“Reward of $100,” announced a small headline over a heart-rending item at the bottom of page 5 of the Bangor Daily News on Sept. 29, 1904. “Mrs. John H. Bennett offers a reward of $100 for either the body of her son, Capt. Howard O. Bennett of the schooner William H. Archer, or for that of her husband, Capt. John H. Bennett of the schooner Irving Leslie, believed to have been lost in the gale of Sept. 14.”

The deaths of the two men, who were born in Hancock and lived in Brewer, were the result of a violent storm that savaged much of the East Coast, tossing vessels about like toys. John Bennett had sailed from Sullivan for Boston with a load of stone on Sept. 12. His son Howard had sailed from Boothbay for Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard, the same day with a load of lumber. Each was accompanied by an unnamed crew.

They were among the victims of what old-timers called a line gale or an equinoctial storm that had come a few days early. These storms supposedly appeared in mid- to late September at the time the sun crossed the equator, or line. The theory was not given much credence even a century ago among scientists, and there are enough other reasons in the fall, such as tropical storms, to explain bad weather. In fact, the storm was a hurricane, I was told by a National Weather Service spokesman.

The results of this storm were catastrophic. Many people would be scanning the papers for weeks looking for some word of friends and loved ones, or for the fate of missing vessels in which they had an investment.

“After strewing Vineyard Sound, Nantucket, Cape Cod and the Maine coast with many wrecks, the storm kept on to the Provinces where this afternoon it was the cause of a half million dollar fire in Halifax,” according to a late-breaking wire story out of Boston on Friday morning, Sept. 16, the first storm coverage in the Bangor Daily News. The only serious damage in Maine listed was to the schooners Ida M. and July Fourth, which had run aground at Southwest Harbor and at Fort Point respectively with no casualties.

“It is feared that today’s record does not complete the entire list of disasters caused by the storm,” said the NEWS.

Indeed, the news got much worse the next day as the story moved to the top of Page One. The headline said, “Terrible Experience of Crew of Jonesport Sch.”

The Georgie D. Loud, bound from Calais to New York with a load of lumber, had taken on water 50 miles east of Boston light. Capt. E.C. Smith and his crew of four had to work the pumps for 20 hours before being rescued by a passing steamer.

Two of the men, Edward Foley, the cook, and George Clark, a seaman, had been severely injured by shifting lumber as they threw the deck cargo into the ocean. The masts were cut away, and the men sought refuge on top of a cabin before being saved.

The same steamer spotted the schooner Jonathan Sawyer, bound from Stonington to New York, riding out the storm “under bare poles with her spanker gone and her gaff hanging on the spar.” Those on board made no request to be taken off.

The same story reported that the Rockland schooner Emily F. Swift, bound from Calais to Boston, had been wrecked on Outer Black Island, and the crew had been rescued by the Islesford lifesaving crew. The Minneola, owned by the mayor of Ellsworth and bound from East Machias to Deer Isle, had gone ashore on Duck Island, but floated off with the tide with a great deal of damage and loss of cargo.

As the days went by, the bad news retreated inside the paper. Sometimes it was almost totally lost in columns of miscellaneous shipping news. (The names of some other badly damaged vessels not mentioned in the NEWS were noted in the pages of the Bangor Daily Commercial, the city’s other major newspaper, which estimated 60 vessels had been lost or badly damaged in all.)

The Jonathan Sawyer finally limped into Rockland disabled. The schooner Alice Holbrook, bound from Norfolk to Bangor, arrived at Fort Point badly damaged. The schooner Miranda, with a load of Bangor lumber, sailed into Vineyard Haven leaking badly and missing much of its deck cargo.

Edward Moon of Surry, mate on the Nathan Lawrence, was able to get word home that he had been rescued after being wrecked off South Carolina. Anxiety still remained, however, for several small pogey boats out of Boothbay Harbor and Round Pond.

By a cruel twist of fate, another father and son were reported to have been luckier than the Bennetts. The bark Willard Mudgett, bound from Newport News to Bangor with a load of coal, was added to the NEWS’ list of missing boats on Sept. 27. Capt. Fred Blanchard was accompanied by his father, Capt. William Blanchard, “a well proven deep-water navigator.” Both men were from Searsport.

Two days later, the 154-foot vessel was said to have been towed into Boston badly damaged, but safe. It would continue on to Bangor to discharge its coal and pick up a load of lumber for Rio de Janeiro, reported the newspaper.

However, the tragic truth was revealed in the paper on Oct. 26. Another vessel had been chartered to take the lumber scheduled to go on the Willard Mudgett to South America. A steamer reported upon its arrival in Boston that it had seen a sunken wreck that appeared to be a bark. The chances were that it was all that remained of the Mudgett, the paper reported.

The probable fate of the Bennetts and their crews was told in the NEWS the same day Mrs. Bennett advertised her reward. A fisherman reported seeing the wreck of a schooner 30 miles east-southeast of Thatcher’s Island with its two masts sticking out of the water. It was probably the Irving Leslie. Another schooner, seen floating bottom up off Cape Ann, was believed to be the William H. Archer.

I have yet to find evidence that anyone claimed Mrs. Bennett’s reward. A memorial service for the father and son was held at the Bennett home on Nov. 29, and two days later the NEWS ran both of their photographs.

Wayne E. Reilly has edited two books of Civil War era diaries and letters including “The Diaries of Sarah Jane and Emma Ann Foster: A Year in Maine During the Civil War.” He can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.