Anniversary of ship launch marked

BUCKSPORT – The crowd was nowhere near as large as it was 100 years ago, but those who turned out Wednesday to mark the centennial of the launch of the Roosevelt were enthusiastic. They commemorated the vessel built on Verona Island that would carry Robert Peary farther north than any vessel had gone before and would serve as a staging platform for his successful trek to the North Pole.

Local residents applauded when George Sawyer, grandson of Albina Sawyer, a sawyer and rigger who helped build the ship, announced that it was the exact hour and minute that the launch had occurred 100 years ago.

“12:35 p.m. March 23, 1905.”

Joining Sawyer, a local historian, were Earland Morrill, a model shipwright and historian who crafted the model of the Roosevelt on display at the Buck Memorial Library, and George Wardwell, great-grandson of his namesake, the chief engineer aboard the vessel on its two Arctic voyages.

Leaders of the state Legislature also sent an official sentiment marking the occasion.

On display were artifacts brought back from the voyage, including Wardwell’s diaries of the two voyages, walrus and narwhal tusks, and 250 glass slides (photographic negatives) from the voyages that have been in the family since Peary returned from the Pole in 1909.

By the time work began on the ship, Peary already had made several unsuccessful tries, dating back more than a decade, at reaching the pole.

“He knew what he had to build in order to withstand the winter and the ice,” Morrill said. “It was built rugged.”

Sawyer’s father worked on the construction of the vessel, first hauling the beams from the rail station to the boatyard and then as a rigger.

“When they launched her, he was at one end of the boat. His job was to drop an anchor as she went into the water,” Sawyer said. “She went in and he dropped his anchor, another fellow dropped another anchor and the tug had a hawser on her. But she kept coming and went right across and into the mud flats.”

Wardwell descendants attending the ceremony recalled growing up among the memorabilia from the Arctic journeys, including seeing the slides shown at home on a sheet. Although none of the current generations of Wardwells knew the chief engineer, they recalled his son, Maynard, telling stories of his father’s deeds.

“As a kid, you don’t think of the historical part of it,” said descendent Phyllis Wardwell. “But it is history. This is native history and it should be known. The ship was built here; the chief engineer and others were members of this little town.”

Area residents viewed the artifacts after the ceremony and the current George Wardwell said he hoped to copy his great-grandfather’s diaries and duplicate the images from the slides so that they could be displayed for future generations.

“I never knew the man, he passed on before I was born,” Wardwell said. “Hopefully, we’ve made a start on a display that will be in town for years to come.”

Wardwell said he hopes to publish the diaries, which chronicle the everyday life on board the Roosevelt during two trips to the Arctic.

After being pulled from the Bucksport mud, the Roosevelt was tied up to the town dock and thousands of visitors stepped on board. The next day the ship left for Portland to be fitted out for the first trip.

Peary did not reach the pole on the 1905-06 voyage and the Roosevelt spent almost 10 months frozen in the Arctic ice, breaking free in July 1906 and being damaged when it ran against an ice floe. After extensive repairs in New York over the next two years, the Roosevelt headed north again in 1908. The vessel took Peary and his crew to within 174 miles of the North Pole, setting the stage for what would be Peary’s successful trek to the pole.