Item

Standard
Feb 23, 1877
Ship News
Cleared
Feb 13, H. V. Crandall, Wren, Barbadoes boards, plank, etc., Robinson and Glen and others.

Pilot
March 23, 1880
The schooner H. V. Crandall is loading ice at Chamcook for New York, on owners account. They expect to ship 5,000 tons. The schooner is owned by Mr.  Robert  Ross and others. The facilities for shipping ice from Chamcook Lake cannot be surpassed.

Pilot
October 13, 1881
The schooner Mary Ellen, of St. Andrews, bound to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, has been abandoned at sea, 100 miles east of Cape Ann. The crew were rescued by the schooner Zedic and taken to Liverpool, Nova Scotia. The Mary Ellen was 113 tons, built at Saint George in 1865, registered at St. John, with Mr.  Robert Ross, of St. Andrews, as managing owner. Mr.  Robert  Ross received a telegram on Monday stating that the Mary Ellen was taken into Portland, Maine, full of water.

St. Croix Courier
Aug 25/1881
The Schooner H. V. Crandall is in town discharging a cargo of Sydney coal, consigned to R.  Ross.

Pilot
Aug 20, 1885
The schooner H. V. Crandall from Moncton to Boston, with a cargo of sleepers got ashore Thursday last, at Black River during the fog, but came off again and was towed to Saint John for repairs.

Beacon
Oct 24, 1889
A Wasted Life
England’s First Naval Engineer Dies of a Loathsome Disease in St. Andrews Poor House
In a pauper’s grave, in sunny Saint Andrews, the victim of one of the most loathsome diseases that flesh is heir go, rests all that is mortal of George Lane.
            Few of those who have waited upon this poor unfortunate in his declining years knew that his hand held the throttle of the first steam war vessel that Great Britain ever owned. Yet evidence can be found to establish that fact beyond question. Lane was an Englishman by birth. There was no need to tell that to anyone who heard him talk. His speech betrayed his nationality at once. In early life he was apprenticed to the great English engineering firm of Maudesley and Company, who have assisted in building so many of Britain’s iron walls. When the first naval steamer was built Lane was placed in charge of her engine. How long he held that position is not known. It is known, however, that he was in the English navy for a number of years. When Col. Maudesley, a member of the above firm, visited St. Andrews fifteen or twenty years ago, he was told of Lane’ existence. The colonel remembered him quite distinctly, and Lane and he had several interviews. Through the intervention of Col. Maudesley, on his return to England, Lane was granted as allowance by the English government. This he often referred to as his “superannuated allowance.”
            When Lane first came to St. Andrews, thirty-eight or forty years ago, he was one of the biggest dandies in the town. It was his boast that he had “twenty-two white waistcoats” to select from. He usually appeared on the street with wide man-of-warsmen pants on, and was seldom seen without one of the white “waistcoats” he was so proud of. In those days he was a railroad engineer. He had come out of Canada from England, and had driven a locomotive in Quebec before drifting down to St. Andrews.
            The bane of his existence was grog. He had acquired a taste for it while in the navy, and when he got ashore his appetite for strong drink increased rather than diminished. By degrees he descended the social ladder. He drank himself out of the cab of his locomotive; he drank up his “superannuated allowance”; he drank his “twenty-two white waistcoats” and his dandy apparel. Everything he owned went for rum. At last the day came when he had no place to lay his head. Turned out of his lodgings, he sought shelter in the cabin of an old stranded schooner that was lying at the upper part of the town. [this is surely the H. V. Crandall or Mary Ellen!] For many years he lived there an amphibious existence. Then disease fastened itself upon him, and the poor dissipated wretch had to abandon his cabin home at last and seek refuge in the Poor House. There he lived until a few days ago, when death came and ended his miseries. His exact age at the time of his death is not known, but he is believed to have been near ninety.

Beacon
April 13/1893
Robert Starkey, while playing around the derelict schooner “Mary Ellen” one day last week, fell off her deck and struck very heavily on the ice in her hold When picked up he was in a semi-conscious state, and blood was flowing from one of his ears. Dr. Harry Gove was summoned. The boy is out again.

Beacon
Nov 15/1894
Schooner H. V. Crandall, whose bones have been whitening on the beach near the steamboat wharf, for seven or eight years past, is being dismantled and will probably be broken up.

Beacon
Oct 25, 1906
Hulk Removed
There was no moaning when the hulk of the old derelict H. V. Crandall put out to sea on Saturday last, but there was considerable groaning and grinding before the tug Lord Robert s could persuade her to leave the sandy bed where she had been sleeping for the past seventeen years. [since 1889] With assistance of some airtight puncheons she was towed across to a secluded spot alongside the island where she may spend the evening of her days in peace. Her removal fro the beach will improve the appearance of the slip, even though it will deprive the artist of a favorite subject for his pencil or camera.

St. Croix Courier
March 4/1943
A piece by J. F. W., author of Shiretown Items.
The above photograph of a bit of waterfront in St. Andrews was taken by the late W. D. MacKay about 1890, of which a copy was made by Archie Shirley to serve the present purpose. Many the happy hour I have spent playing around those two old schooners. Having come from inland I was of necessity always obliged to serve before the mast as a greenhorn. More experienced boys my own age or younger composed the officers. Frank Guerney always wanted to be captain. A tough captain he was, ordering us aloft in all kinds of weather. Leo Armstrong was usually the cook, and his unvaried menu of raw clams at times becoming monotonous, we were forced to forced to supplement it with soda crackers filched from our mothers’ pantries. In our imaginations we sailed the distant seas to far-off unknown lands.
            The two schooners in the picture, which no doubt had been built many years before, in the shipyards of St. Andrews and given long and faithful service, in the time of which I write all lay high and dry on the beach in their last days in peace and repose. The one on the right is the Crandall, H. P. Crandall I think; and the other is the Mary Ellen. On the extreme left is the home of Mr. Starkey, ship carpenter, . . . schooner yacht Crusoe which he was then building. The square partly finished house on the left in the background was being built by Theodore Holmes. The small house in the center foreground was occupied by James  Ross and family. Behind it to the left is the stove foundry, then operated by Michael McMonagle, called Mike Mulligan.
            Behind  Ross’s to the right is the home of Bat Donaghue, then conductor on the railway. And the large house further back was the home of Patsy Sheehan. I have forgotten who lived in the house showing just over the stern of the Crandall, unless it was Thomas Pendlebury, the present occupant, who has been there for a long time.
            Also I notice the railway running up the waterfront, which was “the extension.” The wharf in the center was later extended by B. F. DeWolfe and is now known as the upper CPR wharf, and has rails running out to its end. Where the Crandall rests is now occupied by a thriving industry.

St. Croix Courier
April 8/1943
Shiretown Items
Memories
A letter written on the stationery of the Gardner-Templeton Street Railway Co., and dated at East Templeton, Mass., shows in the letter-head the name of Louis Starkey as Treasurer and General Supt. Here is another St. Andrews boy who has made good. Louis was so much younger than myself that I had really forgotten him although I remember his father, his three brothers and his sister Natalie quite well. By the time he was growing up I had finished school and left St. Andrews for several years. I am sure Louis’ letter will be of interest to others and is given in full herewith.
            “To the author of Shiretown Items:
Dear Sir:
It was with a great deal of pleasure that I read the Saint Croix Courier of March 4th, and March 11th, especially the part telling about the St. Andrews of 40 years or more ago. The photograph of the water front brought back memories of my childhood, as the Mary Ellen and the Crandall were both there within my memory, although the Mary Ellen was farther down the beach. The Crusoe was completed and I enjoyed very much sailing with my father when he took out fishing and sailing parties. The two Starkey boys mentioned were my older brothers both of whom died when nineteen years of age, and before I left St. Andrews after the death of my father in 1901. My brother, Justin, sent me the papers. I believe he subscribes to it. Sincerely yours, Louis Starkey.”

St. Croix Courier
March 30/1944
Shiretown Items
Old Stuff
Readers of the Courier may recall a picture of the derelict schooner “Mary Ellen” appearing in the paper a year or so ago. Here is a story which started with trip on that old schooner and ended on the Klondike trail. The Mary Ellen sailed from St. Andrews one day abut sixty years ago for Saint John [1884?] where she took on a cargo for New York. Capt. Clarke was master, Harry Maloney mate, and one member of the crew was Arthur Mowatt. While in Saint John the mate collected a lot of junk to take along to sell in New York for his own personal profit. When they reached New York, Mowatt and another member of the crew wanted to go ashore but had no money. They appealed to the captain but “nothing doing” said he till the end of the tri home when they all would be paid off. But next day while the captain and mate were at dinner a small boat manned by a couple of Jews pulled alongside and inquired if they had any junk to sell. Mowatt and his companion thought this was their chance for a ticket ashore. While his companion passed down the junk Mowatt balanced a large piece of pig-iron on the rail threating to sink the Jews if they did not pay. At length the stuff was all aboard and the dickering began. The Jews offered $10 and the men wanted $20. As the time was limited and the mate likely to appear at any minute they were obliged to compromise at $15. Just how the money was spent was not mentioned by the narrator. Many years later, Mowatt, who had gone west shortly after this trip on the Mary Ellen, was returning from the Klondike pretty well heeled and came upon a man resting by the side of the trail who looked to be down and out. On making inquiries he learned that the man had no food and no money and was about all’in. Mowatt gave him some food and as he watched him eat he thought the man’s face looked familiar. He asked him his name and the chap in distress said he was Harry Maloney from St. Andrews, New Brunswick. “Well, well,” said Mowatt, “I owe you $20.” “And who might you be?” asked Maloney. “Nobody owes me any money.” “My name is Arthur Mowatt,” was the reply. “Don’t you remember that junk that disappeared off the Mary Ellen in New York? I sold it and blew in the money.” Harry recalled the mystery of the junk and was glad to accept the $20 which took him to Vancouver from which point the in time worked his way home a sadder, poorer but wiser man, who rarely spoke of his experience on the “Trail of ’98.” Mowatt, who is now 83 years of age, has recently arrived from the west, after many years’ absence, and plans to spend the summer with his sister, Miss Lillian Mowatt, at his old home in Chamcook.