Maine Maritime Museum welcomes home the Mary E
Courtesy / Maine Maritime Museum
The Mary E, the oldest Bath-built wooden schooner still afloat, arrives Sunday morning at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath. Hundreds greeted the arrival of the schooner, which had been built in 1906 just upriver along the Kennebec River at the site of what is now Bath Iron Works.
The oldest Bath-built wooden schooner still afloat arrived home on Sunday, greeted by hundreds of people at a Maine Maritime Museum party celebrating the Mary E’s return.
Katie Meyers, marketing and communications manager for the museum, told Mainebiz the vessel arrived safely at the museum’s campus at about 10:30 a.m. Sunday, with upwards of 800 people there to greet her. Many more, she said, had lined up at public areas along the Kennebec River, especially at Popham Beach at the mouth of the river, to view the vessel's passage upriver.
Within the next two weeks, she added, the Mary E will be hauled out of the water and into the museum’s shipyard, where completion of restoration work started by its former owner will take place from roughly mid-May to October.
Built in 1906 at the site of what is now Bath Iron Works by Thomas E. Hagan, the 73-foot two-masted schooner had a long and varied history through the 20th Century, including working as a fishing vessel and for the coastal trade. It was rebuilt in 1965-67 by William R. Donnell II of Bath and eventually sold to influential jazz musician Teddy Charles who sailed her to New York where she was one of the first schooners sailing out of South Street Seaport. In 1990, Charles moved her to Greenport, N.Y., where the Mary E sailed as a passenger vessel and traveled to Key West, Fla., in the winters.
In 2006, Matt Culen purchased the schooner and began a major restoration effort with Capt. Eric Van Dormolen in collaboration with the Long Island Maritime Museum in Greenport. He later moved her to the Connecticut River Maritime Museum and had been running river tours there every summer.
In December 2016, the board of Maine Maritime Museum approved the acquisition of Mary E and its return to Bath at the museum’s campus just downriver from Bath Iron Works on the Kennebec River. The museum plans to complete restoration started by Culen, giving the public a chance to see the shipbuilding work first hand at its campus. A fundraising effort is underway to help pay for the restoration work.
Once completed in 2018, the Mary E will be docked at the museum. It will also travel to events up and down the coast as an ambassador for the museum and Bath, the museum stated when the acquisition was announced last year.
"This is a vessel of remarkable importance, despite its modest size," said Nathan Lipfert, senior curator at the museum who is retiring this month spending more than four decades at the museum. "We have compiled a list of historic Maine vessels that are still extant, and there is nothing older, or better, that is available to us."
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