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Lumber schooners at Hilliard’s Wharf, the town’s major lumber wharf during the late 1800s. Notice the piles of lumber on the wharf in front of the schooners. Hilliard’s Wharf was near the present site of Land’s End Hardware. |
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What Is a Schooner?
By Laurel Guadazno
Banner Correspondent
In the interest of full disclosure, I should start right off by saying I am not a sailor. However, with the Great Provincetown Schooner Regatta coming up, I decided it was time to learn a little about schooners. Frankly, I had never even been quite sure what constitutes a schooner until I did some research for this article.
A schooner, I learned, is a vessel with more than two masts that is rigged fore and aft. Fore and aft means that the sails are parallel to the keel. They were once the most common type of vessel in Massachusetts Bay, the 19th century aquatic equivalent of today’s 18-wheelers. Schooners were used to carry a wide variety of cargo up and down the coast of the U.S.
Granite, lumber and coal dominated the bulk cargo. Much of the lumber in homes here, as well as the granite for the Pilgrim Monument, was brought from Maine on schooners. Schooners also carried lumber to the southern states and returned home with cotton and manufactured goods.
Provincetown captains used schooners to carry salt fish to Jamaica and the West Indies, returning with molasses and mahogany. I would wager that the mahogany in the pulpit of the Provincetown Unitarian Universalist Meeting House came to town on a schooner.
Schooners began to grow in size in the middle of the 19th century. Additional masts were added to create room for more sails and increase speed. These changes were stimulated by the Gold Rush and the desire to get materials and supplies quickly to California to make big profits. By the 1890s fast fishing schooners, like the Rose Dorothea, were being built for the fresh fish trade. These trim, fast schooners could fish closer to home on Georges Bank and return to port the same day.
After the Civil War, steam-powered vessels began to be used on the open ocean. Sailing vessels were at the mercy of the winds, but steam-powered schooners had more control. Sailing schedules could be set and kept. Steam-powered boats slowly replaced the great sailing schooners.
Through the years Provincetown has been home to some famous schooners, most of them now berthed elsewhere. Admiral MacMillan’s Bowdoin is currently the property of Maine Maritime Academy. Admiral MacMillan often took students on his Arctic expeditions. He would be happy to know the ship is still being used to educate students about seamanship and ocean studies.
Many people will also remember the Schooner Olad. From the 1960s until 1985 she was part of the fleet of boats offering day sails from MacMillan Pier. According to the website www.maineschooners.com, John Nugent bought the Olad and took her to Camden, Maine. The Schooner Olad was sold again in 2005 but still sails out of Camden Harbor on Penobscot Bay in Maine. A lot of people would like to see her return to town for the regatta some year.
And finally, one can’t forget the Hindu. For over 60 years the Hindu has taken tourists and locals out on trips from Provincetown. The Hindu’s website boasts, “one of the oldest and most continuously run excursion vessels in America, an actual moving piece of history.” The Hindu turned 80 in August of 2005 and went to Maine for repairs, but she’s back at MacMillan Pier this summer. The Great Provincetown Schooner Regatta is a tribute to one of the Hindu’s captains, John Bennett. Shortly before his death in 2002, he made plans to invite a group of schooners to town for a race.
After his death, others in the community decided to hold the race as a tribute to him and the Schooner Hindu. The first race was such a success that organizers decided to make the race an annual event. The Great Provincetown Schooner Regatta celebrates not only the importance of Grand Banks fishing schooners but also the town’s fishing heritage and culture. And so the tradition of schooners in Provincetown continues. Bon voyage.
[Laurel Guadazno is curator of education for the Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum.]
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Sep 7th, 2006