#02 - Breaking the Water
Maine’s Lighthouses Seen by a Father and Son, a Century Apart
Cathy Jewitt & Ben Meader, Authors
John Meader, Photo & Content Editor
The Rockland Breakwater and Lighthouse, 2016. Photo courtesy of John Meader.
One hundred forty-seven years ago, during a brisk spring like this one, Gus’s father Fred was drifting along near Seguin Island at the mouth of the Kennebec River; the sails of the schooner he was aboard were starting to slack. It was mid-May. If the wind died completely, it might stretch the trip out for another few days. If it built or shifted—well, whatever they did at that point would be up to the master. Fred was working aboard a coasting schooner. They’d left Frenchman Bay on May 4th with a load of rough sawn timber and were now headed home from Provincetown, Massachusetts. This delivery was a short one; he’d only been away for about two weeks.
In 1873, Fred I. Phillips was 21 years old. He was a sailor and fisherman, but he spent his winters teaching schoolchildren on the coastal islands. Everyone in his family worked on the ocean, and like his brothers, Fred knew the Maine coast just as well as anybody. If he looked to port today, for instance, he’d be able to see ten miles up into Townsend Harbor (later renamed Boothbay Harbor). His half-brother Andrew had nearly wrecked a schooner up that way back in the 1840s. Andrew had been the same age as Fred, but was already sailing as master at the time. That winter Andrew had also made Seguin, but the wind had whipped around to the northeast, forcing him to beat his way up into the shelter of the harbor. He dropped anchor and furled the sails, but the windage was horrible and heavy with snow. The boat dragged. Andrew dropped the kedge, to try to keep off the lee shore. But even that wasn’t enough to hold. In a feat that must’ve been akin to limbing trees in a hurricane, Andrew cut the spars and rigging off the schooner’s deck, which did the trick. Fred later remarked that it must have “required some nerve to do it.” The schooner Francis was saved that day and later completely refitted—only to be wrecked with a load of bricks and juniper knees near Cape Ann in Massachusetts some years later. [See footnote ^A].
The Lewis R. French, pictured here in 1985, is one of the last of the Maine coasting schooners that survives from the 19th century. She was built in 1871 in Christmas Cove, Maine. Picture courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum.
To Fred, and indeed to most young men of Maine at the time, the northeast coast wasn’t some romantic archipelago of enchanted islands; it was the superhighway of the day, a buzzing thoroughfare of vessels, harbors, lights, shoals, and a tangle of generational memories. Of his eleven brothers and half-brothers, only six of them grew to an age where they might be considered old. The same Andrew that saved the schooner Francis died the year after of Yellow Fever on a trip to New Orleans, well before Fred was even born. George, his oldest brother, had sailed around Cape Horn and fished both the Newfoundland Banks and the Grand Banks, but eventually he also died of Yellow Fever. And they’d all been told the story about how their grandfather was lost in a gale off Isle au Haut. Normally he’d been master of a brig and had shipped all over the Atlantic; but he drowned sailing a two-masted schooner not 30 nautical miles from home, on a short assignment to transfer flour to Castine. Deaths in the maritime trade were just as common—and often just as horrific—as traffic accidents are today. [See footnote ^B].
Fred at twenty-one, however, was somewhat different from the other men in his family. He wasn’t really built like them. He was slight of frame, more prone to dreaming, and often got despondent on long voyages. Although he’d wanted to fish the Banks like his brothers, he was continually rejected. Apparently there were some in the Banks fishery who thought he was not capable of the rough dory work that was required. So, Fred did what he could to make a living in an economy that was built around raw materials and the ocean. He fished the inner waters in a small sloop for the summer, taught grammar and math to schoolchildren through the winter, and, occasionally, he’d work short coastal trips like this one.
Yesterday they had crossed Massachusetts Bay. After a squall mid-morning, a fresh air from the west helped them to clear Cape Ann just after the evening meal. As the sun went down and the horizon darkened, the helmsman would have broadened their reach to head downeast, getting ready to sail through another night. Whether it was Fred or another sailor on the night watch, they would have kept track of the small series of lights on the horizon, the beacons that guided downeast sailors back home. [^1]
The first after Cape Ann was the White Island Light amid the Isles of Shoals. Next they’d look for the Boon Island Light, a massive tower that loomed over a small, forlorn outcropping—an island that hosted too many harrowing stories. [See footnote ^C]. Then, into the early morning, the sailors on deck would have seen the work of the Crane family (the light they cast, that is) as it crept into view on the horizon. The Cranes kept the lamp lit on Seguin Island, an oil flame that shone through a first-order Fresnel lens, 186 feet above the waves. If the early morning was foggy—it was foggy at least one day a week off Seguin—then they would have listened for the new steam whistle that had replaced the island’s fog bell late the previous year. Seguin marks the mouth of Maine’s second largest river, and its lighthouse is the first indication that you’ve passed Casco Bay and are headed to downeast Maine.
Boon Island Lighthouse, pictured in Gus’s Postcard #427. Photo courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum.
Seguin Island Lighthouse, pictured in Gus’s Postcard #323. Photo courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum.
Now, on May 19th, the day’s wind had dwindled as they ghosted past Seguin and prepared for another night before returning to Frenchman Bay near Mount Desert Island. If the wind continued to die, then they’d continue to drift and look for the light maintained by Betsy Humphrey, a widowed mother of eleven who’d lost a son in the Civil War; she tended the lamp on Monhegan. All of Maine’s early lighthouses had keepers, and nearly all of the keepers had stories. There was the famous story, for instance, of Abbie Burgess at Matinicus Rock Light. In 1853, when Fred was six years old, Abbie was fifteen. She had moved with her father and the rest of the family to tend the light on Matinicus Rock—a treeless, seven hectare ledge perched fifteen nautical miles offshore. Because her father needed to fish and provide for the family, Abbie assumed many of the lighthouse keeper’s duties, and took care of her sisters and disabled mother. She became famous when, as a teenager, she weathered a massive gale with her family when her father was away getting supplies. Surviving on an egg and a handful of cornmeal mush each day, she not only saved her family by moving them to one of the lighthouse towers, but also kept the lamp lit while the island was swept with waves and the keeper's house was completely destroyed. After four weeks of rough weather, they were finally rescued. On the day Fred drifted past the midcoast toward his home port in Frenchman Bay, Abbie was in her 30s and still living on Matinicus Rock as an assistant keeper. [^2]
Gus’s Postcard #352 of Matinicus Rock Lighthouse. Photo courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum.
Lighthouses, in the 1870s, were just about as necessary as road signs are for truckers today. One lighthouse keeper during this time, the keeper at Owl’s Head, tallied 16,000 schooners he could see passing in a single year, not including other sailing vessels and steamers. [See footnote ^D]. There were other ways to navigate, of course. Celestial navigation, dead-reckoning, and time-keeping helped all mariners keep track of where they were on their charts; but just as a driver heeds the reality of the road over a GPS, the sailors of their day needed their own rumble strips to keep them safe on a long night’s watch. Even though the Coast Guard had a smattering of bell boats and gongs along the coast, they would remain dark until the first lights were adapted for buoys in the 1880s. Until then, in low visibility, there was nothing to guide the throngs of sailors except glimpses at the compass, a chart, the direction of the weather, maybe a bell—and most importantly, light from shore. Until gas powered lights and electrification became more widespread, light from land meant a lighthouse and its keeper. [^3]
Nearly a century later, in the early 1970s, Fred’s son Gus was nearing the end of his life. Since picking up his late brother’s map and postcard business in 1960, Gus also had seen most of Maine’s lighthouses like his father, though in a different way. He looked through his camera, snapped an image, and made postcards of almost all of them. And he did so for good reason; they sold well. The image of a lighthouse clinging to a rockbound coast was something vacationers loved to see. You might say lighthouses still helped to guide Mainers like Gus, but toward a different destination. They were the icons and symbols of an economy that had shifted to tourism. The working schooners were gone, fishermen now pulled in lobster as their main catch, and lighthouses stood as a testament to a culture that had long been reliant on the sea. Images of lighthouses helped creatives like Gus find a way to break into the changed economy. In January of 1971, Gus ordered just over a quarter million postcards to sell to shops and motels throughout the state of Maine, many of which featured lighthouses. Earlier that summer, Gus had snapped this shot of the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, adding to his growing collection of views. [^4]
Gus’s Postcard #447 of the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. Photos courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum.
The Breakwater Light is somewhat unique in terms of Maine lighthouses. It is one of a handful of lighthouses in Maine that have square towers, and it is built completely on top of Maine’s longest breakwater. Around the time Fred was in his 30s, the citizens of Rockland had finally received approval and funding for a structure to protect their harbor. Rockland had long been seen as one of the best harbors of refuge beyond Portland, except when the wind blew directly northeast. The town was also a major producer of lime and granite, the commerce for which had suffered from this exposure to nor’easters. Even after approval, the breakwater took nine separate contracts and nearly 20 years to complete. The Army Corps of Engineers was building a new breakwater for Cleveland in Lake Erie concurrently; but the Rockland Breakwater's methods of construction were different, owing in large part to the availability of locally sourced granite. Nearly 700,000 tons of granite were used to build the Rockland Breakwater.
The Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse in winter, 1904. Photo courtesy of Southwest Harbor Public Library.
At first the jetty was often completely submerged, which proved hazardous. It was raised four additional feet, and the lighthouse was constructed at the end of the breakwater to replace a series of interim lanterns in 1902. The breakwater afforded Rockland an increase in vessel traffic, and many sailing vessels continued to compete in the coastal trade well into the 1900s. [^5]
The Harwood Palmer, a five-masted schooner weighing over 2,500 tons, passes by the Rockland Breakwater. Photo courtesy of Penobscot Marine Museum. See footnote [^E].
Eventually this means of freight was supplanted by steam power and overland transport.
The Rockland Breakwater itself, however, became a cultural icon for generations of locals and visitors who enjoyed walking the granite blocks that jutted almost a mile out into the harbor. Visitors to the Samoset Hotel, which opened as the Bay Point Resort in 1889, enjoyed the breakwater in much the same way we do now.
Visitors to the Samoset enjoying the Rockland Breakwater in 1910. Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society.
A foggy day for walkers on the breakwater in 2009. Photo courtesy of John Meader.
Strolling the breakwater was not only an activity for guests, however. One local remembers going there often between waitressing shifts. During a picnic in the summer of 1949, her friend was showing off a new gift (an expensive watch) and accidentally dropped it between the blocks. Despite their best efforts, the watch—probably like so many other items before and since—joined the collection of prizes claimed by the sea. [^6]
Sunrise looking toward Owl’s Head through sea smoke at -15°F. Taken in 2017. Photo courtesy of John Meader.
Gus had grown up along the same coast as his father, but it is hard to know for certain what he thought of these lighthouses when he looked at them. He had learned to sail, fish, farm, and navigate; but perhaps he’d never known the same kind of raw fear that the ocean had brought to men like his uncle Andrew, or what schooners, like the Francis, might have been saved had the breakwater been built earlier.
Back in 1873, Fred was still a young man without any idea of what the future would hold. During his lifetime, Maine towns had shifted to building schooners over brigs, barks, and ships. But could he imagine that sail power—which had been the main force of commerce for hundreds of years—would be abandoned for steam, diesel, and electricity in just a few short decades? Or that lighthouses—something as necessary as a fire station—would become popular subjects of paintings and postcards? [^7]
For now, Fred would simply return home and find more work to do. This itinerant lifestyle would define Fred’s working life for the better part of the next ten years. He would teach school through winters at Islesboro, Stockton Springs, Franklin, and Deer Isle. He would marry a woman named Carrie who would die in childbirth. But his despondency and difficult youth wouldn’t chase him forever. In 1888, at 33, Fred would be asked to teach in Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island. There he’d remarry and become father to a small family. His son Carroll would be joined by four younger siblings: Emily, Luther, Cora Mae, and the youngest, Augustus. By the time Fred I. Phillips died in 1926, his youngest son Gus had just had a child of his own, his third. He named him Frederick Andrew Phillips.
Looking back, we often take for granted the toils of those that came before us. Each generation learns, works, struggles when misfortune finds them, and seeks ways to create their own harbors of refuge. Unable to ship out to the Banks like his brothers, Fred fished the bays, taught on the islands, cut ice, and farmed. Gus’s life’s work was completely different, but the way he lived wasn’t. Both made do with what they had. Like building a breakwater to keep the weathering at bay, Gus turned to art. During the late 1960s and early 70s, perhaps Gus’s postcards were his way of breaking the water.
A gallery of photographs of the Rockland Breakwater and its Lighthouse, by John Meader:
Special thanks:
The Penobscot Marine Museum, for image use, preserving the Phillips Collection, and continued support; Southwest Harbor Public Library for image use; Wisconsin Historical Society for image use; Esther Hall Frye for sharing memories and anecdotes; Mary Jane Phillips Smith, Gus’s daughter, for sharing family history and continued support; Rhumb Line Maps for cartography; and John Meader for his photography.
Partners for the Postcards from Gus blog:
Sources, further reading:
1. Fred’s experiences in the early 1870s, Phillips family history:
Francis Greenwood Peabody, Reminiscences of Present-Day Saints (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Riverside Press, 1927), pp. 274-294.
Phillips, Frederick I. “Our Phillips Family.” In Phillips Genealogy, compiled by Rose P. Ruze, 143-150. Concord, MA, 1988.
2. Lighthouses at Seguin, Monhegan, and Matinicus Rock:
Jeremy D’Entremont, “New England Lighthouses: A Virtual Guide,” accessed May 5, 2020, link.
John H. Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation (Andesite Press, 2015), p. 578.
“Abby Burgess, Teenaged Heroine of Matinicus Rock Light,” New England Historical Society, accessed May 1, 2020, link.
“Monhegan Island Lighthouse,” Lighthouse Friends, accessed May 10, 2020, link.
“The Island,” Friends of Seguin Island, accessed May 2, 2020, link.
3. Coasting schooners, navigation:
John F. Leavitt, Wake of the Coasters (Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 1970), p. 4, p.17, p.20.
“Buoys - Guideposts of the Sea,” United States Lighthouse Society, accessed May 2, 2020, link.
4. Augustus Phillips postcard business:
Augustus Phillips, handwritten notes, collection of author Cathy Jewitt.
5. History of Rockland Breakwater, Lighthouse:
Christi A. Mitchell, “National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Rockland Breakwater,” Maine Historic Preservation Commission, 2002, to the National Park Service, accessed May 5, 2020, link.
“History of the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse,” Friends of Rockland Harbor Lights, accessed April 10, 2020, link.
6. History of the Samoset:
Esther Hall Frye, Rockport, Maine, memories and anecdotes recounted to her daughter and shared with the author, April 20, April 24.
“The History of Maine’s Famous Resort,” Samoset Resort, accessed April 15, 2020, link.
7. Maine’s shift in shipbuilding:
Stephen Hornsby, Wooden Shipbuilding, in Stephen J. Hornsby, Richard W. Judd, Michael J. Hermann, Historical Atlas of Maine (University of Maine Press, Orono, Maine, 2015), plate 32.
Footnotes:
A. On the schooner Francis: Fred’s account of his older brother nearly wrecking the schooner near Boothbay is an interesting one, but it has a few fuzzy details. Here’s what he says on the subject:
“Andrew came out of Boston and had a good run as far as Seguin, when the wind struck northeast, and thick snow. He beat into the upper harbor of Townsend. Soon the wind shifted to Southwest and blew tremendously. They put out two anchors and the kedge, but she did not hold; Squirrel Island breakers just a little to leeward. So, after conferring with the mates he decided to cut away her spars which proved effectual; but required some nerve to do it. This was the schooner Francis. I presume this bill above refers to the expense of repairing damages. Andrew was twenty-one years old. I have letters verifying the above.” - Our Phillips Family, p. 7.
The issue with this is that “Upper Townsend Harbor” (presumably the inner part of Boothbay Harbor) would not put the Francis to windward of Squirrel Island if the wind did indeed shift southwest. Southwest is seldom a foul-weather direction in Maine. As he retells this tale, it is clear that something has been lost in translation—either the wind is blowing from a different direction or “Upper Townsend Harbor” means some different piece of water in that area.
B. On coasting schooners: There is endless literature to read on the history of American sailing. Needless to say, it is hard to know where to begin. Here’s a short quote from a book that focuses on anecdotes over analysis:
“Life in the coasters was not romantic as it was in the big clippers and the later Cape Horners. The little coasting schooners were no more than seagoing tip carts, hauling their prosaic cargoes from one coastal port to another. Without them, however, the country could hardly have been settled. Yet they have passed unnoticed and are all but forgotten. […] The entire Maine coast was one vast neighborhood in which every schooner was as familiar as the house next door, and the men who sailed them were as much neighbors as the town dwellers who discussed local gossip across back fences. Just a glance at the sails on a schooner hull down on the horizon served to identify her to any coasterman.”
- Wake of the Coasters, p. 17.
C. On Boon Island: Boon Island does indeed have many harrowing stories. It was the site of several notable shipwrecks, one of which resulted in the crew resorting to cannibalism for survival in 1710. Two books have been written about the incident: a novel by Kenneth Roberts and a non-fiction narrative by Andrew Vietze and Stephen Erickson. Another episode on the island involved a woman losing her mind after her husband, the lighthouse keeper, died during a storm. She was found by mariners when they noticed that the light had gone out; she is said to have died soon after.
D. On vessel traffic: If you wanted to watch schooners sail by in the 1870s, Owl’s Head Light would have been a good place to do it. The number “16,000 vessels” includes repeat schooners on multiple trips, of course. This figure is, therefore, a good indicator of traffic, but does not indicate the total number of unique vessels. For an idea of what a chart looked like in the 1870s, check out this map from the Osher Map Library. On the chart you can see a bell boat marked at the south end of Muscle Ridge Channel, Owl’s Head Light to the northeast, Monhegan Light in the southwest, and a table of all lighthouses included in the lower right.
E. On the five-masted schooners: The Harwood Palmer was built in Waldoboro in 1904, one of 96 other five-masted schooners. It was damaged off the coast of France in the First World War by either a German U-Boat or a mine and later sunk at anchor. Like its sister ships—the Paul Palmer, Baker Palmer, and the Dorothy Palmer—it was primarily competitive in the coal trade in the early 1900s. These five-masted boats could be managed with crews of only 12-15 and weren’t expected to last more than a decade. Engines were used for raising and lowering the spars and sails which meant operational labor was cheaper than other vessels of the same size. One source mentioned how, when they were underway in heavier seas, the whole vessel buckled and bent “like dancing snakes.” See the link for Dorothy Palmer for more details.
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