Tag: History

To add the word ‘island’ to Grand Manan would be redundant

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Despite our many trips to Cape Cod back when I lived not that far away in New Hampshire, I never got around to visiting tony and history-laden Martha’s Vineyard or neighboring Nantucket. It’s an oversight I don’t want to repeat when it comes to Grand Manan, an impressive Canadian island we can see from some points here in Eastport, Maine.

I am hoping to get there this year. Even if I don’t, here are some high points:

  1. Its closest point on the mainland is the town of Lubec Maine, nine miles across the Grand Manan Channel. For mainland New Brunswick, it’s Blacks Harbor, 20 miles over the Bay of Fundy. Yet if you look at most maps of Maine, it doesn’t show up at all, despite its proximity. That part
  2. As the largest of the 25-plus Fundy Islands, Grand Manan is 21 miles long and has a maximum width of 11 miles, covering 53 square miles in all. (Campobello and Deer Island, which border Eastport, are the second and third largest, respectfully.) It’s home to 2,595 year-round residents.
  3. The principal way of getting there is by a 90-minute ferry ride from Blacks Harbour. Reservations are recommended, both ways.
  4. For comparison, Martha’s Vineyard is 20.5 miles long, covers 96 square miles, takes a 45-minute ferry jaunt, and has 20,530 full-timers; Nantucket covers 45 square miles, is a 2¼-hour commute by traditional ferry, and has 14,444 residents. Both of the Massachusetts towns are much wealthier than Grand Manon, where most folks eke out their living “on the water.”
  5. The economy is based primarily upon commercial fishing – lobster, herring, scallops, and crab – plus ocean salmon farms and clam digging.
  6. For the traveler, the island is largely a step back in time, with a single highway along the eastern half, where most of the modest residents live. That leads to the rest of the Grand Manan archipelago of nearby smaller islands such as popular White Head (reachable by a second ferry ride), Ross Cheney, and the Wood islands, plus countless surrounding shoaling rocks. Meanwhile, the rugged and forested western side, with 300-foot-high cliffs, high winds, numerous passages, coves, and rocky reefs, incorporates wildlife-rich preserves.
  7. Tourism, the second source of income, provides unspoiled ocean views, whale-watch cruises – rare right whale breeding grounds adjoin its waters – as well as kayaking, hiking, camping, photography, painting, and bird-watching with more than 240 species, including nesting puffins in season.
  8. Among the lighthouses to check out are Gannet Rock, Swallowtail, Southwest Head, Long Eddy Point, Long Point, and Great Duck Island. Not all of them are what you would call picturesque or prime condition. Not to slight them.
  9. Linguistically, “Manan” is a corruption of mun-an-ook or man-an-ook, meaning “island place” or “the island” in the local First Nations’ language. The suffix ook, meanwhile, means “people of.” French explorer Samuel de Champlain recorded the place as Manthane on a 1606 map and later changed it to Menane or Menasne – close enough in sound. So if Manan already means “island,” why be redundant? You don’t need to add “island” to the Vineyard or Nantucket, either – everybody knows what you mean without it.
  10. Grand Manan’s not for everyone. As one review said, “A long way to travel for nothing. Nice rocks but you can see those in Maine. Sea glass was hard to find and sparse. Very poor, depressed area. Lighthouses are ugly and there is nothing to really do other than hiking, which you can also do in Maine. Ferry stunk and was disgusting. Never saw any whales or seals. Nothing on the island except rundown shacks. All the online promotions are just hype. Waste of a day. … Go to Campobello island, it’s 100% better.” In short, sounds right up my alley for adventure.

The first permanent settlement, by the way, was in 1784 by Loyalists fleeing the U.S. at the close of the American Revolutionary War, a common occurrence across New Brunswick.

Now for a touch of scandal in the family

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The house at the corner of Water and Key streets came into the ownership of Jacob’s nephew, John Lincoln Shackford, who had married Elizabeth S. Clark in 1838 and, following the occupation of his father and siblings, became a mariner.

In 1847 Captain John Lincoln Shackford he was advertising freight and passage aboard the brig Carryl, traveling for Saint Marks and Newport and from Pennsylvania to the Isle of Lobos and Havana.  He also was reported as rescuing members of the crew of the bark Cambria and conveying them back to New York.

The 1850 Census recorded him living in Eastport with his parents, his wife Elizabeth, and three children. In 1860, they were with her parents and two children, presumably while he was at sea. Shortly after that, the family moved to New York, where he was recorded in Brooklyn at 111 Adelphi.  In 1863 he was listed on the Brooklyn Civil War draft registration, and in 1864, he was at Hamilton north of Fulton Avenue.

Among their children was Abby, who died at age seven in Cuba — suggesting that Elizabeth and the children had accompanied him on his voyages as a captain — and her twin Esther, who died in Brooklyn at 21, and sister Fanny, who died as an infant.

Shortly before February 1871, John’s wife returned to Eastport, where she filed for divorce, dower, and alimony, asking for all right title and interest in any and all real estate he had in the County of Washington, Maine. Before the case was settled, he died, December 20, in the Virgin Islands.

As the case was submitted, “To the Honorable the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court next to be Holden at Calais, within and for the County of Washington in said state on the fourth Tuesday of April AD 1871.

“Elizabeth S. Shackford of Eastport in said County, respectfully represents that she was married to John L. Shackford now of St. Thomas, at Eastport in said County on the tenth day of December AD 1838 and had by him two children now living to wit; Joshua C. Shackford & Regina T. Shackford. That after her said marriage she cohabits with said Shackford in said State of Maine, and always conducted herself as a true and faithful wife.

“That the said John L Shackford unmindful of his marriage vows and covenants, and the duty affection and respect he owed her, deserted her more than three years ago, and has not supported her for the last three years.

“That he has been living with another woman to your Libelland Unknown in St. Thomas.

“That he has been married to said woman as he has declared in letters to others.

“That he has a daughter by said woman and committed adultery with said woman.

“Wherefore, because a divorce from her said bonds of matrimony would be reasonable and proper, conducive to domestic harmony and consistent with the peace and morality of society, she humbly prays your Honors such divorce accordingly …”

Additional documents listed John L. Shackford’s estate value at five thousand dollars (the number is crossed out and rewritten).  The court ordered payment to Elizabeth and ensured that the United States Consul to St. Thomas delivered a copy of the document to John L. Shackford (misspelled Schackford on the document).  The court then allowed Elizabeth to sell land to include property at the corner of Water and Key streets (formerly Greenwich Street), land on the northerly side of Shackford’s Cove, along with other property valued at $1,471.02.

Curiously, widow Elizabeth returned to New York, where she died in 1882.

The Eastport Sentinel reported, October 2, 1889, “Mr. T.M. Bibber moved last week from the Shackford house at the corner of Water and Key Streets to the Chapman house on Boynton St.” The Bibber connection may have been thicker than I’ve uncovered so far.

Obviously, Shackford descendants were ranging far from Eastport, never to return.

She did have quite the tongue

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the official statement marking the death of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, President Jimmy Carter observed, “She had style, she had grace, and she had a sense of humor that kept generations of political newcomers to Washington wondering which was worse – to be skewered by her wit or to be ignored by her.”

Just listen.

  1. When her father was governor of New York, he and her stepmother planned to send her to a conservative school for girls in New York City. Curtly, Alice responded, “If you send me, I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you I will.”
  2. When her father became president after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley in Buffalo, she greeted the event with “sheer rapture.”
  3. She later said of her father, “He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening.”
  4. When a prominent Washington senator was discovered having an affair with a young woman less than half his age, Alice quipped, “You can’t make a souffle rise twice.”
  5. Most famously, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” She had that one embroidered on a pillow kept in her living room.
  6. On Calvin Coolidge: “He sprang from the grass roots of the country clubs of America.”
  7. Another quick character sketch: “He looks as though he’s been weaned on a pickle.”
  8. And one more: “Never trust a man who combs his hair straight from his left armpit.”
  9. As for Washington, D.C: “A town of successful men and the women they married before they were successful.”
  10. Through it all: “I’ve always believed that if you’ve got a good sense of humor, you can get through anything.”

Do note, her father was quoted: “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.”

Jacob Shackford’s line

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Captain John senior and Esther’s son Jacob commanded the steam brig New York, the first steam vessel to enter the harbor of Eastport.

He followed the sea up to 1832, when he and his brother established W.& J. Shackford & Company. Independently, Jacob did build ships, including four brigs in a few years in the 1850s. One of them was noted for riding out the devastating gale of 1854. He also dealt in real estate, as his running advertisements in the Eastport Sentinel of 1865 illustrate: “House lots on Shackford and Water streets. Also two lots. For sale on reasonable terms by Jacob Shackford.”

Jacob’s son, shipmaster George, died August 1, 1863, age 39, during the Civil War. I’m left wondering whether his death resulted from civilian or military seafaring.

Jacob’s son William did serve, from 1863 to 1865, aboard the USS Home, USS Winona, and USS Nahant.  In 1870 his residence was in Eastport; in 1880, Philadelphia; and 1890, New York, reflecting a successful shipmaster’s social mobility. His summer vacations at Cape May, New Jersey made the society pages of newspapers.  The August 2, 1897, New York Tribune reported the arrival of Mrs. William Shackford and Miss Carrie N. Shackford. An August 29, 1897, article in the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Captain William Shackford joined his wife at the Congress Hotel to recover from “an attack of isthmus fever to regain his health.”

Back in Eastport, as Weston noted that Captain Jacob Shackford’s will, written on September 2, 1868, named his beloved wife Elisa D., his homestead on the corner of Water and Key Streets, a daughter Eliza A. Shackford, a son William Shackford, and another daughter Matilda, the wife of Charles B. Paine. It also left part of the estate to his son Henry Nevis Shackford, if known to be living at the death of his wife [Eliza]. Henry had left on a ship and never returned.

Son-in-law, C.B. Paine, husband of Matilda, had constructed the home on the corner of Water and Third streets, across from us, in 1841.

Jacob died June 19, 1869, age 79.

Over time, Jacob’s house at 4 Key Street grew from a federal style house and narrowly averted the devastating 1886 downtown fire. At some point, at his wife’s urging, the structure was turned 90 degrees, from facing the waterfront, to its present orientation, facing north, and drastically restyled.

When Eliza died on February 17, 1879, age 85, she was no longer residing in the house, as far as I can tell.

Remember, Jacob grew up in the house we now own.

Recalling an obscure West Coast vinyl record operation

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Its albums stood apart from many of the others I borrowed from Dayton’s public library, with its fine record collection and its guardian.

Contemporary Records was the name of the company, founded in Los Angeles in 1951 by Lester Koenig and soon a leading advocate of what became known as West Coast jazz, including Chet Baker, Shelly Manne, Art Pepper, Sonny Rollins, Bud Shank, and Andre Previn. It was even the first jazz label to record in stereo.

It also ventured into classical, including guitarist Pepe Romero, perhaps joined later by his brothers and father, all of whom soon became famous.

The company also offered a Good Time Jazz label focusing on Dixieland, plus the Society for Forgotten Music in a classical vein, and a contemporary composers’ series.

I had thought one of its founders was American songbook master Vernon Duke – aka Vladimir Dukelsky, his Ukrainian name, used for his 12-tone pieces – but I seem to be wrong. I vaguely recall that one of the disks presented his work as played by the Hollywood String Quartet, but find no support for that now, either.

I have no idea what brought all of this to mind, all these years later. What I am seeing now is how easily so much falls into oblivion.

The original wild child of the White House

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The eldest child of Theodore Roosevelt was renowned for her wit and unconventional ways even before she married Nicholas Longworth III, a Republican leader from Cincinnati who eventually became the 38th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here I was, planning to sample some of her sharp retorts but now feel compelled to offer ten points about her remarkable and long life to age 96 as a most remarkable observer of life in the nation’s capital.

Please consider this cut-and-paste biography.

  1. Alice Roosevelt was the only child by the future president’s first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, a strikingly beautiful and charming Bostonian banking heiress of deep Brahmin roots who died at age 22 of previously undiagnosed kidney failure. This death came only two days after giving birth to Alice and 11 hours after Teddy’s mother also died, all in the same house.
  2. Grief-stricken, Teddy turned his daughter over to his unmarried, elder sister, Anna. The infant dwelled in “Bammie” or “Bye’s” book-filled Manhattan house while on her father recovered on Western adventures. Once the child back under his roof after he remarried when she was three, he never spoke to his daughter about her mother. So deep was his despair that he tore pages from his diary and burned letters. Alas. Can it get more gothic than this? Distraught after her death, he almost never spoke of her again and prohibited mention of her in his presence. His autobiography even – imagine this – omitted her name. His daughter reflected this practice after her own marriage, preferring to be called “Mrs. L” rather than “Alice.” We can only imagine what her therapist would have made of this, had she had one. Or, for that matter, how the psychological impact affected his politics.
  3. Bammie somehow remained a significant influence on young Alice, though eventually from a distance after marrying and moving to London. Alice later spoke of her admiringly: “If auntie Bye had been a man, she would have been president.” Got that? Over her own father?
  4. As the daughter became more independent and chafed against her father and stepmother, her Aunt Bye still provided needed structure and stability. Late in life, Alice said “There is always someone in every family who keeps it together. In ours, it was Auntie Bye.” Does anyone else sense a writing prompt here? A historical novel, perchance?
  5. A celebrity and fashion idol by age 17, Alice’s social debut in 1902 was highlighted by a gown made of what was soon dubbed “Alice’s blue.” The dress sparked both a women’s clothing trend and a popular song, “Alice’s blue gown.”
  6. Scandalously, Alice smoked cigarettes in public, rode in cars with men, stayed out late partying, was spotted placing bets with a bookie, and had a pet snake named Emily Spinach – named after a spinster aunt and the green vegetable. (Her five half-siblings added a badger, guinea pigs, birds, cats, and dogs to the menagerie.)
  7. Her wedding in February 1906 in the East Room of the White House was the social affair of the season. The groom was 14 years her senior, a scion of a socially prominent Ohio family, and widely whispered to be a Washington womanizer. The event was attended by more than a thousand guests while thousands more crowded outside hoping to glimpse the bride. Alice wore a blue wedding dress – not white – and theatrically sliced the wedding cake with a sword drawn from an unsuspecting military aide.
  8. When the Roosevelts moved from the White House, Alice buried a voodoo doll of Nellie Taft, the new First Lady, in the front yard. When the Taft White House later barred Alice from her former residence, it was the first but not the last administration to do so. Next in line was Woodrow Wilson, who barred her in 1916 for a bawdy joke where he was its butt.
  9. In 1912, Alice publicly supported her father’s Bull Moose presidential ticket while her husband remained loyal to his mentor and fellow Cincinnatian William Howard Taft. During that election cycle, Alice appeared on stage with her father’s vice presidential candidate in Longworth’s own district. When her husband narrowly lost his House seat that year to a Democratic challenger – by 101 votes – she joked that she was worth at least 100 votes. Although her husband recovered the seat in 1914 and stayed in the House of Representatives for the rest of his life, Alice’s campaign against him caused a permanent chill in their marriage.
  10. During their marriage, Alice carried on numerous affairs. Best known was her long, ongoing liaison with Senator William Borah of Idaho. When Alice’s diaries were opened to historical research, the pages indicated that Borah was the father of her daughter, Paulina Longworth (1925–1957). Even in this sensitive situation, Alice’s famed “brilliantly malicious” humor was inescapable: she had originally wanted to name her daughter “Deborah,” as in “de Borah.” And according to one family friend, “Everybody called [the daughter] ‘Aurora Borah Alice.’”

As for William Shackford’s line

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The second son of John senior and Esther was William, who “went to sea as a boy and continued to be a sailor all his life,” as the family said. Or maybe not quite that long. He did retire to land, as you’ll see. “He commanded the Active in 1807 and was subsequently master of the Sally, Orient, Blockade, and Five Brothers, ships largely concerned in the West Indian trade.” Naming the Blockade, by the way, sounds like an act of defiance, don’t you think? And Sally would have been a nickname for his first wife.

As a sea captain, he frequently ventured far from Eastport. As we’ve previously mentioned, at age 29 he was captured by French pirates off the coast of Spain, eventually ransomed, and made it back to Maine just before the British blockaded the American Atlantic coast during the War of 1812.

As related in another account, “He was in command of the brig Dawn when that American ship was captured by a French cruiser during the war with the French in the time of Napoleon I. He was carried to France, and upon being relieved at the instance of the American minister, he went to England and came before the mast as an ordinary seaman. He next commanded the Lady Sherbrooke and then the Sarah. His last vessel was the Splendid, a fine packet engaged in the freight and passenger traffic between Eastport, Portland, and Boston. He retired from sea service in 1833 and engaged in mercantile pursuits with his brother, Jacob.” More specifically, the firm was W. & J. Shackford & Company, merchants, shipbuilders, and fishermen. Lorenzo Sabine was a partner briefly enough to explain the “and company.”

The retirement from sea service came around the same time the Shackford siblings surveyed their shared land holdings and began dividing it. There was much wheeling and dealing among the siblings and their nephews and nieces in the years that followed. Between 1840 and 1849, for instance, William sold or transferred or traded 33 parcels, including six to his brother Jacob.

William’s home at 10 Shackford Street is one block up and a block over from ours. Like others in the neighborhood, it was remodeled as styles changed. Parts of the structure may date to the early 1800s, while the front part of the house has the symmetry and simple lines common in area homes in the 1830s and ’40s. Much later (after his death) the home was updated with Queen Ann period details popular in the late 1800s. A close look at the structure reveals later additions such as the modest tower (which would have had a practical purpose, offering views of the harbor) and a decorative porch, for the summer breezes off the sea, I’ll venture — or even watching the daily parade up and down the street.

So much for the real estate pitch. Today, Joe and Mary Clabby have overseen its marvelous restoration.

Three of William’s four sons went on to become sea captains.

John William Shackford for many years commanded the steam packet ship Illinois and other ocean steamships and was then master of Jay Gould’s famous steam yacht Atalanta. (It has its own Wikipedia entry.) He died in Philadelphia in 1905.

Edward Wallace Shackford graduated from the Eastport high school, learned the trade of block and spar making at Machiasport, and then shipped on a vessel trading with the West Indies as ordinary seaman. His second voyage was on a ship that made the hazardous journey to the Pacific coast of the United States by way of Cape Horn, South America, reaching San Francisco in 1860, and sailed as far north as Puget Sound, where he passed the year 1861-62, and returned to Maine by the same route, reaching home in 1864. His next voyage was before the mast, first mate and captain of the brig Emily Fisher, commanding the brig in 1866. His next sea experience was on a steamer on the American line between Philadelphia and Liverpool, England, in the capacity of second officer, and he made four voyages on the steamships. He commanded a bark after leaving the steamship, and in 1887 resigned the command of the bark Ormus to assume a like position on the steam yacht Atalanta, owned by the aforesaid Jay Gould, on a voyage to the Mediterranean — was William introduced by his brother? He was captain of the schooner Johannah Swan, built by Albert M. Nash at his shipyards in Harrington, Maine, from 1889 up to the time the schooner was wrecked in the terrible gale of November 1898, in which gale the steamer City of Portland was lost with all on board and scarce a vestige of the vessel was ever found. William’s wrecked schooner, however, withstood the gale for seven days, when Shackford and his crew were rescued by the German bark Anna. On his arrival home, which was no longer Eastport, Shackford abandoned the life of a sailor and retired from active participation in business life.

All of this reflects the realities of sea life in a changing era.

Edward Wallace Shackford established a winter home at Harrington, Maine, and a summer home that was a “comfortable cottage by the sea,” at Point Ripley, “which has proved so delightful a summer retreat to seekers for an ideal seaside rest.”

He also found congenial spirits at the periodical meetings of Eastern Lodge, No. 7, Free and Accepted Masons, of Eastport; Dirigo Chapter, Royal Arch Masons of Cherryfield; and Tomah Tribe, No. 67, Improved Order of Red Men, of Harrington, Maine. He was elected a member and chairman of the Harrington Republican town committee. He was chairman of the Harrington school board for three years, represented his district in the house of representatives of the state of Maine in 1903-04, and was a member of the senate of the state of Maine 1905-1906. He was president of the Ripley Land Company of Maine from its organization and attended the Baptist church, where his wife was a member.

And that was essentially the end of the Shackford influence in eastern Maine.