of edwards south of griffin. I don't know this would be well worth finding out You may have told us something that we should be very pleased to know Yes Question is what does a size of a ship and tonnage mean when you describe it that It's not how much it weighed the vessel. It's how much it would displace and could carry So you could carry no more than you can displace in water So 1,600 tons is a lot You can imagine what an aircraft carrier displaces For a steel ship that steel can float there was serious discussion in the journals of the day You couldn't build vessels of metal they'd think well Henry ha Thomas high proved them wrong But that's what tonnage means and that's how it goes when you speak of these big ships. They were vast for their Vast yes I was on the aircraft carrier vietnam is 80,000 tons You are an aircraft carrier. It was 80,000 tons. Thank you. US. That's america US at great need too Think of that. Isn't that wonderful 80,000 tons now? It gives you a real impression of how much weight that is And what it means would probably take one more question Yes, yes, I think that's my neighbor. Yes I have a chance to run across what happened to the area present and it was really important Can you say again, please the iron clads that were built in portland the iron clads that were built in portland the aguilom And the pontusa They both survived the war Recently they actually found pictures of them photographs along with other iron clads out in the mississippi river And you can look them up They were both strapped in after the wars that they lasted until the 1880s And the iron was worth more than the the vessel One of the most famous monitors of the civil war monitors, you know, like the so-called cheese box in iran Was the montauk Upon which the lingon conspirators were kept as prisoners and john wilk's move ostopsy was performed And the montauk ended up stationed in portland harbour during the spanish-american war frighten the spanish so bad they left Left us alone Well, I guess that will do it. Glad to see you after our thanks to our friends At uh at portland landmarks and on to the very next lecture about which you can pick up great information Right outside at the table. Thank you all