Guest Blog: Austin Nagel
(Dear
Readers: Again one of you gave me inspiration for a new blog through an email
to me. I have decided to make this a guest blog from Austin Pillsbury Nagel,
who comes from a long line of sea captains who shipped out of our very own
South End. I have included his own research into his family history and the
long history of sailing vessels in Rockland. If you have comments for Austin,
please email me at southendstories@aol.com
and I will forward them to him. I will also add some comments of my own.)
The
original email I received from Austin included the following information:
“I am the great, great,
great grandson of Hiram Pillsbury. I stumbled into his name on your blog which
was an answer to one of your questions ‘So you think you know the Southend,’
April 26 (2012). (The question was: ‘Name three sea captains who settled in the
South End’; my answer was Alfred Stahl, Andrew Gray, and Hiram Pillsbury).
“Hiram was the father of
Albert F. Pillsbury. Albert was the father of my grandfather, Edwin S.
Pillsbury and my mother was Susan Pillsbury.
“I know for a fact that
my mother had a notion of naming Hiram after Captain Hiram Pillsbury, but my
father prevailed in selecting my name. Austin Pillsbury Nagel.”
Austin found much of his
family’s history on Ancestry.com.
The following
information which Austin sent to me also comes from Ancestry.com:
From the June 20, 1882
issue of the Rockland Courier-Gazette: “Albert
F. Pillsbury, son of Capt. H.G. Pillsbury of this city, has purchased a
captain’s interest in the sch. Jennie Greenbank, and will command her. Capt.
Albert is but 18 years of age and this is his first command, thus adding one
more to the list of Rockland’s smart young captains.”
The ship the John
Standhope was probably also captained by Alfred F. Pillsbury
Austin believes that
Hiram lived his entire life in Rockland, but that Alfred Pillsbury branched out
a bit as per the information he found at:
The Robert
E. Blake collection of LASH (lighter aboard ships) documents (HDC 1584), has
plans, manuals, and documents of West Coast innovations in development and
construction of these ships. The "LASH" system made it possible to
load barges (or "lighters") aboard larger vessels for transport
through open seas. The Albert Freeman Pillsbury papers (HDC 1584) consists of
documents, photographs, logbooks, correspondence, framed prints and photocopies
about the life and career of this founding partner in the marine salvage
businesses Pillsbury & Curtis, Inc. and Pillsbury & Martignoni, Inc.
Could this
be the beginning of the big container ships we see today or the piggy-back
system of putting semi trailers onto trains?
The
following information links Captain Pillsbury to the famous Snow family who
owned Snow’s Shipyard in the Southend. Note the last sentence. “From this link,
I got a little data regarding my great grandfather Captain Alfred F.
Pillsbury:”
Captain Israel D. (Dade)
Snow, son of Captain Israel Larken Snow (1829-1899) and Luella Austin Keating
(1838-1920), was born on March 4, 1863 in Rockland, Maine. Capt. I. D.
Snow came from a long line of seafaring men. His great-great grandfather, Capt.
Elisha Snow (b. 1739) of Wessaweskeag in South Thomaston, Maine, launched some
of the first ships in that area. His great grandfather, Capt. Robert Snow,
commanded the schooner Barbados.
Sadly, Capt. Robert Snow died of yellow fever while aboard the schooner Barbados in 1803. His
grandfather, Capt. Israel Snow I, began the Snow shipyard business back in
1862. For clarity of lineage, below is list of the Snow men:
Capt. Elisha Snow,
(1745-1826) great-great grandfather Capt. Robert Snow, (?-1803) great
grandfather, commanded schooner Barbados
Capt. Israel Snow I, (1801-1875), grandfather, began Snow shipyard in 1862
Capt. Israel Larken Snow, (1829-1899), father Capt. Israel Larken “Dade” Snow,
(1863-1928), son
Capt. Snow started his
seafaring life at a very early age. When he was 15 years old, he was
aboard the 13-ton schooner "Willie"
owned by his family. He was often in the
company of Albert F. Pillsbury who would later purchase Capt. Snow's interest
in the schooner Jennie Greenbank in June of 1882.
Additional
Research—Sandra Sylvester
A Google search gave me
Hiram’s name listed in the 1877 edition of Greenough’s
Directory of Rockland, Belfast and Camden: Also a Business Directory of
Thomaston. It placed him definitely as a resident of the South End. The
line on page 68 reads: “Pillsbury, Hiram, master mariner, house 7, Mechanic
Street.”
I went to Eleanor Motley
Richardson’s book, Mechanic Street:
Uncovering the History of a Maine Neighborhood and found that house 7 is
now number 18 Mechanic Street. According to Richardson’s story, pages 70-73,
Captain Hiram Pillsbury and his wife, Sarah bought the house in 1873. They
raised eight children there. For the complete story of his life including
pictures of the Pillsburys and the house itself, please go to that book which
can be found at outlets in the Rockland area. Ask for it at your local
bookstore.
For more information on
shipbuilding; the history of sailing vessels and their captains see The Shore Village Story, published by
the Shore Village Historical Society, 1989, which can be found at the Rockland
Historical Society’s office under the Rockland Public Library on Union Street. Our
South End sea captains led the way for the generations to come as they went
“Beyond the Southend” to explore the world and to bring back its treasures and
knowledge.
I will continue this
blog if Austin sends me more information to share with you. Until then, thanks
for listening.
Ruth Wade via Facebook: This past October, the last of the "South End" Snows, my good friend, Richard (Dick) Snow passed away at the age of 97. He wrote several books on Snow history and genealogy, but they were for family use only, never published. He lent one of them to me, which I found very interesting.
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