Topsail Schooner

My grandfather's herring fishing boat probably looked like this when it was built. According to my island folk, the first schooner was built at Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1713 by Captain Andrew Robinson. When she was launched, a bystander is supposed to have cried out: "Oh how she scoons!" This Icelandic word identifies an object moving easily over water. Robinson agreed that she was indeed a"schooner" and the name stuck! In any event, a schooner is a fore and aft rigged vessel as opposed to one which is square rigged. Note that the earliest versions could not quite break from the square rigged tradition? A schooner is still usuallyu thought of as having two masts, but there have been exceptions! The mainmast was stepped near mid-ship. In other places, aside from America, square masts were carried on the main as well as the foremast. After 1840, schooners with more masts appeared on the scene and these were designated as three-masted; four-masted; five-masted and six-master schooners. The square rigging disappeared from these very large craft.

My Great Grandfather's "Schooner"

Sadly, I cannot claim any direct relationship to the folk of Lunenburg County, although the name Guptill (derived from Gubtael) is not unknown here. The Guptills were my mother's clan, and they hailed from Grand Harbour, Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. This island is the largest in the Grand Manan Archipelego. My ancestor was William Guptill of Machias, Maine, who followed the fish rather than the ideals of the American Revolution. His descendants included two Judson Guptills and my grandfather, Chester Leeman Guptill. It was Judson Junior who commissioned the building of the Grace Darling at Selmach, Nova Scotia, in 1901 (the date is sometimes given as 1904). She did not look like this at this stage, the shortened masts and wheelhouse being subtractions and additions which came some time after her creation.