Where Francis Fortune left his mark

The frequently repeated explanation of how the area of Biddeford called Fortunes Rocks got its name, like most such legends, has a seed of truth that over time has been generously fertilized with imagination.   

Francis Fortune, the story goes, was a 15 year old sailor who, after being captured by the British in 1778, was released on account of his youth. He was soon shipwrecked off Biddeford Pool and made it to shore “barely alive.” A local farmer named Rossater and his wife Peggy nursed the boy back to vigor. He repaid their kindness by remaining with them as a farm hand. It is said that after employing the shipwreck survivor for many years Mr. Rossater died. Francis married Peggy Rossater and together they had two sons, both of whom went west in the gold rush of 1849. Uncle Fortune and Aunt Peggy were beloved by the people of Biddeford. They supposedly bequeathed their saltwater farm to the town in exchange for comfortable support through their final years. The area was named after them in appreciation. 

Examination of the Biddeford Town Record Book V reveals that Francis Fortune was of Marblehead, Massachusetts when he married the widow Peggy Rositer on March 31, 1824. Marblehead records make no mention of Fortune’s ordeal with the British in 1778 but captive 15 year old sailors were typically released. Marblehead records do prove that Francis married Elizabeth Cloon in 1794 and fathered several of her Marblehead-born children; Samuel Cloon Fortune being the oldest. Elizabeth succumbed to consumption in 1818 and Francis went to sea as first mate aboard the Boston ship “Saco.” A near death experience off Gibraltar ended Fortune’s career on that vessel. He sailed next on the brig “Elizabeth,” of New York.  

The morning of December 15, 1823, the “Elizabeth” was headed for Portland, ME in a blinding snowstorm. Her captain, Charles D. Gardner, sailed her into Winter Harbor and dropped anchor there alongside several other vessels seeking shelter from the storm. 

Gardner later told a correspondent for the Eastern Argus how he and his crew came to be lashed to the rigging for five hours while the sea washed over them.

“The gale increasing with great violence, snowing very thickly about 4 pm the hemp cable parted and we continued to ride by the chain cable. We sent down our top-gallant mast, fore-top gallant yard and fore-yard; during which time we perceived her to draw her anchor toward the shore, the gale still increasing – and notwithstanding our utmost endeavors to save the vessel, about 7pm Monday she struck on the Lobster Rocks, so-called, near Fletcher’s Neck, in Biddeford, and shortly after bilged. About half past eight, the water being up to the cabin floor she keeled over to the starboard, on her beam ends, the sea, making fair breaches over her. In this perilous situation, we continued to cling to the wreck, if possible to save our lives til morning, not expecting assistance before.” 

By 2 am the exhausted crew was greatly relieved to see Winter Harbor men making their way toward the wreck in a boat. The tide had ebbed sufficiently to expose the rocks that were breaking the brig “Elizabeth” apart. One by one the frozen seamen were lowered from her bow on a rope and the Biddeford boat conveyed them safely to shore. It was reported in the Argus that “Captain Gardner was slightly frozen and two or three of the crew were severely so.” 

Francis Fortune was about 60 years old when Messrs. Bunker and Hussey of Winter Harbor rescued him from the wreck of the brig Elizabeth, off Lobster Rocks.  Presumably, he was one of the severely frozen crewmen carried ashore by widow Rossiter’s neighbor. According to census records, Peggy Rossiter was in her fifth decade when Fortune was delivered to her by sea. Three months later they were married. Both had children by previous marriages but it seems unlikely that Peggy bore any Fortune offspring and none appear in census records. 

Soon after Francis married Peggy, his son, Samuel Cloon Fortune, legally changed his name to Samuel Cloon.  It was the already wealthy Cincinnati, Ohio merchant, Samuel Cloon who in 1848 paid off John Benson’s mortgage on Francis and Peggy’s oceanfront property. It was he who provided for their comfort during the remainder of their natural lives.  

When Francis Fortune died December 10, 1858 at the age of 95, his wife Peggy had already passed.  Never in their lifetime, had the land thenceforth known as Fortunes Rocks, ever been conveyed to the town of Biddeford. In 1862 Samuel Cloon sold Fortunes Rocks to William Curtis who later sold it to summer resort developer, Warren C. Bryant. 

Francis and Peggy Fortune were simple people who played the cards they were dealt. The lives they actually lived are worthy of acknowledgement.

A tragic Capsizing

The people of Biddeford began preparing for a Presidential visit as soon as William Howard Taft was inaugurated on March 4, 1909. The first lady’s sister, Eleanor More, had a summer cottage at Biddeford Pool. Her husband, the noted evolutionist, Dr. Louis T More, told the local press to expect an August visit by the first family.

Unfortunately, Nellie Taft suffered a stroke soon after moving into the Whitehouse and the family’s vacation plans were curtailed. Mrs. More stood in for her convalescing sister at all official events and accompanied her to Beverly Massachusetts for the summer. By the end of July Eleanor felt confident enough about her sister’s condition to slip away to her cottage at Biddeford Pool for a few days. To facilitate the trip, the Presidential yacht, “Sylph”, was placed at her disposal.

The impressive 123 foot vessel was anchored near the mouth of the Saco River on the evening of July, 30, 1909. As an entrepreneurial venture, Captain Earnest Vinton of Saco offered a moonlight excursion to closely view the Presidential yacht from his motor launch, the “Item”. Twenty-nine tickets were sold. Captain Vinton had to borrow extra life preservers from the Captain of the “Nimrod” to comply with federal safety regulations that he carry one for each passenger aboard.

It was reported in the Boston Daily Globe that the overcrowded little launch set out from Island Wharf at twilight. After rounding Wood Island she approached the illuminated “Sylph” and passengers gathered on her port side to get a closer look. The little party boat heeled dramatically with the shifting weight. Following an instinct to compensate, the passengers all “jockeyed about” causing the “Item” to suddenly “turn turtle” near Sharps Rocks, spilling her human cargo into the inky water.

Commander of the Presidential Yacht, Lieutenant Roger Williams, heard some of the women cry for help as they struggled to stay afloat in their heavy layers of clothing. He immediately ordered the “Sylph’s” tender, with a five man crew, to the scene of the accident and trained his searchlight on the overturned party boat.

The launch “Nimrod” was the second boat to reach the scene. She carried all the rescued passengers to Saco and Biddeford; all but Mrs. Eugene A. Cutts who had sustained internal injuries when she became entangled in the gearing of the power boat. Mrs. Cutts was taken to the McBride cottage where she died the following day. As the capsized “Item” was towed to Basket Island and beached, the body of a 19 year old Biddeford girl, Miss Katie Lynch, who had probably been trapped inside the cabin, washed ashore on the island. Her companion, Miss Margaret Harvey, 25, was later reported missing but her body would not be recovered until two weeks later.

The accident was investigated by the County Coroner’s office. Benjamin Jackson of Biddeford Pool, who had built the “Item” in 1903, testified that she was designed to carry an engine weighing over 2 tons. A few months before the accident, Vinton had replaced her original engine with one that weighed only 10% as much. While examining the “Item’s” seaworthiness one juryman stepped down from the wharf into the boat and as he did she heeled over very suddenly. “We find from the evidence and from inspection that the said boat “Item”, owing to its form, is unstable, easily capsized and entirely unsafe for the carrying of passengers,” reported Coroner Walter Dennett. Captain Vinton had fulfilled the only existing safety requirement of carrying a life preserver for each passenger so no charges were filed but the loss of three lives rocked the towns of Saco and Biddeford.

At the time of the tragic accident, President Taft was in Florida witnessing Wilbur Wright’s record breaking 10 mile flight, during which the homemade plane reached amazing speeds in excess of 42 miles per hour. Mr. Taft was a big fan of new-fangled modes of transportation. He was finally persuaded to spend one night in Biddeford Pool in 1910. He arrived on an even larger official yacht, the 275 foot “Mayflower”. After enjoying a motorcar ride through the Pool he gave an informal speech at the Abenaki Country Club. The President spent the night at his sister in-law’s cottage and sailed away on the “Mayflower” at 10 o’clock the next morning.

Taft quietly returned to the Pool to visit his family once again just before Woodrow Wilson won the Presidency away from him in 1912. Even in Biddeford, William Howard Taft came in a distant third, after Wilson and Taft’s predecessor, President Theodore Roosevelt.

The HMS Bulwark’s raiding party.

The people of Biddeford Pool were alarmed by the sight of a 74-gun ship of the Royal Navy, anchored off Wood Island at 9 o’clock, on the morning of June 16, 1814. The 182 foot HMS Bulwark sent several canon balls over the town. One of them landed in the pasture of Samuel Tarbox.

Jesse Tarbox was dispatched on horseback to alert the militia in Saco, but his progress was greatly impeded. The bridge over the Saco River was out. Maine was recovering from extreme weather conditions, the likes of which no one living at the time could recall. During the first half of May, there had been only two days of fair weather. During the second half of the month, torrential rain fell for four consecutive days. The water level in most Maine Rivers reached record heights, causing a freshet. On May 28, 1814, the American Advocate reported “great losses sustained during the late freshet at Saco-Not a bridge is left standing and the damage on the Saco river in mills, logs, boards, bridges is estimated at half a million dollars.”

There were no fortifications at the Pool. The civilian population hurried to bury their valuables. Captain David Milne of the Bulwark sent five barges with 150 well-armed soldiers, led by the Bulwark’s second in-command, Lieutenant James Symonds, to Stage Island. After a few minutes there, they passed over to Fletcher’s Neck, where Thomas Cutts Jr. met them with a white flag. Cutts owned a great deal of property at Fletcher’s Neck. He asked Lt. Symonds his intentions and the Lieutenant replied, “to destroy the place.” Thomas Cutts tried to buy the town’s safety, but was told that the captain had positive orders to destroy their shipping industry and would accept no terms. Mr. Cutts’ new 265 ton brig, Hermoine, worth $8,000, was burned. A small schooner and a sloop from Cape Cod, loaded with lumber, were also set ablaze. The frame of a 540 ton ship Cutts had on the stocks worth $7,000 was cut up and knocked to pieces.

Next, the British plundered Thomas Cutts’ store. Bill Pitcher, the clerk helped the soldiers to new clothes and all the liquor they could carry. In the end, $2,000 worth of merchandise was taken. On their way back to their frigate, the soldiers took the fine new ship Victory, which also belonged to Mr. Cutts, and brought her alongside the Bulwark. They stripped her of her sails and rigging and then offered her back to her owner for $6,000. The whole affair took 2 1/2 hours. The Saco militia arrived on the opposite bank of the river just in time to watch the marauders sail away.

Master of the HMS Bulwark, Captain David Milne had been promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral just days before the attack on Biddeford Pool. His lieutenant, James Symonds, who had previously commanded a trading vessel, reportedly had a history with Thomas Cutts Jr.. According to local legend, he returned to exact revenge for some offence perpetrated by Cutts before the war. It’s just as likely that Saco Harbor was chosen because the customs house there had seized British goods from Buxton parties. They were to be sold at auction in two weeks time, along with a rich cargo of dry goods taken from a privateer prize, the British brig Belize.

Captain Milne had sailed the Bulwark from England on Feb. 10, 1814 and arrived at Bermuda on the 7th of April. He left for the American coast three days later with orders from Admiral Cochrane to enforce a “strict and rigorous” blockade of the entire American coast from Eastport to New Orleans. Biddeford Pool was but one of many unprotected harbors visited by the Bulwark that summer. Captain Milne published his intentions to destroy American shipping ahead of time in New England newspapers. “No fishing vessels should be injured nor houses destroyed unless individual resistance was made by firing from behind rocks and trees but that he should not complain of honorable resistance from organized troops.”

Mr. Thomas Cutts Jr. seems to have born an unfair share of the damage in the Biddeford Pool attack, but he owned most of the merchant vessels in that harbor. His store was also convenient to the wharf. As they did in many of the other American harbors they attacked, the Bulwark crew collected provisions as the spoils of war. C’est la guerre!

A deputized bell ringer

Wood Island, near Biddeford Pool, has been the scene of murder, illegal liquor distribution and countless shipwrecks during the last 200 years. The most famous occupant of the island was a 60-pound assistant lighthouse keeper named Sailor who received international press in 1900.

Wood Island Light, the second lighthouse tower constructed in Maine, was built in 1808. A mechanized fog bell was installed in 1873, but the steel it was cast from did not withstand Maine’s climate. A new bell was mounted in 1890, four years after Captain Thomas H. Orcutt was appointed lighthouse keeper.

Born in Brooksville, Maine, Thomas spent many years at sea before assisting his uncle, James Hiram Orcutt, the lighthouse keeper at Saddleback Ledge Light in Isle au Haut Bay. In 1886, Thomas Orcutt was appointed keeper of Wood Island Light. George, the youngest of Thomas’ five children, was 7 years old when the family moved to the island at the mouth of the Saco River.

When George turned 12 his father brought home a Scotch Collie mix puppy from Woodbury Brothers milk farm in Westbrook. Everyone who has ever owned a dog knows that irrespective of human plans, dogs choose their master. Sailor chose Thomas H. Orcutt and the U.S. Government.

“I brought him here when he was but a few weeks old and for want of better amusement he would follow me around the place as I performed my various duties,” Orcutt told a correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “He watched me attentively while I trimmed and cleaned the lamp and followed me up the steep winding stairs when his little legs would barely carry him up the steps. But best of all he seemed to enjoy watching me ring the big fog bell and he frequently made playful jumps at the rope himself,” the lighthouse keeper reported.

In foggy weather the bell was sounded with two strikes in quick succession every 25 seconds, alternating with a single stroke. The precise sounding pattern was posted in the Coast Pilot to identify Wood Island to fog-blinded sea captains. It was also customary for passing vessels to salute the keeper in fair weather with three whistle calls and for Orcutt to reciprocate by ringing the fog bell. The intelligent tri-colored canine Sailor learned to anticipate the circumstances that led to the sounding of the bell. When the fog rolled in or a whistle blew, Sailor yelped and danced and wagged his bushy tail.

A surprised tugboat captain was the first to report seeing Sailor ring the bell by himself in June of 1894. The following year, Capt. Oliver of the Casco Bay Steamship Company told the editor of the Eastern Argus that he had been the first to notice Sailor’s independent service to the U.S. Government. He took a Biddeford excursion party onboard the steamer Forest Queen and ran out by Wood Island.

“As he passed the light he saluted it with the customary three whistles,” wrote the editor. “Scarcely had the echoes died away when a dog dashed out of the lighthouse and ran at full speed toward the fog bell. He was followed by a man. It is needless to say that the dog arrived at the bell first and he immediately began to jump into the air as though trying to reach something. When the man arrived on the spot it was readily seen what the trouble was. The bell rope was hung upon a nail and the dog could not reach it. However, as soon as the man removed the rope from the nail the dog seized it in his teeth and with a great deal of apparent satisfaction answered the steamer’s salute.”

Sailor became the main attraction in the Gulf of Maine. He learned the proper fog signals and would hang his head when not allowed to perform bell duty. In 1899, Harvard dental student Joseph W. Smith Jr. visited Wood Island and photographed Capt. Orcutt and his dog. Joe was the son of Joseph Warren Smith, the author of the Biddeford Pool history “Gleanings from the Sea.” The younger man was tragically killed in a boating accident in 1900, but not before submitting photos of Sailor ringing the fog bell to “The Strand Illustrated Magazine” of London, England.

One photo appeared in the 1900 spring issue. A few months later every Podunk town paper in America carried Sailor’s story. Sailor died in his master’s arms in 1905. A few months later Thomas H. Orcutt resigned his post and passed away.

War of the Long and the short

The lobstering industry did not become organized in Maine until around 1830. Cape Porpoise lobsters were first shipped out of state in the 1840s. After just a few decades, state laws designed to protect the quickly diminishing lobster population on the Maine coast exacerbated acrimony between Cape Porpoise neighbors.

The invention of the well-smack, a boat with a tank built into the hull through which salt water could flow, made it possible to keep lobsters alive long enough to transport them from the Maine coast to Boston and New York. New Haven, Conn. entrepreneur, Captain Chapell, sailed his 50-ton smack “Hulda B. Hall” back and forth between Cape Porpoise and Boston Harbor in the early 1840s. According to U.S. Fisheries Commission reports, Chapell made about 15 trips each season and was supplied by four Cape Porpoise fishermen using dories and hoop nets.

The Bangor Daily Whig reported that Stephen Hutchins and Edmund Ridlon had been the only Cape Porpoise men engaged in the lobster business during the 1850s and that between them they had managed 20 pots. Lobsters were very plentiful then and on average much larger than the ones caught today. The claw of a 51-pound Cape Porpoise lobster was donated to the Essex Institute in 1868. Fifty-pound lobsters were already an oddity, but specimens weighing 20 to 30 pounds were commonplace.

After the Civil War the lobster business exploded. Traps much like the ones in use today were tied together into bunches of 50 that could be worked by one man. Resort hotels and big city dealers bought all the large lobsters they could get their hands on and the canneries in Eastport paid good money for lobsters weighing as little as ¾ pound.

In 1877 Cape Porpoise fishermen were working 1,100 traps, shipbuilder Charles Ward was manufacturing lobster pots on the side, and Langsford had shipped 40,000 lobsters from Cape Porpoise to Boston’s Lewis Wharf in one season. The same kind of growth was occurring in the industry all along the coast of New England to the extent that the lobster population started to dwindle.

Conservation laws were passed restricting the sale of lobsters under a certain length, but they were not easily enforced. Many families relied on lobster income and it was getting harder and harder to find lobsters of any size. To make non-compliance even more enticing, each state had different rules. If a short Maine lobster could be secreted out of New England it brought a good price.

On Christmas Day 1894, a headline in the Boston Globe announced “A lobster war is going on at Cape Porpoise.” The Globe’s Biddeford correspondent reported, “Since the recent big seizure of short lobsters there by a Saco officer, Daniel Wagner has been openly accused of being a spy.” Wagner’s boat was sunk and the argument escalated into a physical altercation in Cape Porpoise square. Austin L. Sinnett was arrested for trying to ship 500 short lobsters out of Kennebunk Depot in an unmarked barrel and for assaulting Daniel Wagner.

The court case was covered in the Biddeford Journal. On Dec. 15, Wagner was passing the post office on his way home from Pinkham’s Store. Sinnett came out of the post office, saw the man he believed had turned him in to authorities, and sarcastically inquired if Wagner had been “up to Saco studying the law?” Someone threw a punch. Someone else punched back and the two men ended up on the ground. Wagner, who had a good 25 years on Austin Sinnett, bore the brunt of the beating. Deputy Sheriff Small testified in court that when he arrested Austin and was transporting him to the Saco jail, the young man was contrite. ” I’m a damn fool; I’m just like my father; he’s got an awful temper and I’m just like him,” admitted the 25-year-old lobsterman.

George Wakefield, the lighthouse keeper and Austin’s future father in-law, testified that Wagner had told him he planned to lick Sinnett first chance he got, but the judge made an example of Austin and fined him $10 for the fistfight and $50 for shipping short lobsters.

The defendant’s lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court and the assault charge was dismissed, but his short lobster fine was upheld. Two months after Austin’s trial the state of Maine declared it illegal to possess any lobster shorter than 10 ½ inches and appointed an army of wardens to enforce the new law. The conservation measures clearly worked. Today’s lobstermen willingly protect the future of their industry.

Sea Serpents off Maine Coast

John Josselyn’s natural history accounts of his 17th century voyages to the new world have informed historians and scientists alike, but some of his observations give pause.

Josselyn would have us believe that sea serpents inhabited the coast and that New England natives had come to respect their powers. A Massachusetts diarist referred to similar knowledge in 1641, but added that the Indians sometimes exaggerated to the Englishmen in sport.

“It pleaseth them to make ye white man stare,” he wrote.

Sea serpents have been reported on our shores ever since. During the Revolutionary War, Capt. Little of the U.S. Navy spotted one in Penobscot Bay and a 100-foot specimen allegedly visited Portsmouth Harbor in 1796. According to hundreds of witnesses, the waters off Cape Ann were virtually teeming with sea serpents in 1817 and sightings in Maine were plentiful during the years that followed. On the rare occasion that one of these slithering devils was captured it always magically transformed itself before scientists could authenticate. Isaac Wildes of Cape Porpoise killed one in 1822, but by the time he got it to shore it had morphed into a 370-pound seal.

The editor of the Eastern Argus swore to the veracity of one Mr. Gooch of Kennebunk when the latter described an alarming encounter a few miles off Kennebunk’s shore on July 21, 1830. Wells and Portsmouth fishermen had already reported being pestered by a sea serpent that week but none of them had had the courage to get as close to the beast as did Mr. Gooch. The two other men in his fishing smack rushed below when the monster approached, but Mr. Gooch remained on deck and returned the serpent’s stare.

“He came within six feet of the boat,” reported the fisherman. “He raised his head about four feet from the water and looked directly into the boat. He was about 60 feet long,” continued Mr. Gooch. “His head was about the size of a 10 gallon keg, having long flaps, or ears, hanging down, and his eyes about the size of those of an ox, bright and projecting from his head”.

It must have been a distant cousin of Gooch’s monster that encircled the fishing boat of Clement Perkins and Thomas Cleaves of Kennebunkport at the mouth of the Kennebunk River in 1850. In a letter to the editor of the New Hampshire Sentinel, Perkins and Cleaves wrote, “The portion of his body out of the water we judge to be 80 feet, his form that of a large bamboo, the distance between the joints two feet, his motion undulating, velocity that of a common walk of man, his head resembling the bill of a duck.”

Nine years later Mr. Gooch’s neighbor, Capt. Boothby of Lower Village, reported seeing a sea serpent frolicking with a school of whales off Boon Island Ledge.

In the 1870s there was a sea serpent population explosion. Curiously, the species had mutated a preference for summer resorts. Hotels in Fortunes Rocks, Wells Beach and Saco sent out press releases all but promising that sea serpents were summering in plain view of their breezy, wraparound piazzas. In 1880, a correspondent from Kennebunkport’s Ocean Bluff Hotel reported that Mr. Hiram Gooch, Skipper of the tourist yacht, Clara Bell, had pointed out a sea serpent to his delighted passengers. They couldn’t quite see his head and his tail was underwater, but the commotion the creature made convinced them they had seen a genuine York County sea serpent. The Boston Daily Globe report tactfully suggested that any doubters should “come to this gem of seaside places to see and be convinced.”

By 1900 every seaside hotel in New England employed a sea serpent. They swam to and fro along the beaches, each one bigger and more rambunctious that the last. Newspaper readers finally became a little suspicious when one of the serpents apparently had adapted to a lakeside resort habitat. A letter to the editor of the New York Times referred to the resort sea serpent as Leviathan the Counterfeiter. The jig was up. Sightings declined. Magical creatures from the deep fell out of favor, at least fore a while.

The hope of seeing a genuine sea serpent attracted hundreds of tourists to York County’s coast again in 1967. Biddeford Pool lobstermen had hauled mysterious remains ashore that looked just as a sea serpent skeleton should look. The monster was embalmed and proudly displayed until a Biddeford High School science teacher remarked that it bore a striking resemblance to skeletons belonging to the shark family.

Stage Island Monument at Biddeford Pool by Frank Handlen

One of the most mysterious man-made landmarks on York County’s coast is the monument on Stage Island just off Biddeford Pool. Commissioned by the United States Government, the conical stone structure was to be completed by July of 1825, but tragedy struck during its construction leaving one mason dead and another crippled for life.

The brig Hesper of Newburyport went ashore in 1821 when her captain mistook Negro Island for Stage Island. Capt. Stevens told a reporter for the Newburyport Herald that he had been misled by the directions in the American Coast Pilot. “No mention is made of Todd’s Island (aka Negro Island) in the Coast Pilot, but the passage is said to be between Stage Island and Wood Island.”

Edmund Blunt, author of the Coast Pilot, was outraged by the implication that his directions were inaccurate. He defended them in a letter to the editor. “He who attempts to hide or palliate his want of judgment, attaching blame where it does not exist, creates an alarm which may cause the navigator to doubt in times when decision is all important.” The argument went back and forth in northeastern newspapers for months. A description of Negro Island was added to later versions of the American Coast Pilot but Blunt could not resist the temptation to editorialize. “In running in the Eastern passage” he wrote, “you open a small channel for boats only, between Wood and Negro Islands, but no man of experience would mistake it.”

On Dec. 1, 1823, a petition, signed by “merchants, ship owners, masters of vessels and inhabitants of Winter Harbor,” was presented to the first session of the 18th Congress “praying that a monument may be erected on Stage Island, as a beacon or direction to vessels entering said harbor.” Congress appropriated $1,500 for the project on March 3, 1825, but Portland contractors agreed to build the monument for $1,200. In a later request for additional funds the petitioners testified that John Lowell, Benjamin Bailey and John Leavitt had signed a contract to construct “a column or monument to be built of split undressed stone the foundation therefore to be sunk as deep as might be necessary to make the fabric secure and to lay the same in good lime mortar, the height of the column to be 60 feet from the surface of the ground; the base diameter to be 20 feet and the top diameter four feet; the wall at the base to be four feet thick and gradually diminished so as to leave the wall at the top two feet thick; and to place a cap of hammer dressed granite of five feet eight inch in diameter, 20 inches thick in the center and 10 inches thick at the outer edge on its top; and to make a door in said column or monument; and to whitewash said column and cover the remainder with a coat of pitch and lamp black.”

“Distressing Accident” was the headline in Portland’s Eastern Argus on June 20, 1825. “On Saturday the 18th of June Capt. John Lowell, of this town, aged 39 years, was killed by the fall of a beacon monument, which he and three other persons were engaged in erecting on Stage Island, in Winter Harbor, near Saco,” read the report. All but a small portion of the foundation of the monument was built on ledge. Where there was no rock, a four-foot trench was dug to a hard pan of gravel that the contractors believed would support the weight of the monument. The trench was filled with rock and construction progressed as specified in the contract. John Lowell was working on staging with some of his men 54 feet off the ground when the foundation settled unevenly and the whole structure gave way. Capt Lowell was instantly crushed to death. His workmen, Mr. Samuel Knight of Otisfield and Mr. Grover of Bethel, were both badly injured. Grover recovered from his injuries but Samuel Knight had dislocated his spine and was, for the rest of his life, unable to straighten up.

Lowell’s widow Sally and the two remaining contractors used materials from the fallen ruins to have the monument rebuilt upon a new foundation and collected the originally agreed upon sum of $1,200. In December of 1825 they petitioned the government to compensate their considerable losses. The request was forwarded to the Committee on Commerce, but was ultimately denied because the contract had stipulated that the foundation be secure. The second foundation proved sufficient. The rock and mortar monument still stands perfectly erect more than 180 years later.