Tragedy marred skating season 100 years ago

“The skating season is almost here and already the sharp cold nights and mornings skim the puddles and small ponds with a coating of ice that will soon be thick enough … and then winter’s most popular sport will begin,” announced a gleeful Bangor Daily Commercial reporter on Nov. 16, 1907.

There were many popular spots in the area that were “dear to the youngsters for early skating,” he continued. One of them was the Muck-hole out on Broadway. The ice was usually solid there by Thanksgiving. Another was at the Gristmill on Kenduskeag Stream. There were lots of ponds scarcely bigger than puddles for those who must skate before the Penobscot River and the bigger lakes such as Pushaw were ready for the blades of winter.

Not much was new in the way of skates that year, according to the sporting goods merchants. “Tubular hockey skates” were expected to be popular. “This skate screws on the heel and the sole of the shoe and cannot be removed without taking out the screws.” There was also a new “special skating shoe. … The feature of the shoe is that it laces way down to the toe and in that way holds the foot firmly in the shoe. There is a strap attached to each one that passes over the ankle and holds the instep down.” The other skates were about the same, some with clamps and some with wooden tops that screwed into the heel and fastened to the shoe with straps. They ranged in price from $1 to $5 a pair.

By Nov. 21, Pushaw Lake was frozen enough so that “Bangor society people” could skate at one of their favorite country clubs, the Niben Club. Steward Von Stuertz kept a roaring fire and served famous suppers. A fleet of a dozen or so iceboats inhabited the lake as well as skaters. If there was a stiff breeze “it is a fine sight to see the white-winged flyers skimming over the ice,” said the Commercial.

The iceboat owners included some of the area’s most respectable individuals such as Henry Bradley, treasurer of the Bradley Land & Lumber Co.; Harry A. Chapman, proprietor of the Bangor House; Alden P. Webster, superintendent of International Paper Co. in Orono; Col. I.K. Stetson of Stetson Timberlands; and Nathan C. Ayer of the Eastern Maine Manufacturing Co. dynasty.

Racing was a favorite pastime. Chapman and Bradley had the largest, speediest boats on the lake. Danger was part of the game. Dr. E.T. Nealey broke his arm in a crash into the rocks along the shore, according to the Bangor Daily News on Jan. 1.

Amid all the winter jollity, the Bangor Daily News issued a sour note on Dec. 11 – a warning that children needed to beware of thin ice. Every year young skaters fell through the ice and drowned. “[N]o matter how learned and wise the girls and boys of eastern Maine are, or how much they are cautioned about risking their lives on thin ice, there are some who think the ice is able to bear them up when it is not yet strong, and who venture forth as pioneers in the great skating carnival, and pay for their bravery.”

Children then did not read editorials any more than they do today. Tragedy struck when two Brewer boys, Edwin Wadleigh, 14, and Willis Pinkham, 13, fell into open water about 150 feet from the Brewer shore and drowned, according to the Bangor Daily News on Jan. 6, 1908. At about 4 p.m. Saturday, the Rev. Warren J. Morse was walking across the river on the ice to the Stickney-Babcock Coal Co. near the ferry slip in Bangor when he heard a cry for help far in the distance. Efforts to launch a boat at the coal company dock were fruitless. The boys had already disappeared beneath the water.

A large group of young people had been skating in the vicinity of the accident. City Marshall Fickett had twice ordered them away from the area without results. Wadleigh and Pinkham were skating up the river, “coats open to gain momentum from the strong wind.” They apparently turned and fell backward into open water “in a sort of pocket, with the ice crumbling six feet below, with ice between them and the shore and with ice above, while as an inlet, the other side opened toward the swift water in the unfrozen channel.” Such were the dangers of skating on the Penobscot.

Big crowds were skating on the river by Jan. 11, said the Bangor Daily Commercial. Between the upriver bridges and the Tin Bridge, the railway bridge over Main Street near the Hampden line, the ice was dotted with skaters. A short distance below the Tin Bridge, however, the water was either open or the ice too thin for skating. “The sad accident by which two Brewer boys lost their lives has been no warning whatever to the skaters,” wrote the reporter.

The season reached a climax toward the end of the month. Great crowds glided up and down the river. “Not since the time of the cold ‘wave’ during the great flood, when Noah let all the animals out of the ark to skate once around the world, have such scenes been witnessed as enlivened the surface of our beloved Penobscot Tuesday afternoon and night,” wrote a poetically licensed reporter for the Bangor Daily News on Jan. 29 after surveying the scene from a wharf at City Point. The skaters “stretched in countless hundreds from above the bridges, to far below High Head, and they all had a good time – a great time.”

Alas, it snowed that night and “spoiled it,” the reporter moaned. Of course, skating would continue wherever brave souls could find a bare patch of ice, but many now would be pulling their sleds, snowshoes and homemade skis down from the attic.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net