The Brockton Tragedy at Moosehead Lake by James E. Benson Nicole B. Casper

Author:James E. Benson, Nicole B. Casper [James E. Benson, Nicole B. Casper]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, New England (CT; MA; ME; NH; RI; VT)
ISBN: 9781467139328
Google: ltBTDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: History Press
Published: 2018-01-15T16:02:11+00:00

Mac II, no date. Courtesy the Moosehead Historical Society.

On Friday, May 19, nearly a week after the accident, the Mac II was raised from the depths of Moosehead Lake by the steamer Katahdin after a diver hooked a chain to the bow and winched it upward. The Katahdin had been at work since the accident took place, pulling chains and grappling irons and tending a scow that served as a working platform for divers. The Katahdin’s owners, the Coburn Steamboat Company, and its vice-president and treasurer, C.F. Woodward, placed the vessel at the disposal of the search party, with the company absorbing the $200-per-day cost of operating the vessel, not including the lost revenue of hauling massive rafts of logs down the lake. The Mac II was brought nearly to the surface and towed to Kineo, where it was pulled from the water on the boat railway and drained. It was then refloated and towed to the West Outlet Camps on Saturday morning for inspection by Archie Fairbanks and Frank A. Dolloff of Augusta, the assistant inspector of utilities for the State of Maine. The Brockton Enterprise reported on May 19 that as the boat sat at West Outlet Camps, there was no indication that ten men had lost their lives on board. It was reported that even the glass in the windows of the superstructure was still intact.109 Enterprise reporter Thomas E. Sullivan was present for the inspection, and inspector Fairbanks gave Sullivan the following statement:

I find nothing wrong with the boat. The seams are tight and I find no hole in the boat’s bottom. It seems possible that the automatic pump failed to work. That is likely because there is delicate mechanism in it that might have been put out of order through fouling of a small wire under the floor boards. Often waste material works into pumps disabling them.110

At the insistence of Governor Brewster, a second probe was conducted on the morning of May 22 and involved county attorney Clarke from the Attorney General’s Office, inspectors Fairbanks and Dolloff, Deputy Sheriff Rogers of Greenville, boat owner J. Fred Sawyer, survivor Captain James Lays and Dr. F.R. French of Brockton. On May 29, Fairbanks and Dolloff released the official report of their investigation, the text of which follows:

On May 13, 1928, the boat left Sawyer’s Wharf about 4:40 P.M. headed for R.F. Spinney’s camp at Tomhegan, a distance of approximately 37 miles. After proceeding about 16 miles, one of the passengers, James E. Lays observed water on top of the floor in the rear cockpit. He called the attention of operator Budden to the fact who immediately came back and proceeded to either open or clear the automatic bilge pump the outlet of which is through the keel of the boat. Then he returned to the bow of the boat after which Captain Lays said the water lowered out of sight below the floor of the boat.

In a very short period of time water again appeared and increased rapidly.

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