Port bow view of 6-masted schooner "Wyoming"
under full sail on her first voyage from Bath, Maine, 1909,
from Maine Memory Network.
List of Songs ~ Charlie Ipcar Home Page
Printable version ~ PDF ~ MP3 Sample ~ Notes
Port bow view of 6-masted schooner "Wyoming"
under full sail on her first voyage from Bath, Maine, 1909,
from Maine Memory Network.
Chorus:
She was the greatest schooner, that ever rode the waves
But one dark night she sank from sight, into a wat'ry grave;
Capt. Glaesel and his gallent crew, will never more be seen;
They've found their final resting place, coiled down at Fiddler's Green.
The great Wyoming was launched with cheers, in nineteen hundred and nine;
Her riggers finished up their work; her brass and paint did shine;
They passed the hawser to the tug; down the Kennebec she sped,
Once she'd cleared the Seguin Light, her canvas they did spread;
They set their course to the Southard, for the coal ports they were bound,
For Newport News or No'folk, loading up for northern towns;
A round trip run with a favoring wind would aver-age thirty days,
But if the winds should prove unfair, more weeks becalmed she'd lay.
Her six tall masts they scraped the sky, her frames were iron braced;
Like a clipper ship she'd cut the waves, at thirteen knots she'd race;
Fourteen sailors manned this schooner; they never needed more;
The booms and anchor were raised by steam as they set sail from shore;
They'd load their coal at No'folk, set sail for Portland Town,
Reload her holds with ballast there, head south for another round;
For fifteen years she plowed the waves, and served her masters well,
'Til her last trip, near Pollack Rip, she dove beneath the swell.
The Wyoming set sail from No'folk, in nineteen twenty-four,
With a fair wind blowing Nor' Nor'east, 'long the Eastern Shore;
She slugged on past Montauk Point, then for Nantucket Sound,
There she was nailed in a nor'east gale, as her bottom struck hard ground;
Her keel was shattered when she struck, her masts rolled overboard,
Great seas swept her slanted decks, through hatches water poured;
There was no time to launch the boats, no time to pray or curse;
No reprieve for those at sea; their fate could not be worse.
Next morning the Coast Watchers spied her wreckage from the dunes,
All along Nantucket's shore, spars and planks were strewn;
Of all her officers and crew no trace was ever found;
Her shattered hull still filled with coal lies nine fathoms down;
Wyoming's gone for many years, but her memory lingers on,
The Shipyard's now a Museum, her sculpture greets the dawn;
Her graceful frames are etched in white, six masts reach for the sky,
She's now in truth a ship of dreams, from a world that's long gone by.
Chorus:
She was the greatest schooner, that ever rode the waves
But one dark night she sank from sight, into a wat'ry grave;
Capt. Glaesel and his gallent crew, will never more be seen;
They've found their final resting place, coiled down at Fiddler's Green.
They've found their final resting place, coiled down at Fiddler's Green.
In the photo above, she is floating so high out of the water because she does not have a cargo. The steam exhaust visible beside her is from her donkey engine, which is hoisting her sails.
Full scale metal sculpture of the great schooner Wyoming, Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, ME, site of the Percy & Small shipyard where the ship was built; photographed by Paul Van Der Werf, October 19, 2014:
