Calvin Beal, Jr.’s JEANNINE MARNE, racing at Moosabec Reach in 2020.
BEALS ISLAND – Last fall I was in Wayne Beal’s Boat Shop in Jonesport and Calvin Jr. and Wayne were remarking on how much history Kenton Feeney knew about Beals and Jonesport. They then expanded on some of the topics Kenton had discussed and even began telling some of the stories that they had heard over the years. It was quickly evident that these needed to be captured, as they added to other stories already documented and the conversation that transpired covered all sorts of topics, which was fascinating.
Later in the fall I sat down with Calvin and the first story I asked about was a wreck of RIOTAMBO on the backside of Head Harbor Island that occurred he thought in the early 1930s. Calvin added, “It was loaded with laths and there was a whole bunch of fishermen that went after the laths. My father lived right there just on this upper side of Pig Island Gut. He was born and raised in that house, over by the ‘Hard Head’ they call it. They were just above the ‘Hard Head’ down next to the shore. A whole bunch of fishermen took peapods and rowboats and went down and they loaded them so full that two men got drowned. A young man living at home and of course he rowed like the rest of them down to get a load of laths. He rowed down and of course discovered they were drowned so he rowed back to let the family and people know back home what was going on and then he rowed back again. I am not sure how many trips he took back and forth, at least two if not three and he said when he got back home his arms were just about worn out.”
One must remember life was not very easy at that time. You did anything you could just to get by. Calvin explained, “My father was living at home and of course they had to put everything into the family and he was old enough that he could sell a man’s share at Underwood’s factory where the Coast Guard base is. Of course, they lived in Alley’s Bay and all they had was a peapod to get around in. They would take that peapod and they’d row down the bay down to those islands and dig clams. They were only allowed to have two gallons as there wasn’t much of a market for them. They could only sell two gallons so Daddy sold two gallons and my grandfather sold two gallons and they had a big family so…Well, my father, Uncle John and Uncle Jimmy and there was Aunt Ruth, which was Johnny Faulkingham’s mother, Aunt Gladys, Aunt Ruth, Aunt Lois, Aunt Mary, and Aunt Mandy. Aunt Mandy was a twin to Jimmy. They all lived over in there for a time, one moved over here just above the bridge, and one moved to Cape Porpoise. She and Uncle Carl, and his father was Dan Davis and he lived around Cape Porpoise so he moved up there with his father. He fished for a while, then he was the town sheriff or something and I think he bought lobsters for time. He had one other brother Ralph Davis that lived his whole life right here. He was my worm partner. What I was saying, they rowed down the bay and dig clams. Of course, they’d eat a lot of clams too to survive, but then the five girls would shuck the clams out and then they’d have to take those clams and row from there to Underwood’s factory. They got 50 cents a gallon so my father would make a dollar and my grandfather would make a dollar. Then they’d row from there down to where Benny Beal’s wharf is now, tie the boat up, go down to Russell Rogers store, get what groceries they could get and then they’d have to row home. Daddy said they couldn’t afford to buy just anything they’d buy flour and different things and then the next time they’d go they’d buy a little kerosene or whatever was needed the most and they’d they of course have to row back home afterwards. That was a kind of hard life.”
They also had a small 26-foot lobster boat with a beam of 6½-feet, which Calvin thought might have been powered with a Hubbard or some other make-and-break engine. “They fished as far off as just outside of Freeman Rock, which is the outer ledges down the bay,” added Calvin. “My father lived right home, but other used to populate all these lower islands in the western bay. There was Crumple Island and Fisherman’s Island. My grandfather only made it to the fifth grade and he quit school and went down with Jeanine’s grandfather, Hiram Alley. He lived there five winters on Fisherman’s Island. They gunned birds and they had a big dory that they would haul just up by the shore. They hauled all winter long up across there tending traps and gunning birds. They’d pick the birds and the kids would run around selling the birds to people around the island and they only got like 25 cents a pair picked with heart, liver, and gizzard in them. Old Squaws were smaller birds they were 10 cents. Then he had a little small lobster car, probably four or five times bigger than a lobster crate. Once they got enough lobsters they would bring them to town. They loved it down there.”
The fishermen today do not camp on the islands like they used. On Crumple Island there are four camps and only one is used today, but just for a week or two. There were several camps on Slate Island, which is further up the Bay and at low tide you could walk out to. However today there are only two or three camps that are livable. At Black Duck Cove there were 10 to 15 camps which were used by the rowboat fishermen. In recent year they were used as summer rentals, but only a few are used for this today.
Calvin was born in 1944 and grew up on Alley’s Bay. He said, “My father used to be a part of a seining crew and they would stay in what we call the Mud Hole. They had a 45-foot Novi, which had a pretty good cockpit and a cabin full of twine with a string of dories full of twine. They also had a herring weir outside the Mud Hole. There is a place they call ‘Over the Bar,’ a little deep spot, probably 10-12 feet of water at low tide, nice anchorage. It could blow most any breeze and they didn’t have any problems. He did that for a lot of years. He never liked camping, but he’d stay in that seine boat all summer. I used to go down and stay with them. I think I was 8 or 10 and I slept on that old cold side locker. They’d open that door and that cool wind would come right up by me. I used to go with him to haul his traps too. He had a boat that was built by Milt Beal and he built a bunch of boats over Alley’s Bay. That boat was just as round as a barrel, small stern kind of a belly on them. They’d roll you right to death but they were some sea boats. They were unreal running on a sea when you’d come in, she would sit right on that sea just like a hen in her nest and glide in. She was 32-footer, 9 feet wide. When I went with him, she had a six-cylinder flat head Pontiac engine. I think when she was new, she had a straight 8 Buick and then he went to a 6-cylinder Ford Flagship. She was named CALVIN, JR. He had her built the year I was born. Before that he had a torpedo stern, which I think Alton Rogers built.”
Almost everyone living on Alley’s Bay fished. Calvin said, “Archie Alley, he had three boys. Dicky Alley, he used to race a lot, the LORNA R., there was Lee Alley and Archie, Jr., who also raced a lot. Hiram Alley, the Big Bad Wolf they called him, he had the KATHLEEN A. that he used to race years ago, before the MARGUERITE G. In my mind that was the first boat that came up and planed over the water more than cutting through the water. He duplicated it one boat, he named it for my sister MYRTLE L. We had MARGUERITE on the beach, which was when my brother Wayne bought her from Jimmy Preston, and back then they used to have quite a bit of overhang on the horn timber and she started to twist and drop her horn timber. You could see it right in the waterline. I said, ‘You bring her up on the beach and we will fix her.’ We leveled her up and then we jacked her stern up and hung her so her keel was right off the beach and we put two 55-gallon drums under her stern and then we took bags of sand and we sand bagged her and let her sit. When the waterline started to turn up a little then we went and put some clamps right in under her deck. I think that is the fastest she ever went was when Wayne had her.”
Wayne purchased MARGUERITE G. in the early to mid-1970s and it was at this time that Calvin had started building boats on his own. He was building in wood, but it was becoming obvious that fiberglass would become the material of choice in the very near future.
Calvin married Jeanine Marie Alley on 10 May 1965. Her father was Clifton C. Alley, who was a lobster fisherman from Beals. His wife was Octavia A. Peabody, who operated a grocery store on the island. When Calvin and Wayne were telling stories at Wayne Beal Boat Shop, Calvin discussed the abilities of the Peabody’s as sea captains. I remember interviewing Obed Peabody on Beals back in the late 1980s or early 1990s. He was Jeanine’s mother’s first cousin and he ran smacks from Canada and Downeast ports to Boston and New York.
Calvin added, “Jeanine’s grandfather, Stevie, was known to be the best sea captain on the coast here. The first mate that went with Stevie on the vessels was telling Tommy (Jeanine’s uncle) what happened and he said that they were someplace (Parrsboro, Nova Scotia) in Canada and they loaded that vessel full of laths for New York, there was like six million laths. They started out and ran offshore outside the islands and headed for New York. They ran into a snowstorm and it snowed for 72 hours, the type of snowstorm that melted off as fast as it landed. Stevie used to get seasick when it was rough and he’d get out of his bunk and walk up and throw a lath overboard and walk the rail and see if he could figure out how fast the boat was drifting. All they had was just the sail out on the stern to try and keep ahead of it. When he got through, he calculated that he was 150 miles off course. Stevie told the mate, he said watch for a light at midnight and five minutes to 12:00 he saw the light. He was 5 minutes off after being blown off course 150 miles and sailing clear to New York.”
This schooner was three-master LAVINIA M. SNOW, which was built by I. L. Snow & Co. of Rockland in 1893 and the voyage above was 1909. This schooner would founder off Cape Hatteras in 1930. He also was skipper of the two-masted 86-foot schooner LIZZIE D. PEABODY built in Harrington in 1917. She was built right next to the three-masted schooner LUCY EVELYN it the Thomas L. Greenlaw yard. Calvin added, “Stevie had sailed enough so he knew how a vessel should be built. He told them he wanted her real full forward and he wanted the rudder back as far as they could get it. Of course, from here to Harrington was a big deal and when he went up, they had her all set up and they had the rudder too far up under her and he said she wouldn’t handle good. He tried to steer her and she wanted to pay off. He didn’t like the boat; I don’t think he had her many years and he sold her.
“He used to handle all of the coal and cans for the sardine factories so he made good money back in those days,” continued Calvin. “He could come right in here (Barney’s Point), they called this ‘The Shelter’ because of all the trees here and he’d come right in close to the shore and keep dropping his sails and he’d go right straight in under his own power right into the factory. Uncle Tommy said he was kind of conceded too because he wouldn’t throw a big hawser out, he’d always throw a small line to them, because he was going so slow that they could stop her with a small line. Stevie was also the type that when they were under sail, he had his crew scraping, painting, cleaning the vessel and his brother wasn’t so clean. He said the thing was full of bugs and they never kept the vessel up.
“You probably didn’t know Ralph Alley,” continued Calvin. “He lived right up around the corner here. Ralph Alley and Raynard Alley was his son. Ralph’s boat was the BETTER HALF and Raynard’s was the OTHER HALF. Anyway, Frank Alley, he lived over in Alley’s Bay, where we called it the ‘Back Field.’ He had a Friendship sloop and he went to haul one day, in that sloop and of course all it was sail power and a big pair of oars. He said he was hauling from Freeman Rock up towards the Red Head up on the backside of Beals and the wind dropped out, flat calm. Around 11 o’clock in the day and he said that’s when he started rowing, he said midnight he was coming through Pig Island Gut. He rowed that Friendship sloop. It took him 12 hours to get home.
It one time there were lots of Friendship sloops used as fishing boats in Beals and Jonesport, but by World War II they had all disappeared.
One of the most noted stories involved Calvin and his new boat LITTLE GIRL, which was getting ready for the fourth of July lobster boat races in 1981. He was making a run down the Reach and just before going under the bridge the steering let go. Calvin added, “When the steering let go the tide pulled her right over to the bridge and snapped her rear end right around because she was angled just enough that when she hit. There were some people on the bridge and saw it when she crashed. On board was Wayne, Jeremy, I think he was probably close to two, Ralph Davis, Jr., Jimmy Preston, Tommy Young from Winter Harbor and Scott his boy, and my daughter and me. Jimmy Preston never moved, he hung right on to the corner of the stern and Tommy Young, I can’t remember where he was in the boat, and Scott and my son were sitting on a plastic gas can they never moved. Ralph, Jr. was in the stern and I don’t think he moved. Wayne was sitting on the corner of the stern, on the port side hanging onto the baby. He skidded right on his elbows right from there to the back of the house and fell overboard. Jeremy went right up into the air and plopped into the water. Wayne saw his little red baseball hat and he swam right over to that and of course there was nothing. He said something hit his leg and of course he was so intent on getting to that cap that he didn’t even know that he had hit Jeremy with his leg. All I was thinking was my brand-new boat is stove all to shit and she was. She hit so hard she flexed enough that it squeezed the seam compound out from her stem right to her stern on the port side. Her starboard side wasn’t hurt a bit. I heard Ralph, Jr. he says, ‘He’s right there.’ I turned and ran down and jumped up onto the stern deck and looked down and all I could see was a little thing underwater, which looked like a bleach jug. It was just swirling going right down and I dove off of the boat and I when I stopped, I opened my eyes and he was right there. I just took him right around the waist and they said when I came out of the water, I shot him right in air. Wayne swam over where I was and wrapped his arm around him. Ralph, Jr. had thrown a line and it went across Wayne’s hand. Wayne took a twist and all of the sudden they were going. I was swimming with everything that was in me and I was just about staying with them and then I saw what they were doing, when I stopped, I went lifeless. I didn’t have enough strength to move hardly. The one they call Mickey Mouse; he came up with an outboard motor and I put my arms in over and my legs went right up under his boat and there I was. He grabbed me by the collar and started pulling and I said you are not getting me in the boat, so he just hung onto my arm to make sure that I didn’t settle back into the water. Jackie Backman and Carl Woodard and they were in their boat ahead of me, when they saw what happened. They turned around and he and Carl got me into the boat. I then got over and got into the LITTLE GIRL and Jeannelle had gone flying right straight into the cabin, and I don’t know what she hit but it split her head open.”
LITTLE GIRL had some serious damage and needed to be repaired as soon as possible so as not to lose much fishing time. The keel was split at the stem joint, the stem was split and she needed to be re-caulked on the port side. There was no practical way to haul her back to Calvin’s shop so they took her over to Clifford Alley’s shop, which was right on the water with a boat ramp. In about a week she was back in the water and ready to go fishing.
Calvin started building boats on his own in 1971. He had worked a bit with Ernest Libby, Jr. (Nernie) and helped him build Barna Norton’s wooden boat CHIEF. Calvin added, “Riley Beal built one for Barna Norton, CHIEF PERIO and he brought that half model over to Nernie and asked him to build him a new one, but he wanted her wider. She was 9½ feet wide and he wanted her 10 feet wide well. Nernie grabbed his scale rule put it on the model and said Well, this is a 10-foot-wide boat. Riley Beal had narrowed it up. I helped him build that right from scratch.”
The first boat Calvin built was a 22-footer for himself called J. J. and powered with Chevrolet 283 gasoline engine. The following year he built a 21-foot outboard boat for himself. He said, “Those fellows were building boats for a business and I wasn’t. I just started a boat because I wanted a boat. I’d start her and someone would come along, she’d probably be about half done and they’d buy it.”
The first boat he designed as a fiberglass model was the Holland 22. “Glenn wanted it 22 feet, 7½-feet wide, said Calvin. I built her like a wooden boat, timbered out and oak keel. Terry Jason was going to do the faring and put the motor in. I said I will come up and help you set her up and they said, oh no, we can do it. I don’t know if they wanted me around because they put more sheer in the nose of her. That didn’t bother me, but I went up and they had her upside down, but she was bearing on the end of her stem and the end of her stern and just being a wooden strip boat with no clamps or anything in her, she started hogging in her bottom and when you put an inboard in her, she just wouldn’t lift, she’d just drive her nose down.”
“Terry was very smart, added Calvin, “he could take a 25-foot boat and rig a block and tackle and hook it to his pickup truck and take off like a rocket and that boat would come up and flip right over.”
Not long after Calvin combined with his brother Wayne and they produced the Wayne Beal 23. This was followed by the T. Jason 25 and the South Shore 30 in the mid-1980s. The plug for the South Shore 30 was purchased by Dwight Carver and Calvin finished that off for him. Then Calvin built the Crowley 28 and 36 for Don Crowley of Winter Harbor. He then built the South Shore 38. Now the 34 South Shore came when Peter Rackliffe made a deal to mould Calvin’s brother-in-law’s new boat. This boat would also be used to make the mould for the Wayne Beal 34. Then came the Mitchell Cove line of boats starting with the 32 followed by the 35 and the 28, which was moulded off LITTLE GIRL. Wayne would also take a mould off LITTLE GIRL, but he raised the sheer five inches and put concave flare in the bow. Calvin also created a 36 and 40 for his brother. Following the fire that claimed most of Wayne’s moulds, Wayne was able to resurrect a 42, which turned into a 46. The Wayne Beal 28 then went to Mussel Ridge in Cushing. Then Calvin began creating his own line of hulls, working with Scott Lessard out of the South Shore Boat Shop in Northport. They started with a 36 and this was followed by the 38, 34, and 44. Calvin said had he introduced the 44 a few years earlier he would have sold a lot more. Then Calvin made a deal with Stewart Workman of S. W. Boatworks of Lamoine, who now sells all these models, plus a 30-footer. Calvin actually bought the plug back and sold it to his son-in-law. He explained, “She was all glass up, but she had a plywood keel. We just laid up the keel on over her. Then we pre-drilled it and hauled that off, took the skill saw and sawed the keel right out of her, set that right back down on wet mat and screwed it right down the whole way around and glassed it. Rolled her over, glassed right straight down in the hull and down into the keel, and glassed her right together. When we rolled her over, we lost her and she struck and her keel and bounced and skidded across the floor and never hurt her a bit. She is tough.”
Now there is another wooden hull inside the shop, which is a new 28 model for Jeremy Beal. She is inch cedar by 5/8-inch cedar strips and already glassed on the inside.
Calvin always loved to paint and there was always plenty of that to do one the wooden boats. There were standard colors, mostly white hulls trimmed in either beige or green, but Calvin liked and this became known as ‘Calvin Blue.’ Now Jeanine’s grandfather Stevie Peabody said blue was for wheelbarrows and shit houses. He wouldn’t put blue on and called it Jonah Blue.
Well, Calvin has given the shop up to his son Calvin S., who has worked with him since he was in high school. To date he has built almost ten boats and there is another in there this winter and before Calvin Jr. heads for Florida for the winter you can find him in the shop giving his son a hand. However just after Thanksgiving he is on his way south and looking forward to playing some golf.
