Full Steam Ahead Granddaughter reissues ‘Lore of the Penobscot’

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The golden age of Maine’s coastal steamers was already past by the time Sally Richardson Rice was born, but the Stonington native recently helped to bring readers a reminder of the those times and to preserve a chapter of the state’s history.

Rice has reissued “Steamboat Lore of the Penobscot,” written by her grandfather John M. Richardson in 1941 and last printed in 1950. She also has donated several nautical items relating to the steamboat era to the Penobscot Maritime Museum in Searsport.

Steamboats were mostly gone when Richardson, who once owned the Courier-Gazette in Rockland, wrote his book. He had seen steamboats in their heyday and mourned their passing, as is clear in a piece he wrote for his newspaper in 1935.

“The aching tragedy of this thing called progress was summed up last night by three long, deep, melodious blasts from the great whistle of the steamship, Belfast.

“As the last musical note echoed over the windswept harbor and city, it spoke the final farewell to waters of the Penobscot of a century old service of steam propelled vessels to Boston, the last and saddest sailing of one of the great white fliers.

“Three slow, deep whistles, a biting wind, the slap of waves against the granite dock, an aging ship, a grim lipped, aging man, the Belfast’s lights dwindling to a golden crown in the distance – three whistles – a tight, dry throat, smarting eyes – yes – and unashamed.”

The paperback book contains more than 300 pictures of the steamers that plied the waters of the coast of Maine and the Penobscot River and was reprinted exactly as it was in the 1950 edition. The narrative supplies the details of each of the vessels, large and small, including information on their construction, where they sailed and what happened to them when, as many of them did, they left Maine’s waters.

Despite his love of the steamboats, Richardson’s account is not a romanticized view, and includes the failures, vices and tragedies that beset some of the vessels. The book offers a glimpse of Maine’s past told through the eyes and often the words of those who had lived it, and has attracted attention from area residents, natives and newcomers alike.

“There is a lot of interest in steamboats, probably because they’re not around anymore; people are drawn to them,” said Kathryn Campbell, curator at the Penobscot Marine Museum. “There are a lot of books on steamboats. But this book really focuses on a particular area – the Penobscot River. There’s not anything else written about it in that way.”

The book, Campbell said, is valuable as a resource for her as a curator and for a wide range of people.

“It’s valuable as a reference,” she said. “It provides a great deal of information about each boat. It tells you where it was built; it tells you its name and if it was renamed. For research, it’s absolutely wonderful.”

The original book was hardcover, but Rice found it too expensive to reissue a hardback book. The cover photo on the new paperback edition, however, was taken from the back jacket of the original. With the exception of the addition of the notation “millennium printing” on the title page, the book was reprinted exactly as it was in 1950.

“We wanted to retain the purity of the original,” Rice said. “I was going to write a new foreword, but I didn’t. I wish now that I had written something to explain why I was doing this.”

Rice said she remembers her grandfather as being a large, heavy-set man who was very serious. She said she was often overwhelmed by him.

“I was raised by very strong men. Both my grandfathers were self-made, successful, determined men,” she said. “My father was the same. They expected to succeed.”

Reprinting the book was a way to remember the past and to honor their memory.

“These people have been dead for 50 years, but they helped to make me what I am all these years later,” said Rice who has served as a state representative and various boards in her community. “It’s so important to have a connection to the past. This was worth every day of effort that went into it. I’ve really gotten a great personal satisfaction from doing this.”

Although the book recounts the story of steamboats, Rice said it is a very personal book for her.

“You can almost hear him speaking when you read it,” she said.

Rice herself, also appears in one brief passage in the volume as her grandfather discusses the “smart little steamer” Fire Fly.

“Fire Fly is in present day service as seiner, steam engine replaced with diesel and house arrangements altered entirely, and by a strange coincidence is today operating again out of Stonington, one of the R.K. Barter fleet of seiners, named Sally Sims, honoring Mr. Barter’s granddaughter, Sally Simmons Richardson, who is also a granddaughter of the writer.”

Rice remembers the Fire Fly as a child, and a part of the old steamer had remained a part of her life until just a few years ago.

“They cut the pilothouse off the Fire Fly and we used it as a playhouse here on Moose Island until just a few years ago,” she said.

While the book itself provides a valuable piece of Maine history, Rice has helped preserve other pieces of the state’s nautical past. She donated several items from her grandfather’s collection to the Penobscot Maritime Museum in Searsport. Among them are an antique walnut chair from the lounge of the steamer City of Rockland, a life ring from the steamer Castine, and a color lithograph of the Boston and Bangor steamship City of Bangor.

On his wall at the Courier-Gazette, Richardson had four large, hand-colored photographs of the tugboat Sommers N. Smith, the steamers Yankee, Belfast and Gov. Bodwell, along with a full view at low tide of Tillson’s Wharf in Rockland. These pieces also have been d given to the museum.

One other donation, about 600 photo engravings, carries its own story, Rice said. All of the engravings had been stored at the Atlantic Avenue warehouse owned by Rice.

“We had about 225 and we assumed that they were the plates used for the book. We could match up some of them with the photos in the book,” she said. “When we sold the store, we cleaned out the upstairs, and on the second floor we found 400 more plates. The question is what are they.”‘

That question will have to be answered by the folks at the Penobscot Marine Museum. Curator Campbell already has begun cataloging the gifts and this week completed entering the nearly 100 postcards into the museum’s listing.

“The photographs on the postcards are wonderful,” Campbell said. “They not only show great details of the ship’s construction, but you can also see the boats in context.”

One postcard from 1907, for example, shows a steamboat discharging passengers onto the ice in Belfast Harbor, she said. Another is of steamers tied up side by side with a four-masted schooner, highlighting the change from sail to steam.

Some of the donated items will go on display immediately, Campbell said.

The museum has an exhibit called “Working the Bay,” which focuses on the early days of visitors and vacationers coming to the area.

“Steamboats, of course, played a big part in that,” she said.

Items such as the life ring from the steamer Castine, and a sign board that directed people to the Bangor-Boston boat, will be added to that exhibit soon, Campbell said.

Others, such as the postcards and photo engravings, will be held for future use and for reference by researchers, artists, model builders and others.

“They will all be used,” she said.

Her foray into the publishing world has whetted Rice’s appetite. This winter she plans to edit a manuscript written by her other grandfather, the R.K. Barter who ran the seiner Fire Fly. He served in World War I and wrote an account of his experiences. She also has in mind a series of children’s books based on her experiences growing up in Stonington.

“I wanted to turn the moral lessons I learned here into a book for children,” she said.