As I write this, the Coast Guard has called off the search for survivors of the El Faro, a cargo ship which was lost at sea Oct. 1 during Hurricane Joaquin in the Bahamas. Among the 33 crew members are five Maine Maritime Academy graduates: Capt. Michael Davidson of Windham, Dylan Melkin of Rockland, Danielle Randolph of Rockland, Michael Holland of Wilton and Mitchell Kuflik of Brooklyn, New York.
Maine is one of the states that has several memorials to lost fishermen in coastal towns, including Rockland, Eastport, Boothbay Harbor, York, Stonington, Bar Harbor, Tremont and Port Clyde, as well as the New Brunswick island of Grand Manan. Here in Bangor, the USS Maine Monument at Davenport Park is the site of the annual memorial to those whose lives were lost in February 1898 during the Spanish-American War in Havana Harbor.
But the first one I ever saw was the Fisherman’s Memorial in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the sculpture of a fisherman in oil slicks standing at the wheel, a monument located on Stacy Boulevard overlooking the waterfront in the Essex County city. The memorial was erected on the city’s 300th anniversary in 1923, and its base is inscribed with part of a verse from Psalm 107: “They that go down to the sea in ships.”
I was interested to find out that the city of Gloucester actually has an online database of those lost at sea — from commercial fishermen over the seasons to individuals who have drowned.
Among those in the database is my ancestor Thomas Wharfe, a fisherman who was lost with the whole crew of a ship at the Grand Banks in 1753. Daughter Dorcas was just 10 when her dad died.
Anyone who is descended from one of the three Bennett brothers who helped settle Guilford in 1806-1807 — Isaac, John and Nathaniel Bennett — can claim descent from fisherman Thomas Wharfe through Dorcas, who married the trio’s father, Sgt. Isaac Bennett in 1754. I have two lines of descent from son Isaac and Margaret (Noble) Bennett, one from David Bennett and wife Lucy (Clark), and one from Prosper Bennett and wife Mary (Comins).
You can find Gloucester’s Lost at Sea webpage at gloucester-ma.gov/index.aspx?NID=74. In just one storm in 1879, 29 ships were lost and 249 people died.
The city website also has listings for births, 1850-1873; marriages, 1849-1869; and deaths, 1838-1883. For earlier records, see these volumes at Bangor Public Library and Maine State Library, among others: “Massachusetts Vital Records Transcripts to 1850: Gloucester 1641-1849,” three volumes, births, marriages and deaths, the latter which includes mention of many who were lost at sea.
Jesse Salisbury is the sculptor of the Lost Fishermen’s Memorial, a monument underway in Lubec which will have inscribed names of those lost at sea from Washington County and from Charlotte County, New Brunswick.
The association, which is raising money for the project, has a website at www.lostfishermensmenorial.com. The verse on the homepage is from Virgil: “No day shall erase you from the memorial of time.”
Kittery has a Shipyard Workers’ Memorial, and South Portland has a Coast Artillery Corps Memorial. There is a Submariners Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut, and a Fishermen’s Memorial at Narragansett, Rhode Island.
Many of us, I think, are unaware of how many fishermen and lobstermen are lost at sea each year, possibly because many of those lost are individual deaths that don’t garner the same publicity as a cargo ship of 33 lost in a hurricane. Their family and friends know, of course. Consider this: between March 2003 and January 2004, eight were lost at sea in less than a year. From January 2000 to June 8, 2001, 10 were lost in accidents involving 10 vessels.
You also may not realize that merchant mariners who served in wars were not recognized as veterans until 1988.
On the Maine Maritime Academy campus in Castine, a monument erected by the Down East Chapter of American Merchant Marine Veterans pays tribute to the 6,895 merchant mariners and 1,810 naval guard members killed in World War II — including 60 from Maine Maritime Academy.
Inscribed on the memorial are the words: “The sea washed over them and they were gone … We shall not forget them.”
For information on researching family history in Maine, see Genealogy Resources under Family Ties at bangordailynews.com/browse/family-ties. Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402, or email familyti@bangordailynews.com.