A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KOLLEGEWIDGEWOK YACHT CLUB
By Alvin Dohme, 1958
Blue Hill Bay from its mouth at Greene Island Light off Flye Point to the inner harbor at “the head of the bay”, has always been a sailor’s paradise for the casual cruiser, the racing sailor, and even the old commercial trade in lumber schooners, island steamers, and the fisherman and lobsterer. The very indented and protected configuration of its ample waters, all well buoyed and with safe deepwater channels giving ample elbow room for tacking, has made it ideal for pleasure boating since even when fog shrouds the outer islands and Bar Harbor, the sun is apt to shine in this scenic haven. Furthermore, its proximity to its neighboring protected waterways such as Merchant and Atlantic Rows, Eggamoggin Reach, Fox Island Thorofare, and Jericho and Penobscot Bays, has annually drawn thousands of new “explorers” to the region, thus making some sort of a yachting facility a must at its headwaters in Blue Hill Harbor. Another big drawing card being its closeness to other leading boating centers like Northeast and Seal Harbors, plus the boatyards at Southwest and lovely fjord of Somes Sound.
This need was first filled way back in the early 1900’s by the old Kolledgewidgwok or East Blue Hill yacht club, set up by Dr. Seth Milliken of New York, who first arrived here from Dark Harbor with Mrs. Milliken on their honeymoon in borrowed sailing dory to pitch their tents and sleeping bags on the grassy meadows along Morgan’s Bay now the site of their and the Boardman’s summer homes. The clubs name, even after it was moved from Morgan’s Bay to its present location in Blue Hill harbor, though a challenge to the visitor’s tongue, was coined by Dr. Milliken at an early date, deriving from the Indian name for both Blue Hills, east and central, meaning when literally translated, “the green mountain floating on sky blue water”, as its club burgee well illustrates. Suffice it to say, right here at the very beginning of this brief history, that without Dr. Milliken’s enthusiasm and generosity to sailing in general, and racing in particular, for both himself and his five children, the Kolledgewidgwok Yacht Club might now exist today.
Once his summer home was completed, Dr. Milliken went about the task of designing and having erected, a combined boathouse, private pier, and club house just to the north of his home, to house the infant yacht club. Then as his children grew old enough to sail, along with a mounting number of other summer residents’ youngsters, the initial fleet of Swamscot dories appeared in 1915, soon followed by a similar and larger fleet of broad beamed, ungainly centerboard Brutal Beasts carrying a single leg of mutton sail well forward. A number of which ended up in Blue Hill harbor, my family’s among them; upon which around 1916-1920 many of us remained oldsters learned to race and sail with repeated tip-overs and dunking’s to keep the fleet tenders busy aboard both the committee boat and the spectator fleet; all under the critical watchful eye of our commodore, the doctor and club founder, aboard his lovely mahogany boat, the TWO FORTY, once the owner’s launch aboard J.P. Morgan’s mammoth yacht, the CORSAIR.
This early form of indoctrination was to continue for many years, much to the annoyance of his children as he barked sailing critiques amounting to nautical orders from aboard his beloved TWO FORTY and made waves to rattle their sails into rebellion. The five seaborn Milliken’s brazenly shouting back, once they were a bit older, taunts to the general effect that, if their commodore father was such a red-hot sailor why didn’t he win more races on the annual New York Yacht Club runs aboard his THISTLE? I can recall many personal fauxpas in racing, with frequent consequent dunking’s as I learned the trade aboard our Brutal Beast; with either Harry Conary or Warren York pulling me out of the drink. The catboat sliding gunter rig of the Brutal Beats, through somewhat under canvassed, still a challenge in a greenhorn’s maneuvers in spite of the craft’s generous 4 foot beam, there being precious little freeboard to the open hull when heeled over in a sudden breeze, Fortunately, however, being centerboard and minus ballast other than human, these clumsy craft were unsinkable; thanks’ to the good doctor’s foresight.
Among the early Beast skippers, I can remember were the five Milliken’s – Alida, Seth, Martie, Minot, and Johnny – Dickie Boardman, Alice Trask, Jimmy Dishington, son of the Milliken’s chauffeur and a longtime friend; some Herons and Dethiers, Mary Madison – all of them East Blue Hillers. While on our side of the bay, beside a few Dohme’s, were assorted Haskell’s, Rutan’s, Teagle's, and Palmers. Alcott’s, Moore’s, and Slaven's, Quays and Weston’s, Starr’s, Nevin's, Richard's, Fernstrom's; and of course, deal of them all, Dean Holden. Plus, a sprinkling of Richardson’s, McKay’s, and Pyle’s, as I remember.
By the early 1920’s the last Swampscott dory had vanished into oblivion, to be replaced by the first Alden O boat Marconi rigged centerboard sloops. 17 feet in length and with a round hull in place of the Brutal Beast’s flatbottomed design, these carved build sloops even boasted a handkerchief sized triangular spinnaker and enclosed cockpit in place of the undecked rear portion of the Beasts. I particularly recall the Rutan’s O boat on account of both sailing it often, as well as for its superb name. The UTTER ABANDON. And well named it was. The last time I sailed in the company of Frank Rutan and Macie Brown, before it fell apart, was in 1949 on the annual labor day cruise, wherein it served as the host floating bar for the noon picnic gathering off the tip of Long Island at the red buoy opposite South Blue Hill, and almost sank under the load of thirsty guest; much to Dr. Milliken’s disgust.
At that time Warren York’s old committee boat CHORE served the fleet and towed a string of boars back and forth from the Wednesday and Saturday races whenever that dubious honor did not go to Bob Slaven and Mike Bullard aboard their resurrected powerboat assembled from the remains of the Slaven’s old world speedboat record TARTAR which around 1915 had set a new world speed record of 50 mph with its two engines set in tandem in a gleaming mahogany hull. It was upon the advent of the O boats that more racing sailors joined the fleet on the Wednesday and Saturday races, still being exclusively held at East Blue Hill. The newcomers around 1925-30 I recall include: some Richardson’s, Kennedies, (the New Jersey kind), Harding’s, Bakers, and Brewers, Bullocks, Tate’s, and Culet’s, Wanning’s, Semler’s, and Robinsons. Plus a few more Morse’s, Herons, and Truax’s; with the Milliken’s and Dean Holden still vying for top honors.
Meanwhile, however, the cruising and big yacht world had not been idle. The 1920’s and early 1930’s still were the era of mammoth ocean going, full crewed yachts, both power and sail, prior to the great depression and mounting federal taxes. Locally during those years we had first Dr. Milliken’s big sloop the NORKA, followed by his lovely schooner SHAWNA; then later the 103-foot bronze hulled yawl, the THRISTLE. Also a Mr. Decapper’s full rigged steam bark NORSEMAN over off Newberry Neck on the Morgan Bay side of the bay. While cruising honors on the Blue Hill side were about equally divided between Mrs. Haskell’s 56-foot Alden gaff rigged schooner TROUBADOR under command of Captain Harry Conary, and crewed first by Fred Masurvy, then later Bert Friend, who’s fish chowder has never been equaled in flavor and ingredients. Also Melville Haskell’s Alden sloop, the TINKER, and the Haskell 36-foot powerboat, the tender TORTOISE. All three black hulled and quite a fleet in itself. While prior to these three, Mr. Haskell before his death, had owned the 60-foot power cruiser, the NORMADA. Then deeper in the harbor in front of the old steamer dock, lay Colonel Richard’s equally large VALEEDA, another 70- or 80-foot power cruiser. Along with the Quay’s 50-footer LOUISE.
Besides these local yachts, Blue Hill Bay and harbor frequently played host to a long imposing line of huge sea-going craft. Bill Palmer’s uncle’s diesel yacht JOSEPHINE, Arthur Curtis James three sticker 220-foot square rigged bark, ALOHA, Gerarg Lambert’s Atlantic crossing record holder, the three masted steel schooner ATLANTIC, which still holds the east-west Ambrose lightship to Lands End record under sail of 10 days and some 20 hours. Then there was Carl Tucker’s 250-foot three sticker MIGRANT, the GUINEVER which was the same size and rig; plus the lovely two sticker CLEOPATRA’s BARGE from Boston, Mike Peltason’s VEMA, and the diesel giants, the VIKING, LOTUSLAND, SAVARONNA, and CARMAGO; all well over 200 feet and boasting crews of from 18 to 22 men. Nearer to home base were Curtiss Bok’s 220-foot clipper bowed LYNDONIA at Camden, and Atwater Kent’s ocean going houseboat WHILEWAY over at Bar Harbor on Frenchman’s Bay. Then somewhere around the mid 1930’s to our Blue Hill Bay fleet was added Fred Camp’s graceful black hulled 73 foot Alden yawl DESIREE while her owner first courted, then won the hand of our own fair haired Alida Milliken. So you can readily see that Blue Hill Bay was not lacking for gleaming, slick hulled yachting giants during the heyday of grandiose millionaire yachting. Most of the craft listed above over 200 feet, and many of them nearer the 300 foot mark.
This proud aquatic array soon became augmented each August by what became known as the Northeast Harbor annual race cruise, starting at the Mount Desert Island port on Western Way, and ending up the first day’s run either at Prettymarsh Harbor or Allen’s Cove, depending on the winds and weather. The second day of this popular and imposing cruise boasting annually some 150 sail, both sail and power of all sizes, classes, and propulsion, ended up on Morgans Bay anchored brave and gleaming row on row in front of Dr. Milliken’s club and boat house for a magnificent picnic repast of chicken and lobster, courtesy of Dr. Milliken and his charming, gracious wife. The honeymooning couple who, way back around 1910 had miraculously discovered the shoreline at East Blue Hill for their permeant summer home aboard their small borrowed sloop, and thereby given birth to the Kolledgewidgewok Yacht Club.
Between the years 1920 and 1940, the annual Northeast cruise race continued to grow, both in popularity, the size of the competing fleet, and the onshore onlookers crowding the rocking banks of Morgans Bay around the yacht club. By 1935 the combined Blue Hill Northeast fleet of over 150 boats of all types and sizes included Bar Harbor A’s and B’s, 30 and 40 square meter Sonderboars, Marconi rigged S Sloops, New York 40’s and 50’s, and Alden schooner class, a larger sloop and yawl class including Fred Camp’s DESIREE, and a whole fleet of power boats and big diesel yachts. While the Blue Hill contingent joining them for the second days run from Prettymarsh and return, including Alden O boats and our new class of 30 foot Atlantic One Designs designed by Starling Burgee and built in Germany. Tradition had it throughout these annual race events for the visiting flagship, usually a large power yacht, to fire a three gun parting salute to our commodore, Dr. Milliken, followed by a loud cheer and raised caps in thanks for the Milliken’s hospitality from the entire bunting decked fleet in farewell. To the hundreds ashore watching, it was a stirring sight indeed. Followed by the start off Conary’s Nub on the return race back to either Prettymarsh or Allens Cove for the night. For many years the fleet was accompanied and shepherded along all three days by Atwater Kent’s WHILEAWAY and William Haskell’s huge steam yacht PLACIDA. The TROUBADOR and my Alden cutter SOUTHWIND also attending.
This and our annual Labor Day cruise picnic were long the two high spots of the Blue Hill racing season. The new Atlantic One Design class brought north from Long Island Sound in the form of twelve boats to start with, had beautifully rounded fin keel hulls with outside lead ballast and built of mahogany, two of them still in that pristine varnished state, the others over-painted but still sleek and beautiful. East of them sported balloon spinnakers of formidable size, making them at least three man boars to sail. Several had boomed self trimming jibs, the rest loose footed and slightly overlapping. These challenging thoroughbreds were for the older club sailors exclusively, and soon were added to by two more boats; all fourteen of them going to mature owners. At least five to East Blue Hill, and the balance to owners on the other side of the bay. Among the new owners – and new racing crews – beside the Milliken’s, now were added the names of the Barbour’s, Lucy Rumbaugh, Delight Weston, Boots Britton, the senior Leveque’s (two boats), Jean Coggin Bechton, Sydney and Cynthia Coggin, the Culet’s, Hendry Wanning, Dot Austin, Mary Starr, Charlie Dethier, Martie and Betty Rutan, Sloanie Rutan, myself, Francie Heller, Sophia and Elwood Godfrey, Springer and Townie Moore, the Streeters, Rausch’s, Beebe’s, Smythe’s, Sam and Suzanne Taylor, Freddie and Marty Nicholas, Seth, Johnny, and Minot Milliken, plus Alida Camp. Mike Bullard and Bob Slaven, Josephine Alcott, and Jimmy Dishington frequently filling in crew wise. And no skipper list is complete without the combined Nevin crowd of Crocker, Jane, Anne, and Berto; who, along with Jean Bechton, enlivened our post mortem race protest meeting for many years with such hot and heavy sessions that half the time the two groups left the session no longer on speaking terms. Temporarily, fortunately. I hope I haven’t’ left anyone out, but I probably have. Tempus fugit.
Meanwhile use of the smaller classes of O boats and Brutal Beasts had grown perceptively. Now there were Rousseau’s, Tate’s, Byers, Brewster’s, Wanning’s, Cronin’s, Semler’s, Boyd’s, Woolridge’s, Morse’s, Minot’s, Rutan’s, Royster’s, Clements, and countless others in the junior classes. Furthermore things were starting to change in the club routine drastically, signaling even more drastic moves in the near future. The Blue Hill element was growing weary of the long desperate dash over to East Blue to be in time for the preliminaries to the twice a week circuit of the race course markers, their hastily consumed lunches far from fully digested. Many non-racing parents forced into chauffeuring their youngsters to the afternoon grind. So in an official club membership meeting, it was voted to divide the weekly races evenly between Blue Hill and Morgans Bays; Mrs. Rankin, the mother of Sophia, Townie, and Springer Moore having generously offered her float and anchorage just off the Parker Point bathing beach as the Wednesday assembly point in memory of her boat loving deceased former husband, Harvey Moore. While the Saturday races still were to be held at the Milliken yacht club site at East Blue Hill.
This, in turn, necessitated further changes. The use of the Parker Point golf club for the tea and protest meeting, for one thing. And the towing of about half the fleet in one direction or other, according to the race day. For many years the youngest and boatingest of us had been morning sailing our beloved craft to the day’s race course; this requirement being largely confined to us Blue Hillers, since all the race up to now, had been held on Morgans Bay in deference to our commodore founder aboard his slim mahogany speedboat – ex CORSAIR tender – the gleamingly immaculate TWO-FORTY. God alone knows where it got its name. All I know is that it was designed and built by the great Nathaniel Herrschoff. I don’t know how many times I personally sailed the Rutan’s O boat, so beautifully named the UTTER ABANDON, and later my Atlantic, the TEAL, from our mooring inside Sculpin Point to East Blue on race day, munching the sandwiches our cook, Cora, made in advance, and sipping a rootbeer. Only thumbing a ride aboard and astern of the towboat in a dead calm. Now things were different. Too many of our race skippers and crews were occupied elsewhere, playing tennis or golf, swimming or just horsing around, so that they now demanded that their boats be at the ready, moored near the starting line; sails furled but ready for action. The honeymoon with true sailing and boat care of the earlier days was a thing of the past. Cups, prizes, and winning at all coast now were the order of the day, sad to say. Silverware fever had grabbed hold of many of us.
Then, in the mid-Twenties six or eight newly designed Sparkman & Stevens “J” sloops, 17 feet long keel boats carrying jib and spinnaker, but smaller, less demanding, and less costly than the swift Atlantic’s, appeared on the horizon. Moving many of the, by now, experienced O boat skippers up one notch near the senior class. They were an instant success, and just in time, as the poor old O’s were beginning to fall apart at the seams. Actually the “J’s” predated the Atlantic’s by several years; the first 12 Atlantic’s having appeared the summer of 1929. A number of Brutal Beats were still operational to form a class for the very young beginners. Looking back on it all, both up until 1935 when the midweek races were moved to Blue Hill, as well as thereafter, I can find but one serious fault in all of our racing activities, other than an occasional temper fit between either Crocker or Ann Nevin and Jean or Cynthia Bechton during the protest meetings. To the best of my recollection not one of our racing class boats had any reefpoints or reduced heavy weather canvas such as storm jibs or smaller, heavier mainsails. Perhaps the J’s did, but I remember clearly that the swift Atlantic’s never did. And they were by far the most heavily canvassed. A liability and danger during heavy weather that should have been corrected somehow, since the Atlantic’s had been specifically designed for Long Island Sound use, where the wind seldom blew as hard as up in Maine waters. Fortunately, though a few unfortunates fell overboard or were hurt, we never had a serious mishap. We were lucky and most of us good sailors.
Somewhere around 1936 Fred Camp sold his lovely DESIREE in favor of a smaller converted 12 meter sloop named the LARA, which required a smaller crew and less upkeep. And about the same time Andy Wanning bought a 36 foot Alden cruising yawl and an Alden cutter yclept the SOUTHWIND to replace my old Morse Friendship sloop, the IRENE and about the same time Jean and Cynthia Coggins father showed up in the inner harbor with a black hulled Alden ketch which during the early fall hurricane of 1937 fetched up on the ledge off Sand Island off the golf course, fortunately only slightly damaged. I recall that stiff 90 mile an hour blow well; several smaller boats being smashed to kindling off the bathing beach, and all three larger boards in the main harbor inside Sculpin Point holding nicely. The TROUBADOUR and TORTOISE; and my SOUTHWIND, although the next morning I found several balls of sea weed nestling in the SOUTHWINDS cross trees. It was quite a storm, and long prior to today’s hurricane watches and warning. A great deal more boat damage was done over at Mt Desert; especially at Seal Harbor and Southwest on Western Way. Such storms usually being foreign to our part of the Maine coast, being carried offshore by the Gulf of Maine current
By now the club racing fleet numbered some 8 remaining Brutal Beasts, 3 or 4 nonracing O’s, about 10 J’s, and 14 to 15 Atlantic’s, all of them shepherded back and forth on race days astern of the ancient open launch CHORE, Warren York commanding; the Camps racing tender , JEEVES, Cy Cousins at the helm, plus Harry Conary aboard the TORTOISE, and Percy York handling Bill Palmers power cruisers, in polite attendance and usually carrying a full load of race spectators on deck for the afternoon. Periodically during this interval between club changes, Bob Slaven and Mike Bullard assisting with the fleet towing. As a result, from the year 1935 when first the weekly races were split up between the two bays, a small charge was added for the towing, which seemed to please nobody, Furthermore, at many racing parent’s insistence at around this same time, the starting times mercifully were moved forward from 1:30 to 2 pm for better digestion. These arrangements lasted up until the start of World War II when all racing was more or less abandoned.
As the fleet grew both in size and membership, so did the old rivalry between its senior Atlantic skippers long graduated from the incubator Brutal Beast stage; we Blue Hillers having long smarted under the burden of the obviously superior sailing and racing knowhow of the East Blue contingent across the way, Time after time I can remember seeing either Seth, Alida, or Martie Nicholas’ Atlantic nosing silently past me near the finish line as I watched in helpless anger, having thought I had the afternoon’s race in the bag. Finally we Blue Hill skippers had had enough of this humiliation, so we got together to plan a Blue Hill – East Blue Hill Atlantic showdown. After all we had a few crack skippers on our side of the bay too. Namely, Sydney Coggin, Crocker and Jane Nevin, Freddie and Patty Levegue, and Jean Bechton. The final result was a team challenge in 5 Atlantic’s to each side, all crows and skippers to be bona fide residents of the respective bays, and to be called “The Blood & Thunder Race”. The event to be held on an odd day from the regular racing calendar and no holds barred.
For some mysterious recent Freddie Nicholas and I were named the tow respective team captains, whereupon we decided on a date and duly notified all and sundry, including both the public and the race committee of our intention. These races were held annually from the summer of 1936 to ’40, the five races in the end coming out about even to the best of my recollection; although being somewhat prejudiced, I seem to remember Blue Hill winning 3 races out of five, but in any event, our seamanship and strategy had at last proved just about on a par with our formidable rivals and honor was satisfied to all participants on either side. However I will never forget one of the final Blood & Thunders, just before I went into service in the war. That afternoon it was blowing a good 40 miles smokey southeaster, with spume blowing off the tops of the waves on both bays. For a long time we vainly watched and waited for the wind to go down, but it never did all afternoon. As a result, in fear of being called “chicken”, Freddie and I, with an assist in postponing the race from neither side, nodded our wet heads to indicate the race was on.
As I have just said, I will never forget that afternoon. It kept blowing harder and harder, especially in the squalls, and we aboard the TEAL were not only hanging on for dear life, but also freezing as we got soaked to the skin. On the final downwind leg to the finish up Morgans Bay in front of Fred Camp and Alida’s playhouse, running before both the wind and sea, The TEAL’s helm became absolutely doggy dead in the water, while the white caps rolled us along with each crest just inches above our racing decks; plus absolutely no helm control be speak of without reducing canvas, which none of us idiots even thought of doing. Marty Nicholas’ jib long since had blown to tatters, someone else had been didmasted, and a third boat had a badly torn spot in the leach of their mainsail. Sail battens were filled the air as we sped wildly downwind. At this point, carven that I was, I asked Ned Partour, out team daredevil, to take over the helm; whereupon he coolly asked me to set the spinnaker, a suggestion which I hastily countermanded. We were tearing along at well above top hull speed as it was. And our dead tiller clearly indicated.
Anyway, I distinctly remember we won that one. And as I picked up at our mooring in front of the playhouse, frozen and drenched to the skin, I happened to glance at my waterproof wristwatch. And I still swear to this day there were two minnows inside the crystal. All in all, I should say that final race was not only the highwater mark of the clubs Atlantic racing, but also the height of sheer lunacy. Oh to be young and crazy again! All of the “oldtimers” in the fleet had yet another mental aberration the summers of 1940-42. Probably brought on by the war. At any rate, that’s as good an excuse for such nonsense as the August Thunder Jug Races as I can think of. These events, originally dreamt up by our nonsailing marital counterparts of both sexes in rebellion of all of the nautical jargon the rest of us were forever spewing forth, were to be sailed in the few remaining Brutal Beasts, and were to be sailed exclusively by the very same greenhorn rebelling spouses, both captain and crew, who had come up with the idea. No help or advice of any kinds to be given either by Dr. Milliken, who incidentally was not present for the races, nor were any other of our East Blue Hill rivals from across the way, or anyone in the convulsed spectator fleet avidly following the floundering beginners. As I recall, Ralph Perkins, Bill Chisholm, and Al Cluett were the founders of this bloodthirsty comic event. The other greenhorn members in the initial race in 1940 were: Peanut Royster, Bob Clements, Homer Heller, Dave Rumbaugh, Jack Woolridge, and Bill Austin, with crew help from a number of other rank and avowed neophytes. To the best of my recollection. One of the contestants secretly tied a bucket to the bottom of Bill Chisholm’s boat, someone else removed the centerboard pin from Ralph Perkins craft. And an inspired team consisting of Peanut Royster and Bob Clements slipped aboard a battery operated electric fan in the event of a dead calm. Not that a single skipper really needed any hidden obstacles in their run for the nautical roses.
The result was hilarious. Brutal Beasts going sideways, backwards, and standing still much to the delight of their better half’s among the spectator fleet; not to mention their sea-going friends.
At the “tea” after each August race, plus the ridiculous protest meeting on the Haskell’s lawn beside Pansy Cottage, the gaudily painted chamber pot serving as the race cup, magnificently emblazoned with pale pink roses by Lucy Rumbaugh and Martie Wells, endless rounds of toasts were downed of champagne, directly from the Thunder Jug. This stellar event marked both the culmination and end to bay racing until after the war. A fitting climax indeed. However, by the end of the war, said war and its privations having taught us all a good lesson in conservation, if nothing else, largely due to the gas rationing; once most of the war serving men and women members of the yacht club having returned as heroes, a meeting was called in late August of 1946 at Shoreby, the Woolridge-Heller house on Maple Lane, to discuss the possibility of finding a single new location for a new central clubhouse about equally divided in distance between the tow Blue Hills on which to build and replace the old ones. The Milliken boathouse, charming as it was, and the Rankin float and Parker Point Golf Club. Thus equally dividing the driving time from both boating extremities for everyone concerned. Someplace inside Blue Hill’s outer harbor protected by Sculpin Point and the Narrows between its and Haskell point.
A committee was formed on the spot that rainy afternoon on Maple Lane with some 30 key club members present. Two committees in fact. One a real estate committee, and the other a finance and fund raising one, in hopes that somehow the former could find the right spot. At an affordable price. The outlook looked pretty grim, the shores of the inner bay being built up as they were. But one spot was already on the minds of this real estate committee chosen that afternoon. And consisting of myself, one of the original champions of the compromise change; Sam Taylor, Doug Byers, Homer Heller, Al Cluett, and an ailing Bill Palmer. It did not take long for all six of us to zero in on the same location. The old abandoned Blue Hill Quarry, and quarry pier on the East Blue Hill side of the inner bay just above Easton’s cove and directly opposite from the Strobel house. The next step was to find out who owned the quarry, and unused as it had been for years, did the land go up clear to the East Blue Hill road for a right of way? And could it be bought? Was it for sale?
At this stage of the game our next move was to go into session with Max Hinckley up in his store office. Max being the long time financier and banker of Blue Hill in the absence of a regular branch bank emporium. The results? The land belonged to a certain long time Blue hill summer resident and well known national writer and author, Mrs. Loring, who lived just up the road in a lovely stone house built of the very same granite quarry blocks. So that same evening, it by now being late in the fall after Labor Day, all five of us except Bill Palmer who was too ill, put on our best summer party duds and paid a formal call after supper on the elderly owner of the quarry. After considerable polite preliminaries we finally got down to the nitty-gritty, informing Mrs. Loring what we had in mind, and why. That the new central yacht club would be not only a boon to Blue Hill, but also to countless children just learning to swim and sail. The five of us must have somehow been in tune, for, before the evening was over, Mrs. Loring not only agreed to sell and deed the quarry parcel’s 3 acres, including a right of way up to the East Blue Hill road, plus the granite lined waterfront, to us; but even more heartening, at a reasonable price, seeing its future public use. The price, thanks to Mrs. Loring’s public spirited generosity, being well within our means, again thanks to a strictly anonymous offer that same afternoon, of a gift of $5000 to match every equal five thousand our fund committee raised. The deed was done.
We already were well on our way to a new centrally located yacht club to bear the same name and fly the same club burgee as the old. The next step was to have the lawyers – Hale & Hamlin of Ellsworth, as usual – set up the deeds and insurance while the call went out for donations prior to all of us heading west, or home. My recollection was that by around September 21st, 1946, we already had either checks for pledges totaling close to the five thousand to match the amount of our secret donor, whose name still is nameless, I having been pledged to secrecy from the very first. The next step was to find a good reliable architect to draw up the plans we envisioned at a bargain price. We promptly found just the right person in Lou Gelders, one of our own club members and a New York architect of note. All that winter and next spring more and more donations poured in, until by the early summer of ’47 we not only had the plans for the new Kolledgwidgwok Yacht Club, but also the money to both build and furnish it, every penny by public subscription. A subscription in which a number of Blue Hill native business men participated gladly in view of the obvious benefits the club would bring to the town.
We never had a moment’s thought as to who was to build it. Bee Herrick and Alton, of course. The gas tank, pump, and pipe connections to the float furnished gratis by Luther Piper et al. Now, as the new building and road neared completion, there began a heartening succession of events. A ladies committee had been formed to select the right drapes and furniture for the club interior, and under the leadership of a Martie Wells, the committee set off on a shopping spree with wonderful results. Furthermore more donations in the form of badly needed equipment, our subscribed building funds already having been taxed to the limit, began arriving. A flagpole and mushroom anchor from Tappers woods. An old float runway from the Leveque’s in memory of their recently departed father, one of our senior skippers. Someone showed up with an old brass signal cannon. Anchors, moorings, chain, rope, and pots and pans for the galley appeared as if by magic. Even andirons and a fire screen for the monumental stone fireplace Don Wescott had created. Plus books and nautical almanacs for the book shelves. Bob Slaven and Mike Bullard, both of who had served as underwater demolition experts in the Navy during the war, undertook the tricky job of blasting away several small rock ledges doting the fleet anchorage. Cy Cousins supervised the placing of the guest moorings and undertook the job of fleet launch captain aboard the JEEVES, courtesy of Alida and fed Camp, until a suitable launch could be found. Brass bells, rugs, life rings, and even HIS and HER signs done by Cynthis Coggin materialized out of nowhere. The whole thing from this point on became one vast community efforts.
That same fall Dr. Milliken, on his way westward aboard the THISTLE, located a secondhand launch at Boothbay Harbor and bought it on the spot for $2000, phoning me before leaving that he was having the bill sent to me, much to my consternation, since I had less than $500 in the bank at the moment. However, much to my relief, his covering check arrived just in the nick of time to save the day. That narrow, cranky first club launch and committee boat was name the VIRGINIA. By midsummer of ’47 all the construction work on the new club was completed, and all that was left was to clean up the mess and hold the opening ceremonies. Plus putting up a sign at the head of the entrance road reading “Kolledgewidgewok Yacht Club – Members & Guest Only”. The final clean-up party was joined in by over 50 willing members volunteers armed with rakes, shovels, brooms, and a truck or two. At noon a picnic lunch was served to all hands by Ben Wells and Berto Nevin to the freely perspiring volunteer crew, consisting of hamburgers on buns well laced with cokes and coffee. No hard liquor to be served on the premises at any time in conjunction with sale terms set us by Mrs. Loring. By nightfall everything was ready for the grand opening, for which an entire floorshow already had been long in the works under the supervision of Sam and Suzanne Taylor. Tickets for the lobster dinner and floorshow being sold at $10 a head to help meet the final decorating expenses.
That opening extravaganza will go down in history as one of the stellar highwater marks in Blue Hill annals. It was a crashing, out of out success with some 200 guests attending. Commodore Milliken sent Captain Greenleaf around to the club anchorage aboard the THISTLE, where Seth Milliken, Minor, Johnny, and myself ferried guests out to the magnificent yawl strung with bunting and colored lights in her tall rigging, to down cocktails in the main salon at $1.50 a piece; again to swell the club coffers. Using the THISTLE’S aluminum power launch for the ferrying with all flags flying in the gloaming. But it was the show Sam and Suzanne put on after dinner that was the piece de resistance. The entire cast had worked weeks in preparation. And a whole flock of lady volunteers had labored equally long in preparing the costume for the chorus and musical numbers the Taylors had written.
The chorus consisted of eight of the loveliest and most delectable of Blue Hill’s young ladies, including amount others, Anne Wells, Cynthia Coggin, Jane Nevin, Peggy Haskell, Polly Smythe, and Suzanne Taylor’s lovely daughter by her first marriage, by the name of Robinson. The Bechton and Coggin group, dressed as four clams complete with running water, rendered their song, “Four Little Clams Are We”, in their usual hit manner, bringing down the house, Jane Nevin told fortunes for a price, wandering about the hall with her tea leaves to foretell the future with astounding accuracy. And great aplomb and beauty. I told a few of my Maine stories in what I hoped passed for something near a downeast accent, ending with Harry Conary’s old brick barge yarn of the old NORMADA. Suzanne Taylor sang a few numbers in her rich tuneful voice. And Bill Austin, Paul Nevin, and “Peanut” Royster rendered loud peals of piano music in ragtime in duets and solo as they pounded the club ivories. The final act being Henry Wanning doing his famous skaters waltz dance until he collapsed from sheer exhaustion. All in all the evening proved a great success. Luther Piper, Gale and Max Hinckley, Bob and Mrs. Duffy – even shy Harry Conary - all of whom had played a big part in the new club’s creation, were on hand to represent Blue Hill Village.
In fact, so successful was the grand opening, that he following year another costume party was held in late summer, in which Peanut Royster appeared as an outboard motor via a dismantled electric fan, and Betty Royster as the red spar buoy off Sculpin Point. Shortly after this auspicious opening the Cruising Club of America made the new yacht club and anchorage with its guest moorings, an official cruise station on the Atlantic seaboard. And perhaps most important of all, the club officers were able to hire Charlie Dethier as both sailing and swimming instructor for little “pollywogs”, as well as running both the committee boat and twice weekly races on the outer bay. Not long after the last of the faithful tubby old Brutal Beasts expired, as did a number of the J’s, leaving only one weary and sagging Alden O boat active, if not racing. You guessed it. The Rutan’s ancient UTTER ABANDON. The Brutal Beasts were replaced by a fleet of Mercuries in the early fifties, and at the last count in 1958 some twelve Atlantic’s were still actively racing after some 35 years of hard service, I am given to understand that more recently two more centerboard sloop classes were added. Woodpussies and a few MOR cruising South Coast 23’s.
Meanwhile a number of new cruising boats and day sailors joined the fleet. Doug and Dot Byers big 60 foot ketch ABENAKI, Alida Camp’s graceful 40 foot Concordia yawl THRISTLEDOWN to replace Fred Camp’s converted 12 meter LARA aboard which I was privileged to both cruise and race several times before swallowing the anchor. The last time in the inspiring company of Sam Taylor as we sweated over the genoa winches between bouts of entertaining Seth Milliken’s Russian white princess on the last Northeast cruise race. But the main thing that our many moves and countless afternoons of racing accomplished, was the creation of a sailing center for young and old at Blue Hill. A granite quarry pier and float slips, plus a sun deck now alive with young and old alike. Its runway and floats jammed with visiting boats and club dinghies to the sounds of countless babbling high pitched youthful voices filled with health, zeal, and happy excitement. That is really what it was all about. The slow gradual metamorphosis from Dr. Milliken’s club boathouse on Morgans Bay to the present site of the Kolledgewidgwok Yacht Club, flying its proud blue, green and white club burgee beside the Stars and Stripes at its trim masthead to proclaim to all the boating world: “come see us. Enjoy our hospitality here at the yacht club bearing the ancient Indian name – the green mountain floating on the sky blue water” that Dr. and Mrs. Seth M. Milliken created and gave us so long, long ago. When, some 58 years ago they first came ashore from their tiny 18 foot Swampscott dory to set foot at the mouth of beautiful Morgans Bay.
But there are a few others who also deserve mention here in this brief account of our yacht club’s early history. The men who first taught us to sail, to tie a half hitch and a bowline; and who, time after time pulled us out of the drink in the old days. And who patiently, almost lovingly, shepherded us along, race after race. Men like Warren York, Austin Chateau, Harry Conary, and Cy Cousins. And it is to them, for all of their patience and understanding, that I would like, along the Dr. and Mrs. Milliken, to dedicate this simple account.
Click here to read THE ORIGINAL ‘A brief history by Alvin dohme, 1958’
typed as close to originally written