52 Ancestors Week 44: Scary Stuff

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 44's theme is "Scary Stuff." Any ghost stories in your family lore? Any relatives live in a haunted house? Of course, you don't have to go with ghosts for the theme. I look forward to seeing how everyone interprets this theme

Most metal header EVER!

    Halloween 2020 is coming and even though the year has been scary by itself, the day (night) is one of my favorite holidays of the year. It's right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving. Like many kids, I had a fun time trick or treating and since I was a kid in the '80s I dressed up as one of the best Transformers ever. I dressed up as the one and only....Snarl of the Dinobots. What? Did you think I dressed up as Optimus Prime? If only, dear readers. If only. Everyone and their brother dressed up as Prime that year!

    I digress. Last year, I discussed the possibility of my grandmother's ghost still hanging around and the ghost I happened to run into when I went to a wedding in upstate New Hampshire. Check out the blog here.....if you dare! This year, we're going to do things a bit differently. Recently I discovered something moderately scary in my genealogical adventure and I'd love to share it with everyone. I dunno if it's scary but it could be!

In the mood for a swim?

    I was browsing the Newburyport newspaper archives online and I thought I should search for my great-grandparents, Austin Felker and Henrietta Legault.  I know. They lived in Haverhill. Why would they be in a neighboring city? Hmm. Why indeed? Could it be that West Newbury is the only town that separates the two and they are within driving distance? I figured why not. What could I find? What's the harm in looking?

    Well, I found something I thought was a little scary and maybe a little funny given the history of the river. In June of 1930, my great-grandparents and Austin's half brother, George were thrown from their skiff and into the water after it collided with a Coast Guard picket boat.

According to the article, they struck the boat while it was clearing the channel of all craft. There was a thunderstorm coming and a coal steamer wanted to get up river with its cargo of coal. The coast guard cruiser was hanging around several small boats in the water and in the confusion, the skiff hit the larger boat and capsized! The three victims were tossed overboard and a sailor named Norman O'Brian dove into the water and assisted my great-grandmother, first. Huh. And they say chivalry is dead.  (Wait. It was 1930. Chivalry wasn't dead, yet. It was on life support.)

Gross....

    The reason why this could be a little scary is because my grandmother was three years old at the time. She could have easily had been on that boat with them and most three year olds don't know how to swim. I'm sure Sailor Normie would have saved her first. But, still! It's amazing how one single event can change the course of history. Imagine if she DID go! I'd....rather not think about it to be honest.

    At least everyone was fine. I wish the article was a bit more specific about where in the river they were. As you know, I grew up near the river and my parents have a boat docked in Salisbury. From the sound of things, it looks like the incident may have occurred at the mouth of the river. That's where the Coast Guard station is. That's where big ships like that coal steamer would have to enter the river.

    To this day there are small craft advisory buoys around the mouth to protect small boats from much bigger ones and there are lanes in and out of the river people have to go through in order to get where you're going. The river is also known for being one of the most treacherous rivers in the northeast. It's not a good place for a skiff! Even in the comfort of the cabin of my dad's boat, I was still knocked around quite a bit coming home from a fishing expedition while it was sunny and warm! The mouth gets extremely choppy even on warm sunny days! That's why if you really want to use a small boat, you go up the river. Do not go down stream! The article above is one reason why!

    Another scary thought is that during this time period the Merrimack River was NOT clean at all.  During the 1930s, it was still used to power mills from Concord, NH to Newburyport, Mass. Imagine the pollutants going downstream and into the ocean. Gross. Even when I was a kid, I swam in the river like once or twice and that was after cleaning efforts were made in the 1970s and 1980s. The river is a bit cleaner now thanks to the Clean Water Act. But, there are still guidelines enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency. To this day they're still fishing cars from the river. It even gets gross looking when it rains. Time will tell if that river is ever pristine again. Upriver seems to be okay. Downstream still has a ways to go.

    I've told my mother and her brothers and sisters about the story and they all laughed....which was oddly unsettling. My family is weird. I've gotten used to it. My uncle said that he and his brothers and sisters probably used the same skiff when they fished for flounder in the mouth. That doesn't surprise me. Wooden ships are built to last. My mother told me about how they dug up clams at the beach and use them as bait.

    Reading the story gives me a sobering thought. A slight change could have altered history forever. Where was my grandmother during this afternoon of excitement on the Merrimack? She was probably being looked after by a family member back in Haverhill. I'd rather not think of her going on the trip with them.

   

    The main takeaway here is to always have a life jacket when you are boating and to not hit a coast guard cruiser. That's true in any time period! That and to not swim in the Merrimack unless you really, really have to! Gross.

See ya next time!