REMINISCENCES OF A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER
July 23,1980 edition of the Saint Croix Courier (with permission)
Editors Note: Prescott Dines, 83, of St. Andrews is a retired keeper of the Green's Point light which guided vessels through L'Etete passage through long years of service, prior to being de-commissioned in 1963. Mr. Dines has recorded his reminiscences and the newspaper is pleased to print these in instalments. Helene Nielsen of Ottawa, grand niece of Mr. Dines, helped in compiling the material, gleaned from Mr. Dine's recollections of 27 years as keeper of the light.
Part III
In May, 1922, at the age of 24, I married a fine looking woman from Back Bay, Lillian Hooper. She was the youngest of a family of eight.
We were married by Reverend George Ford at Lord's Cove, Deer Island. As this was before any ferry service to the island, we went by motor boat and enjoyed a very quiet wedding.
Back home, mother was busy making a special cake for our return. She left it unattended long enough for my brother to bring in some friends and devour a good part of it. He loudly protested any knowledge of it being a special cake.
The following year, 1923, we had a fine healthy 8 pound boy, born in the coldest winter with some of the most terrible weather on record.
Most women in the area called on ' Aunt Margaret' (the local midwife), since transport to hospital at St. Stephen or Saint John was next to impossible. 'Aunt Margaret' was experienced and capable and usually assisted, even if a doctor were in attendance. Over the years, she successfully increased the population by several hundred.
On this occasion, Dr. H. I. Taylor was expected, so we set about chopping away the ice cakes to make it passable to the lighthouse for him. He remained with us overnight, involuntarily, because of the dense vapour, which encircled the point. The temperature lowered to a point that make it unfit for man or beast.
Our son became a playmate and 'almost brother' to another child already in our midst.
Four years earlier, my sister died at age 32, while bearing a son, so my parents took the child to raise at the lighthouse. These two boys became inseparable through school and high school and later both enlisted in the Canadian Air Force and served until the end of the war.
We have had our share of cold winters in our part of the Bay of Fundy--some with an abundance of snow and ice--some with just icy winds.
Nineteen-twenty-three will always be remembered as one of the worst of this century. St. Andrews Bay was frozen solid--(men from Deer Island took a dory on sleds over the ice to St. Andrews) and lots of places had five feet of snow in the woods. There was not one harbour or wharf that the coastal freighter 'Connors Bros' could call at, except L'Etete.
Just to make matters worse that year, the spring with its welcoming thaw was delayed until May. This brought its own kind of horror...the freshet floods. All river banks spilled their swollen contents and washed out bridges and swept the outbuildings from the fields. The St. Croix River flooded the lower floors of the Mill at Milltown and washed the looms out the north end of the brick building.
At St. George the pulp mill suffered the same kind of flooding--ending in the loss of several hundred cords of pulp wood and hundreds of logs. By boat, I personally helped pick up (about eight cords) drifting pulpwood, and well as enough pine logs to build several boats.
Disasters
During the first part of the century, the steamship Hestia loaded with a general cargo from the British Isles and on its way to Saint John, New Brunswick, ran aground on a ledge known as the Old Proprietor at the south part of Grand Manan Island. It was a total loss.
Like flies around a carcass, the Grand Manan fishing boats salvaged everything that floated--valuable china, choice liqueurs and furniture. To this day, the odd piece of china or bric a brac is raised by a fisherman's net.
The next disaster I recall vividly was a three-masted schooner named the Horace G. Morris. It occurred during a howling February storm when she mistook Blisses Point Light for Beaver Harbour. She went aground with all sails set. Three of the five men aboard managed to reach the rocks and scramble to the Keeper's house to tell their sorrowful story.
The cargo had been a full one of laths. Fishermen in the vicinity had a bonanza, picking up enough laths to make a fence around New Brunswick, with enough left over to supply the territory in lobster traps.
Another wreck took place in days of prohibition, when several old vessels, similar to the Bluenose, used to lay off shore outside the three mile limit of any land. One of these two-masted schooners, running for Blisses Harbour in an easterly gale and winter storm, under reduced sail, ran ashore on the bold water side of Whitehead, Blisses Harbour. She promptly sank with a good supply of liquor in the hold, which started more Passamaquoddy men fishing than any run of fish could. For awhile, more gin and whiskey that cod came over the side.
While still a youngster, I well remember a three-masted schooner, called the L.M.B., coming up the Bay of Fundy bound for St. Stephen. As she sailed by the lighthouse, the winds were light, the tide fair in flood tide. The captain endeavoured to sail her to the eastern side of Dry Ledge, but the stronger currents run to the western channel side and the vessel struck the part of Dry Ledge known as Sunken Rock and quickly sank.
She hit the ledges so hard that two miles away at our lighthouse, we very plainly heard the thud and deep rumbling as the great tides ground the bottom out of her.
My father and I rowed out to her as the old captain prepared to leave ship, he carried some personal effects. Among these was the ship's telescoping spy glass which my father bought from him and which I have today in good condition.
Drownings
Drownings were 'part and parcel' of the sea and its life.
At our neighbouring light station at Campobello Island, known now as East Quoddy, the keeper was drowned going to the light and fog alarm from his dwelling on the mainland. To get to the light, he had to walk over a bar that would be covered by tide about two hours flood. In midwinter, he was able to take over the midnight watch, but never reported for his duty. His body was never recovered; just his lantern on the bar.
One drowning, and probably many more, were the result of carelessness...such as the three local fishermen who were fishing for pollock in a small rowboat.
These fishing boats were generally slippery from water and fish remains and this one was no exception. When one of the fisherman stood to light his cigarette, he slipped and fell against the side of the boat, upending all three into the icy waters. Two were rescued, but the third drowned and his body was recovered at low tide by the RCMP, only 100 yards from the shore.
During the early part of the century, everything was sail. These boats were used in the seining of sardine herring. If the wind was sufficient, off they would go to the weirs, but otherwise they would be dependent on one of several steam tugs to get them there and/or back.
I have probably forgotten some of these tugs by name, but the ones I do remember are: the Henry F. Eaton, the Julius Wolfe, the Judge, the Phantom, the Ethel, the R. J. Killick and the Mary Arnold, one of the last and owned by the Seacoast Canning Company, Eastport, Maine.
Different steamboats also travelled from Saint John to Grand Manan Island. The first one I remember was the Flushing; the Aurora; Grand Manan I and Grand Manan II. Perhaps the one I remember the best, was the old Viking which plied the waters from L'Etete, Deer Island, Campobello, Eastport and St. Andrews.
In my early teens, I would get on the steamer Viking at 7 a.m., call at Lord's Cove, Richardsonville, Leonardville, Wilson's Beach, and Welshpool, Campobello--touch at Eastport, Maine then on to Cummings Cove, Fairhaven and St. Andrews.
Dinner on board was a treat, put together by a great cook, Angus McVicar of L'Etete.
When the Viking was sold, it was replaced by the mail boat, Rex--on which you would find, not only mail, but freight and passengers.
During this period, the steamer, Robert Cann, a smaller and much older boat took over one February for the steamer Grand Manan.
A blizzard, with gale winds, came up during the run from Saint John to Grand Manan. The captain endeavoured to make the lee of the island, but foundered in the attempt, with Captain Ells, the only survivor. Some were drowned when it foundered, others froze to death or died of exposure in the small life boat.
One other terrible accident happened a short distance outside Saint John Harbour on a very cold day in mid winter. The vapour was at its worst.
The Saint John pilot boat went out to meet a large freighter that required piloting into the Harbour. The small pilot boat and its crew of seven met a horrible death in the path of a large freighter, who failed to see its welcoming committee. One engineer on the pilot boat was from Leonardville, Deer Island.
The small sailing boats used by many fishermen in their search for sardines, clams or lobsters, were known as 'pinkies'.
These pinkies had a very pointed stern with the rudder being all outdoors. They were steered by a long tiller, of a very old design, but very efficient and quick to turn.
There were no pilot houses aboard the pinkies to shelter the men from the elements, so after loading their cargo, the captain would don his oil skins and rubber boots. If the sea seemed rough, the men would often tie a rope around their waists and then secure the rope to some part of the boat to prevent them from parting company. As was the saying, 'the seas were filled with wooden boats and iron men.'
In the bitter fall and winter months, I have often seen them under double reefed sail with the seas piling and splashing over them.
On just such a day, I remember that Captain Judd Matthews and his son, Luther, had to abandon their boat, the Redwing. They had a full load of sardines aboard, but when a plank sprung in the heavy seas, they left everything, jumped into their rowboat and reached safety.
Other losses come to mind--the Keystone manned by Captain Roland Matthews and his brother, Foster; the Virginia, owned by Captain Ang Cook; and one of the last and finest of 'pinkies' was the Oriola owned by Captain George Simpson of Deer Island.
End of Part 3
©Charlene Beney 2006