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- Source: The Bangor Daily News, Bangor Me, Thursday, September 10, 1942, Pg 10
Camden Woman Has Had Real Adventure At Sea
Mrs. Kate Sherman Remembers When Maine Ships Sailed To The Seven Seas
By Oscar Shepard
CAMDEN, Sept. 9 ---- Mrs. Kate Sherman of Camden --- who will be 90 in October, although the fact is hard to believe ---- has remembered through long and sometimes exciting years a night in August, 1883.
She had been on a voyage to Japan with her husband, the Late Justin Sherman, a famous shipmaster in those fondly remembered days when Maine-built ships found their way to the Seven Seas. They were returning to Manila and were two days out from the Straits of Sunda in the Indian Ocean. Mrs. Sherman had gone below but was called to the deck by her husband's cry:
"Come up and Look! It's like a thick snowstorm."
A strange phenomenon met her eyes -- a phenomenon that for a half century has been burned into her memory. A moving curtain that extended from sea to heavens almost blotted out the moon, and a strange gray substance, unlike anything they knew, was covering the deckhouse and decks. They spread newspapers, and for seven hours it fell upon the vessel.
Mrs. Sherman has a bottle of this gray rain in her Camden home, and it is one of her cherished possessions. For it was really volcanic ash from the island of Krakatoa.
A modern newspaper clipping recalls the story:
"Krakatoa was a volcanic isle in the Sunda Straits. 'Was because in August of 1883 it blew itself off the map. Experts are responsible for these figures:
"Thirty-six thousand persons were killed. Lava, pumice and debris were tossed 17 miles into the upper air. The sound of the explosion was heard in Africa, 3000 miles away. Tidal waves 50 feet high smashed outward and even were noted in the English Channel! And dust and ash from the volcano actually circled the entire globe, darkening the sun and causing the earth to suffer an unusually bitter winter season. Such is the story of Krakatoa."
Therefore, Capt. and Mrs. Sherman, and the crew had been on the outer edge of a great tragedy. Remember, they were on a sailing vessel and were but two days from Sunda Straits.
Here is a thought, if we can find words to make it plain:
This pleasant lady who at 89 is so alert physically and mentally, and who lives in the present as well as in the past, is the symbol of a golden era. An era when Maine's sons went down to the sea in ships, and these ships sailed to the world's far places. An era when captains' wives often braved long voyages and unknown perils - as did Mrs.Sherman - or waited with serene courage for their loved ones to return. An era strangely in contrast with the mechanical, literal background of today. A golden era, truly that lives only in fading memory.
Mrs. Sherman is the daughter of Elbridge Carleton but was brought up by Samuel D. Carleton of Carleton, Norwood & Co., Rockport shipbuilders, who sent 62 ships down the ways. She was married in Rockport in 1869.
The sea was her heritage. It was in her blood. She was only 13 when she made her first voyage, on the Kate Carleton, to the West Indies:and her honeymoon voyage ended in a dramatic wreck.
She had sailed with Capt. Sherman on the two-masted brig Fred Bliss to Lisbon in Portugal and Cadez in Spain. The trip was almost ended and the Fred Bliss, salt in her hold, casks of Spanish wine between her decks, was off Swampscott, Mass. She was running by dead reckoning in the driving storm when the lookout shouted: "Breakers ahead!"
A moment later the crash came. The crew, in frenzied haste, cut away the first mast, and it fell clear. The second mast fouled, turning the brig on her beam-ends upon the rocks.
Then came drama --- the sheer drama with which Maine’s coastal history is filled. Drama, but not tragedy. All escaped safely, Mrs. Sherman has a memory of crawling to the deck, of being lashed to the rail, and later of being lowered to the rocks down the brig's ice-coated side.
Then the ships company, chilled to the bone, the storm driving about them, sought some haven of safety. They found a summer cottage but it was locked and deserted
"i wish", said the captain, grimly, "we had the axe with which we cutaway that mast."
"It's here", said the mate, unexpectedly. "I brought it along."
So they were able to smash through one of the shutters. But later they went to a caretaker's cottage, where a coal fire gave warmth.
Next morning they returned to the wreck. The storm had abated. They ran a plank from the rocks to the brig and began the work of salvage. Among Mrs. Sherman's possessions were three canaries, which she brought ashore.
A little later she had her first experience, not altogether a happy one, with newspapermen. Reporters were there from Boston. Her husband was in Lynn, where he had gone to make a formal report of the wreck, and she told them the story. Surprisingly, one of the papers graphically described how she had crossed on the plank in the snow and wind, the cage of canaries at her side. She has been vaguely suspicious of reportorial accuracy since then.
One other interesting fact:
The brig's hold, as has been said, was filled with salt. When a hole smashed in her bow, the salt ran out. This lightened the load and the crippled ship was driven upon the rocks where salvage and rescue were easy, instead of sliding off into deep water.
For four years following the wreck, Capt. Sherman remained ashore. But there is a siren note in the call of the sea; and this call became clearer and more compelling, after every launching from the Carleton-Norwood yards. Finally he could stand it no longer and went to Bangor, whence he sailed for Liverpool on a vessel loaded with deals.
For years, Sherman was master of the three-masted "Raphael". Often Mrs. Sherman accompanied him on long voyages which took them two or three times to England, to Japan and China and other Eastern ports.They sailed past the Solomon and Aleutian Islands, now so prominent in the news dispatches, but did not land there. The Raphael weathered hurricanes and ordinary storms. Often they knew the drama of the sea--but tragedy did not touch them.
Mrs. Sherman has pleasant memories of Japan, which then was most unlike the sadistic nation of today. And she tells some delightful, whimsical little stories of her visits there: of "Chop Dolls", the faithful rickshaw boy who served her; of the shopkeeper who on Christmas insisted that she take from his stock a gift of her own choosing, "Because you know, missy", he explained, "one very good man was born today". The Japanese, like the Chinese, seemed to her kindly people. But the world was younger then -- younger and happier.
At one point in the brief talk Mrs. Sherman herself asked a question:
"How old do you think I am?"
"About 90", the reporter answered.
But that was because he happened to know. Otherwise, he would have answered, "Between 65 and 70", and been sincere in saying so.
Few women in Maine have such picturesque things to remember. Few so personify as has been said, an age that has passed. But she is also of the living and vital present. For a long time she has knitted an average of a sweater each week for the soldier boys; and many might envy her flying needles. Beloved in Camden, she has long been active in the affairs of St. Thomas Episcopal church, of which the Rev. William E. Berger is rector.
She will be 90 on Oct. 14. St Thomas church has another active parishioner, Miss Annie Fletcher, who is three weeks younger.
There are many fascinating stories along the coast of Maine.
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On the same page is a picture of a wrecked boat on rocks with an inset on the upper left of a 4 masted ship. The caption is as follows:
OUT OF THE PAST --- Wreck of the brig Fred Bliss off Swampscott, April 3, 1870. The brig was commanded by Capt. Sherman; and Mrs. Sherman, who lives in Camden, was aboard. (Inset) The Frederick Billings, 2,682 tons, built at Rockport, Maine, by Carleton Norwood & Co., in 1885. She was the second four-masted ship in the United States and the largest square-rigger ever built on the Penobscot. Her end was tragic. Loaded with nitrate in Chile, in 1893, she was set fire by crew, exploded, and sank in 20 minutes. All hands were saved by boats from other vessels in the harbor.
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Old Dead Relatives
1852 - Aft 1942 (> 90 years)
