Captains

Theodore Persons Colcord was the son of John Persons Colcord & Elizabeth Curtis Colcord. He was born December 13, 1848, in Searsport, Maine and died March 22, 1914. He commanded the Ship Pactolus, 1876-81; the Ship A. J. Fuller, 1881-93, 1895-96; the Ship John McDonald, 1894; the Ship Henry B. Hyde, 1897-99; and the steamships S.S. American, 1904-07; S.S. Columbian, 1907-10; and S.S. Hawaiian, 1910-11.

Oscar Gilman Eaton was the son of Eliphalet Chase Pressey Eaton & Sally Doane Eaton. He was born November 6, 1841, on Deer Isle, Maine, and died May 5, 1935, in East Boston, Massachusetts. He commanded the Brig Renshaw; the Brig L. M. Merritt, 1866-71; the Bark Annie M. Gray, 1872; the Bark Proteus, 1872-73; the Bark Carrie Wyeman, 1873-74; the Ship S.F. Hersey, 1874-76; the Ship Oneida, 1876, 1881; and the Bark Penobscot, 1881-88.

Charles Melvin Nichols was the son of Wilson Cunningham Nichols & Margaret J. Cyphers Nichols. He was born January 20, 1851, in Searsport, Maine, and died April 5, 1937, in Searsport. He commanded the Bark Patmos, 1876; the Bark Arletta, 1882; the Ship Henrietta, to January, 1884; the Ship Lucy A. Nichols, 1883-85, 1888-90, 1895; the Bark Charlotte A. Littlefield, 1871-72; the Ship S. F. Hersey; the Ship A. J.

Benjamin Franklin Carver I was the son of Isaac Carver II & Hannah Nichols Carver. He was born September 4,1806, in Searsport, Maine, and died in Brooklyn, New York, October 27,1891. He commanded the Brig Kentucky, 1833-40; the Ship B. Aymar (when built in 1840); the Ship Charter Oak, 1854; and the Ship Henry S. Sanford.

Albert Nickels Blanchard was the son of William H. Blanchard & Clara E. Pendleton Blanchard. Captain Blanchard was born September 25, 1868 (at sea) and died March 12, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York. The vessels he commanded included the Bark Herbert Black, 1890-95; the Bark Puritan, 1896-97, 1900-01; the Ship Bangalore, 1897-98, 1900, 1901-04, 1905, 1906; the S.S. Banes, 1904-05 (fruiter of the Jamaica Line); and the Ship Governor Robie.

This sextant was owned by Frederick L. Waterhouse. Frederick was born in Searsport in 1841; his four brothers all became ship captains, but he only became a mate. After his service in the Civil War, he settled in Montville, Maine, never becoming a sea captain. His initials are inlaid into the cover of the sextant box, something he could well have done, a not uncommon practice amongst ship officers.

The ship William H. Conner was the largest and last full-rigged ship built in Searsport. Built in 1877 she cost over $100,000. Apparently in three voyages she earned her construction costs, but that was the exception; 15% was closer to the rule. Marlboro Packard was her master builder, working at the Carver yard. The Museum has his half model of the vessel. Listed in the Register until 1898, finally turned into a barge and sunk off Sandy Hook.

Photograph taken on board the clipper ship Electric Spark at the Chincha Islands. In this group are four Searsport ship masters with their wives and children: John Pendleton, William Blanchard, Albert Nickels, and Nathan Carver, whose ships were at the Chincha Islands at the time. All of these vessels would have been waiting to load guano, a wait that sometimes took weeks. The 1190 ton Electric Spark was built in Medford, Massachusetts in 1855. Her master, Medford's R.F. D. Candage is second from the left.

Capt. Lincoln Alden Colcord relaxes on a divan in the captain's cabin aboard the ship State of Maine, as photographed by his daughter, Joanna, in 1899.

Launched in Phippsburg in 1893, the Bath owned Aryan was the last wooden full-rigged ship to be built in America. The ship's first captain was Capt. Wylie R. Dickinson, seated on the left in this carefully posed photograph. To his left are his wife and daughter.