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Sea Captains
John Eldridge
Captain John Eldridge was the son of John and Lucy Hallet Eldridge. He died at his home in Yarmouth Port, at the age of 75 years, and 10 months, on February 16, 1874. His residence on Hallet Street was known as Eldridge Hall and is now known as the Village Inn.
He commenced his seafaring life at the age of 12 years; was a master of a ship when just a young man, principally commanding packet ships. During the War of the Rebellion he was in charge of United States Transport ships. He was a rigid disciplinarian, although Captain George Matthews, who sailed with him, as chief officer, pronounced him a very sympathetic man. He was of a wonderful physique and of tremendous great strength, with a most powerful voice, a type which at once suggested authority, not to be resisted by the obdurate of ``Packet rats", as the sailors were called who manned the ships which Captain Eldridge sailed so successfully back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. He was one of a trio of brothers, with Captain Asa and Captain Oliver, who made Cape Cod captains famous.
The life of Captain John Eldridge, after his retirement from the sea, was almost as exciting and fascinating as was his seafaring career. His residence was the synonym of hospitality and sumptuousness. He was quite an epicure and admired and cultivated handsome trees and shrubbery and his estate harbored a great variety of animals, in which he was keenly interested. All of these things required the employment of much help and his place was always the scene of activity, indispensable to his nature.
The Atlantic Ocean is a stormy area and sailing over it for years as captain Eldridge did, he undoubtedly encountered some bad weather and close contacts with danger. To recite all that we have heard would be too much, in volume, so we will just speak of the terrible gale that he experienced in the old packet ship Liverpool, of Grinnel and Minturn's line of Liverpool packets, which he commanded for twelve years. On one occasion this ship ran into a cyclone and was in great danger of foundering. To quote ``D.M.": ``The three top gallantmasts were blown off at the cap and the ship was on its beam ends for a period of thirty-six hours. The captain never left the deck and his sentorian voice could be heard issuing orders high above the raging storm. The noble ship, under his skillful management weathered the gale and a few days afterwards entered the port of New York in safety, with all her royal yards in their places."
Of him the Yarmouth Register said: ``Hardly any man could have been taken from this community whose loss would have been so severely felt as Captain Eldridge. His noble and commanding person, his hearty and genial manners, his profuse hospitality, his kindness and generosity and the active interest which he took in the affairs of his native village will cause him to be long remembered and esteemed by his neighbors and friends."
Biographical sketches courtesy of the Yarmouth Historical Society. Taken from Stories of Yarmouth Shipmasters
Asa Eldridge
In endeavoring to present a picture of Captain Asa Eldridge of Yarmouth we perhaps may not do better than to quote Charles F. Swift's Old Yarmouth.
`In one sense out of the usual order of events -- because the date and time of his departure is hidden from those on earth, -- we record here the departure of Captain Asa Eldridge, one of the most gallant sailors Cape Cod had contributed to that noble fraternity. He was born in this town, July 25, 1809, the son of Captain John, a citizen of repute and renown. He took early to the sea, like all Cape Cod boys, commanded some fine ships, sailing for years in the Dramatic Line, controlled by E. K. Collins, a Truro man of pluch and vigor. Cornelius Vanderbilt, discovering his ability, induced him to enter his service. He commander the North Star, on the famous excursion to Europe, with Mr. Vanderbilt and family, which voyage commemorated by Rev Chowles, in a volume of great interest, in which he paid appropriate tribute to the gallantry and skill of Captain Eldridge. Captain Eldridge possessed not only self-confidence and daring, but skill and endurance and the generous traits which are in imagination connected with the character of the true-born American sailors January 25, 1856, after a voyage across the Atlantic, in which he successfully competed with a Cunard Line steamer, he sailed in the steamer Pacific from Liverpool, England, on a return trip to New York. He was never heard from more. It was a year of most unprecedented disaster to vessels; many were foundered, or went down in the gales; the best nautical opinion is to the effect that the Pacific struck and iceberg and that all on board met an instant death."
Although this great captain was continually doing things which excited the admiration of the world, nothing gave him a more lasting reputation than sailing the clipper ship Red Jacket across the Atlantic Ocean to the eastward, from Sandy Hook to the Rock Light, Mersy, off Liverpool, in thirteen days, 1 hour, in 1854. Felix Risenberg wrote as follows of that event:
``This passage was of significant interest in that stirring contest between the fastest ships of sail and the early ships of steam. A Collins Line steamer, which left New York two days before the Red Jacket, arrived in Liverpool on Sunday afternoon and brought news that a Yankee clipper was just astern. Those were sporting days. There was interest in the performance of ships. When the news sped along the Liverpool waterfront people rushed in thousands to the docks; every point of vantage was black with spectators awaiting the arrival of this incredible racer. Outside the port tugs had offered to tow the clipper, but she was going so fast they could never have kept their hawsers taut. She shot ahead, leaving them to wallow in her wake. The Red Jacket swept into Mersy with everything drawing, presenting a spectacle of surpassing grandeur. Cheers burst from the thousands on shore. Then Captain Asa Eldridge gave them a thrill they least expected -- he took in his kites, his skysails, royals and top gallantshung his courses or lower sails, in their gear, ignored the tugs that caught up, and, throwing the Red Jacket into the wind, helm hard down, he backed her long side of berth without aid, while the crew took in sail with a celerity that seemed like magic to the spectators -- a superb piece of seamanship. He was another twenty-five minutes coming from the Rock Light, and established an enduring sailing record for the eastward ocean passage."
Asa Eldridge was born in 1809, probably in the house which he afterwards owned and in which he lived , while ashore, and which his widow used for a summer residence with the memory of people now living. He was one of three brothers, besides himself there having been John andOliver
James Bacon Crocker
Captain James Bacon Crocker was born in West Barnstable in 1804. He died at his home in Yarmouth port in the spring of 1833. He was the son of Deacon Joseph Crocker. He commanded the ships Lowell, Eben Preble, Oxnard, Horatio and Narraganset. He was master of the Lowell when he was but twenty- four years of age. The Edwin Preble was said to have been one of the finest East India men sailing from the port of Boston. He was both captain and supercargo of the Narraganset. He retired from the sea before he was forty years of age and at the time built the house now owned and occupied by his granddaughter, the Misses Baker.
Retiring from the sea did not mean inactivity. He went into the business of fitting fishing vessels and managing and largely owning the general store where Harry J. Davidson is now conducting a grocery and provision store. He did not overlook politics, for we find him in the Massachusetts house of representatives in 1843 and in the State senate in 1853 and 1854. Mr. Frederick W. Crocker of Barnstable having died, Captain Crocker succeeded him as clerk of the courts of Barnstable County, which position he held for thirteen years. He was for years a trial justice. For twenty-one years he was director of the First National Bank of Yarmouth, where his advice and business judgment were highly esteemed. He was always a leading Republican. He was of a religious turn of mind and signalized it by being a deacon of the First Congregational church for many years of his life ashore. When he died the First National Bank of Yarmouth voiced its regret for his death and esteem of his worth through its directors.
Oliver Gorham
Captain Oliver Gorham, son of Hesekiah and Phebe Thacher Gorham, was born in 1813, dying November 15, 1878. Like his brother Josiah, little can be learned of him, although he must have been a substantial citizen and a successful captain. He owned and occupied, for his residence, the house nearly opposite to the Friday Club building, now occupied by his grandchildren. The only command of his of which we have definite information is the bark Alice Campbell, of which the following experience was related in a New Orleans newspaper: "Captain Oliver Gorham of bark Alice Campbell, from Boston, arrived at New Orleans, March 1,1874, having on board the captain, mate and four men of the lumber- loaded schooner, Thomas B. Barkalow, storm-wrecked about February 8 and the vessel directly breaking up, the crew hurriedly constructed a raft of her spars, but were unable to provide anything in the way of sustenance or other accessories of comfort. Helplessly they drifted about at the mercy of the wind and the waves, for eleven days, without either food or drink and being reduced to the verge of death, were discovered, February 23, by bark Alice Campbell and taken on board in a condition of such fearful privation and helplessness as to be utterly unable to stand."
Biographical sketches courtesy of the Yarmouth Historical Society. Taken from Stories of Yarmouth Shipmasters
Frederick Howes
The son of Captain Ebenezer and Patience Eldridge Howes, Captain Frederick Howes, born July 4, 1812, died at his home in Yarmouth Port, June 26, 1882, therefor at the age of seventy years, 11 months and 22 days. He commenced his business career by learning the trade of cabinet maker, but nevertheless was in command of a ship at an early age. While his captaincy was marked by success, his renown rests upon his inventive genius. Reefing topsails in the days of single topsails was frequently a most terrible proceeding. In a fierce gale, many a twenty men had gathered up that deep sail, almost in its entirety, only to have it wrenched from their grasp by an extra gust of wind and, in many instances, taking the poor sailor's fingernails out of their sockets. This difficulty arrested the attention of Captain Frederick Howes and stimulated his inventiveness, to the end that the old single topsail was cut in half and the same area of sail set on an upper and lower topsail yard, known all over the world as the ``Howes" rig and blessed by many a poor jack tar. Ship owners, too, looked with kindness upon it, for it was possible, by its use, to sail an equally large ship with a considerable less number of men.
Captain Howes sailed the ships of Howes & Crowell, a number of them, I believe, although I am not definitely informed of any particular one but the Climax, which he sailed from Boston to San Fransisco, with so much speed that the energetic and driving Captain Moses Howes forced his ship, the Competitor, so hard that he split her laterally open in trying to distance Captain Frederick's Climax and only succeeding in arriving at destination in just about the same relative position as when the two left Boston, but with the Climax in much the better condition of the two ships.
It must be apparent that Captain Howes was something of a social figure. His summer residence in Yarmouth Port, Howes Cottage, now owned and occupied in the summer time by Mrs. Wolfe of New Orleans, was a scene of gayety and refinement, when occupied by his family. His daughters were most attractive and his wife was so charming that young Julius Hawthorne, meeting her in Liverpool, was so impressed that he wrote of her: ``I could imagine nothing in feminine shape more delicate, of more languid grace, of patrician elegance." Of Captain Howes, the same writer said: ``He was commodore of the captains, the oldest, wisest and most impressive of them; a handsome, massive, jovelike old gentleman, with the gentlest and most indulgent manners and a straight-forward, simple mariner withal." At his funeral, in Howes Cottage, Captain Nathaniel Matthews, Winthrop Sears, Edmund B. Hamblin and James B. Crocker felt it an honor to act as bearers.
Winthrop Sears
Captain Winthrop Sears was born in West Yarmouth in the year 1818. He commenced going to sea at the age of thirteen and when he became twenty-one he was master of the brig Robert Wall. In March 1883, when he was but 65 years of age, he died suddenly at his home in Yarmouth Port.
He commanded the barks Tremont and Ocean Pearl and the ship Conquest. When the steamer Benjamin Franklin, which was the pioneer boat of the Boston and Philadelphia line, was ready for sea, the owners called on Captain Sears to command her. He also had command of the Steamer William Penn, which belonged to the same line. He was captain of the Concordia and St. Louis, steam packets, plying between Boston, New Orleans and Liverpool. During the war he had charge of a vessel in the United States transport service. His last command was of the steamer Saxon, a new vessel, built for the Boston and Philadelphia service. All that occurred before he was fifty-five years of age, when he retired from the sea and active business. The town of Yarmouth immediately saw in Captain Sears a discreet business man and counselor. He was chosen to the board of selectmen, assessors and overseers of the poor, remaining there until his death. He was trustee of Woodside Cemetery association and director of the First National Bank of Yarmouth, which passed resolutions of sympathy and respect upon his death. He married three times and left a widow and four children. His death was very sudden. His residence was the house now owned and occupied by Charles W. Swift and family.
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