1908: Penobscot rivermen were ‘bred in the bone’

A newspaper account of the rescue of a Penobscot riverman named Lyman Dudley caught the attention of Brewer author Fannie Hardy Eckstorm a century ago today. “Six men and one of the big double-ended bateaus used by the river drivers figured in an exciting rescue at the Veazie dam the other afternoon, but with the usual reticence of the rivermen the affair was kept quiet so that it has just leaked out and the heroes of the episode are now in the calcium light of fame,” the story began in the Bangor Daily Commercial on Jan. 21, 1908.

The Veazie power station of the Bangor Railway and Electric Co. had been bothered by chunks of anchor ice for weeks. To alleviate the difficulty, some men were building a horse dam across the top of the permanent dam. While working on this project, Lyman Dudley of Veazie lost his balance and was washed over the dam. Dudley went over just alongside the sluice. The apron built out from the dam at that point carried him clear of the undertow or he would have been pounded against the rocks on the bed of the river and almost certainly killed, according to the reporter.

From the moment Dudley went into the water, his companions were working on a rescue. “They are all rivermen, born and brought up within sight of the river and accustomed to work in quick water with no better footing than that afforded by a rolling log or slippery boom-stock,” commented the reporter.

A bateau was tied up alongside the raft on which the men were working. Dudley had hardly disappeared in the current before one of the men jumped into the boat and cut the painter. Then Charles Inman, Cal Inman, Selden Hewey and Charlie Dudley leaped in and shot over the apron of the dam in the wake of their companion. We are never told the name of the man who cut the rope. He may very well have been the reporter’s informed but modest source.

Meanwhile, George Hathorn, the assistant superintendent of the power station, was at the lower end of the sluice and saw Dudley go into the water. Hathorn tore off his sweater and lay down on the outermost log of the sluice. Holding fast to one sleeve, he threw out the other one just as Dudley shot past. Dudley caught it “with the proverbial strength of the drowning man grasping a straw.”

Weighed down with his heavy clothing, Dudley never could have swum or stayed afloat in the icy water for long. He hung onto the sweater sleeve for dear life until his companions in the bateau turned their boat around in the strong current, brought it back and dragged him in. If the boatmen had not acted instinctively, just as Hathorn did, Dudley would never have survived. The next day he was back at work.

A few days later, on Jan. 25, another Commercial story appeared under the headline “BRED IN THE BONE: Tribute to the Bravery of Penobscot Rivermen by Mrs. F.H. Eckstorm.” Fannie Hardy Eckstorm’s book “The Penobscot Man,” about the heroic exploits of log drivers on the West Branch Drive, had recently been published. The Brewer author had some definite opinions on the meaning of Dudley’s rescue. “Special training” as well as personal courage had been crucial, she said. By special training, she had something a bit different in mind than what one got in school or learned on the job.

Rivermen were born, not made. “Every name in the list [of those who saved Dudley] is written deep on the river history,” wrote Eckstorm. “The Hathorns were among our very earliest settlers and built the first sawmill here much more than a hundred years ago, at the Penjejewock, now known as the ‘Red Bridge.’ The Inmans and Dudleys, too, have been long here and generally associated with the woods or the river.

“How much such a history means when it comes to some brilliant deed like that of this week can hardly be underestimated. It means that every man knows that the man next to him will act right instinctively and far quicker than an unseasoned man of equal courage could possibly act. It is this effective teamwork in hard places, even more than individual bravery, which has made the reputation of the Penobscot riverman. And how much of this has been due to being born and bred by the river the roster of distinctive River names would show.”

There was an aristocracy of rivermen just as there was an aristocracy of lumber barons, those legendary individuals who once controlled much of the land and the money in northern and eastern Maine. The rivermen’s aristocracy was one of skill, agility and instinct – knowing what was right and when to do it – that was passed from one generation to the next. You can see it today in the bronze faces of the three river drivers sculpted by Charles Tefft next to the Bangor Public Library, or you can read about it in the pages of Eckstorm’s book “The Penobscot Man.” But if you fall out of your canoe on the river this spring, don’t expect a bateau-load of men in red shirts to pull you out anytime soon.

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