by Ardeana Hamlin
of The Weekly Staff
WINTERPORT — Several weeks ago, Abbie Stover of Winterport retired after serving 19 years as president of the Winterport Historical Association.
“She was an especially fine organizer,” said Teddy Weston, a charter member of the association established in the 1970s. “She made our archives accessible to the public by organizing them into binders. It makes a big difference. It was very helpful.”
Stover, at Weston’s suggestion, joined the association in 1993. In 1996 she was elected president of the organization.
“The archives had to be cataloged and made available to the public,” Stover said. “That was a fun, nice job.”
In addition to her organizing skill, Stover brought her family’s maritime history to the association. She is the daughter of merchant marine Capt. and U.S. Navy Reserves Lt. Comm. Harry James Gillway, a circumstance which fostered in her an interest in marine history, in general, and Winterport’s seafaring history, in particular.
“My father went to sea when he was 14 — that’s how they got their training then,” Stover said. During her early childhood, Stover and other family members went along on her father’s voyages aboard various merchant vessels. “In those days [the late 1920s] the captain was allowed to take his family with him.” A fact that, quite possibly, puts her among the last generation of youngsters to go to sea with their sea captain fathers, a longtime tradition in Maine seafaring families.
Stover recalled traveling to Baltimore to meet her father’s ship, then cruising up the East Coast to New York and Boston. A memorable voyage for Stover and her family came when she celebrated her second birthday on the way to the British West Indies. “We sailed through a hurricane,” she said.
Among the ships her father captained were the Frieda, and ships owned Standard Oil Co. — the Beaconoil and the Beaconlight. “When I had to go to school, when I was four, my travels ended,” Stover said. Though as an adult, after she married, that changed and she lived on Guam, in California and Washington, D.C. Eventually, she visited every state in the United States.
Sometimes, Stover’s father captained merchant ships that carried coal to Bucksport. On one of his trips, on Dec. 16, 1931, Capt. Gillway rescued two civilian airmen and their airplane, which had run out of fuel and crashed into the Atlantic. The men were on their way to Puerto Rico from New York. The story of the rescue was published in the Bangor Daily News.
Stover’s parents had moved to Winterport in 1930 to be near Mrs. Gillway’s parents.
One corner of the historical association archives is devoted to maritime history. “It’s my favorite part,” Stover said.
Stover also has compiled newspaper clippings culled from the Bangor Daily News about the World War II military service of Winterport men and women, and their lives in the ensuing years, testimony to the role that newspapers play in reporting and preserving local history as it pertains to ordinary people.
The association archives also contain documents pertaining to the Civil War service of Winterport men and cemetery records.
“Most people who are here on vacation are researching family history. We have a nice collection,” she said.
Richard Jaegels is the Winterport Historical Association’s new president. The association’s museum, which once was the church hall for the Union Church on Main Street is open to the public 2-4 p.m. Tuesdays through July and August.