The Dead Ship of Harpswell
The Dead Ship of Harpswell
The USS Dash, whose fate remains a mystery till this day even though she has been sighted various times during the last 200 years, but only on foggy days in Casco Bay, Freeport, Maine.
The United States had been independent less than 50 years, when it found itself again battling Britain in the War of 1812. The British at Nova Scotia occupied the eastern coast of Maine from Eastport to Castine. They plundered the towns on the coast and stopped commerce. Maine did not become a state until 1820, and protection from Massachusetts was very poor. In response illicit smuggling trade with the British developed. Eastport remained occupied by the British until 1818.
England had been raiding American ships and even pressing sailors against their will to serve on English ships. The American Navy was aided by licensed private vessels that were captained by privateers who were authorized to detain and seize enemy ships and their goods. One of these ships was the Dash, built in 1813 at Porter’s Landing in Freeport, Maine.
The Dash was owned by Samuel and Seward Porter both former sea captains who had turned merchants. The ship was 280 tons and first rigged as a schooner.
On her first voyage she was captained by Edward Kelleran, who sailed her to St. Domingo and brought back a cargo of coffee. She had one 24-pound pivot gun, two 18-pound cannonades and carried 60 men.
On her second voyage Captain William Cammett took command, with George Bacon as first lieutenant and Captain James Slater was prize master. She sailed to the south of Bermuda and was chased by a British man-of-war to the coast of North Carolina. Once there the captain filled her hold with 1500 barrels of flour, and 8 hogsheads of tobacco. She arrived safely in Portland where the cargo was sold at auction.
Captain Cammett sailed her again on August 1814 with the same officers to the west of Bermuda, and fell in with a sloop from Charleston. The captain from the sloop told Cammett that leeward to their position was a British packet, heavily armed with 80 men on board. This would turn out to be false since she was unarmed.
The ship was the Five Brothers of London, and Captain Cammett boarded her and found she was loaded with a cargo of 430 hogsheads of rum, along with coffee and cocoa, $6000 in specie (money in the form of coins rather than notes) and 30 passengers. The cargo was taken by the Dash, and the ship was allowed to continue to England.
The Dash sailed for Portland and when she was off Georges' Banks she fell in with the ship Lahgone, a three decker who was being pursued by a schooner out of Baltimore.
Since the Dash was fully laden, the ship soon caught up to her. Captain Cammett decided to fight and shot at the schooner, giving her time to pull away and escape. She returned to Portland after being away for a month. The cargo was sold at auction.
Word of the Dash’s reputation reached President James Madison who hired the owners as privateers against the British. She was hurriedly outfitted with guns. She had 16 of them and ten fake "Quaker" wooden ones to intimidate the enemy even more.
Captain Cammett left the Dash and took over another larger brig owned by the Porters named the Tippoo Saib.
The Dash was outfitted and put under the charge of Captain John Porter, brother of the owners. He was 22 years old, and sailed with two other Porter brothers, Ebenezer and Jeremiah. There was a total of 11 Porter brothers in the family.
John Porter had recently married Lois Cushing the daughter of Apollos Cushing, and she was pregnant with their child. Nathaniel Cushing, Lois' brother was also on board. She set sail on January 21, 1815 with a crew of 60 men and high hopes of a successful trip.
The Champlain sailed in company with the Dash to try her speed. The second day out the Champlain found they were only in eight fathoms deep and changed course. They last saw the Dash under full sail heading for George's Bank.
That night a snow storm came in after dark, and the Dash was never seen again. It was believed she was driven onto George's Bank where she went to pieces, and all hands were lost. The captain’s brother though did not lose hope and wrote in May, 1815: "John, Ebenezer and Jeremiah have been out in the Dash for upwards of four months and have not been heard from."
Before her disappearance the Dash had completed seven voyages under four captains, and taken fifteen prizes, making her the most successful of the privateer
The years passed and Lois Porter married Capt. John Dunlap of Brunswick. She lived into old age and had several children by her second husband.
Within months of her disappearance the Dash was seen in Casco Bay, believed at first to have returned to Freeport, however she would eventually disappear.
Fishermen and boaters frequently described seeing the ship appear out of the mist with her name clearly appearing on her bow. Sightings of the ship always occurred during foggy weather. The sighting of the Dash also seemed to coincide with the death of family members of the 60 crew members that sailed into oblivion, and it was believed they returned to accompany their loved ones into the great beyond.
Both ships saw a blip on the radar and they both speedily headed to the area, only to be thunderstruck to find a 19th century sailing schooner cruising along the channel headed for Freeport. Before they were able to reach it, it had disappeared.
An incident during modern times describes the sighting of the ghost ship:
In 1975, I had been sitting next to my mother at Sunday lunch with my family. She looked out at sea and said to no one in particular, "Oh look, there's the ghost ship of Harpswell." My reaction was to think, there she goes again. And then to think no more about it.
A few hours later, down on the shore, my father had a heart attack and died. As we returned from the hospital and parked the car, my mother suddenly cried, "The ghost ship of Harpswell." "You're right," I said, because now I remembered, too.
Spotting the mystery ship will supposedly bring bad luck, or like the banshee it is an arbiter of death. During WWII, two ships, one from the Navy, the other from the Coast Guard were patrolling Casco Bay during a foggy afternoon. Recounts Jill Stefko:
In August, 1942, while the U.S. and the British Navies patrolled the Atlantic Coast, a siren sounded in Casco Bay, Maine a warning that there was an invasion. A blip had appeared on ships’ radar screens in the protected waters. Homer Grimm and his girlfriend were enjoying the afternoon on Punkin Nubb at the time.
Pandemonium broke loose. Gongs sounded, guns were readied and sailors and soldiers ran to battle stations. The HMS Moidore sped out of Cumberland Cove, firing its big gun as it came. One shell landed on Punkin Nubb a few yards from where the couple was. They looked around the corner of a shattered rock ledge to see a schooner sailing past them. Homer realized it was the Dash and could see sailors on her deck.
In the distance, the HMS Moidore, US Navy and Coast Guard vessels were pursuing her, heading toward Freeport. When the military’s ships were ready to converge upon the phantom schooner, she vanished.