Blue Hill, Maine

SHIPBUILDING AND SEAFARERS
OF BLUE HILL
by Nicholas Niehoff, Grade 8, Blue Hill Consolidated School

Collaborators: Alicia Allen, Lauren Doolittle, Brooklin Eaton, Abby Ford, Bennie Johnson, Brian Leger, Greggory Lynde, Michael Nevells, Cooper Smallidge, Ezra Woodye, Caroline Yates, and Della Martin (teacher)

Blue Hill was founded in 1762. Two of the first permanent settlers were John Roundy and Joseph Wood. They settled near the reversing falls and the Salt Pond. The settlement was not on the map at first because the British had found long straight trees that were good for building masts, so the map makers did not want the French to find these trees if they needed masts during wartime.

Sailing vessels were built in Blue Hill as early as 1792, but it was in the early 1800‘s that shipbuilding really took off. According to local historians, over 100 vessels were built in Blue Hill, from 100-ton schooners to a 498-ton ship. One of the largest Blue Hill vessels, the Ocean Ranger, was built in 1854.

Blue Hill was an ideal location. It had lumber to build the ships, it had a deep protected harbor, and it had resources to ship.

The shipyards were mostly located around the inner harbor, at Conary Cove near the reversing falls, at the Salt Pond and in East Blue Hill. The location of the shipyards was due to the location of the things needed, a deep harbor, and lots of wood. In fact, just to show how much lumber was being sawn to build ships, the first eight feet of mud in the inner harbor is mostly sawdust washed into it from the sawmills.

In Blue Hill some of the shipyard owners included the Holts, the Dodges, George Stevens, and the Hinckleys. The shipyard owners owned the places where the ships were built and often they owned the ships. Many people, however, usually shared ownership of a Blue Hill vessel. People often bought a fourth, an eighth, or a sixteenth. That meant that they owned a part of the ship and it’s cargo, sort of like buying stock in a business today. They also felt the losses.

There were many seafarers from Blue Hill who learned the craft from their fathers, and many Blue Hill boys went to sea before they were out of their 'teens. Some of the most colorful stories surround Captain Melatiah K. Chase. In 1847, at age 23, when he was first mate on the Sarah E. Snow, the bark was shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland; he was the only survivor. Folks near Galway rescued him. He sent a report back to the ship owners and was given passage back to the States by the Irish government. Supposedly, when he finally got back to Blue Hill he walked into a funeral at the Congregational Church that was for himself and the crew of the ship. He may have met his future wife, Eliza Ann Dodge, at this service. After the marriage, Captain Chase took his new wife on the newly built ship, the Bride. Another story goes that when they hit a large storm that broke off the mast and he lashed his wife to the stub of it to keep her from being washed overboard.

Blue Hill vessels carried local products to ports around the United States and the world. Some of these included granite mined in East Blue Hill, lumber, ice from local ponds that was shipped in sawdust to keep from melting, and fish.

The peak years of shipbuilding ended in the 1860’s. Some of the reasons that shipbuilding stopped were competition from other shipyards and the new technologies of the ironclads and the steam engine. Blue Hill could not adapt to building these new boats at that time, but today the Blue Hill Peninsula still has several boatyards, so in some ways the tradition continues.