This is a new story, titled “Wrecker’s Tale”. Captain Dan Benson is the captain of a two-masted schooner, the Jenney Mae. His schooner is used to take his pineapples from his plantation to market and also wrecking. Wrecking means he will go out to a shipwreck and save people, ship, and cargo. It is an additional lucrative business because of the many storms and the reefs along the Keys.
Wrecker’s Tale
Captain Dan Benson came down from his Captain’s Walk or copula as some called it. This was a lookout on the top of his house. He told his wife Jennie that he just saw the signal flag from his schooner that his first mate had run up. This meant all of the provisions were loaded. He had to make a run with his crew up to Key Largo where his pineapple plantation was located.
He kissed and hugged his two teenage daughters, Anne and Clare, and then Jennie, and went outside. He took the usual walk around his house before he went down the street. He was very proud of this house, the original three-bay Classic Revival Temple house he purchased right after the Civil War. It was because he had been successful as a Bahamian seaman and wrecker that he was able to buy both his pineapple plantation in the Upper Keys, and then this house in Key West. Not bad for a man born in 1830!
He had extended the porches to the side and then put the main entrance there. A dining room and connecting parlor were added a couple of years later. The crowning jewel was the Captain's Walk on the top. This was where he could watch the harbor and the ships coming and going.
The original structure was built of heart pine and Honduran mahogany. It made use of wooden pegs, mortise-and-tendon joints,* and an internal structure of fine-squared timbers. He had made sure the addition kept up this quality of construction.
Captain Dan started his six block stroll to the Key West docks. He could have hired one of the drivers to take him in a buggy, but he wasn’t in a hurry.
He enjoyed this walk. First, he went past the new stone Methodist church which he attended when he was ashore. This church was one of the few structures built from coral stone quarried on the island. It was an outstanding sight, especially with the tall Spanish laurel tree growing right next to it.
After going past his church he turned north through the town section. There were small shops, inns, and houses of spirits, and there were dock workers and the usual US Navy sailors about. Key West has always had its complement of Navy personnel on the island. This has been since Commodore David Porter* first sailed into Key West harbor.
In April, 1823 the commodore arrived with a squadron to establish a depot, to end piracy, and stop slave ships. Because it had a natural deep water harbor, Key West had been the primary port between New Orleans and Jacksonville during the Civil War.
Dan passed through the merchants’ warehouses and then came to the wharves and piers. He liked to make a mental note of what boats were in port. What he especially liked to see was his schooner. He rounded the corner and there it was, his two-masted schooner, the Jenney Mae. She was of a good size, 80 feet from the bowsprit* to the stern. It was 18 feet wide amidships, had a shallow draft of five feet max, and was built for speed.
The schooner had windward ability (close sailing to the wind). It was deep built behind, light in the front and gaff rigged.* The raked* masts supported much canvas. The rear mast was 68 feet to the extreme top, and the front mast about eight feet shorter. There were two quarter boats,* one on each side in the rear.
This boat was built in Key West. They had used a native wood, mahogany, which was called madeira by the locals. This wood would outlast many other woods. It was strong and light. A special trait was that it would not rot, and Teredo worms* wouldn't touch it.
Dan had bought it two years earlier when it was completed and was put up for sale. He wanted to use it to carry his pineapples to market. The Jenney Mae would complement the small 40 foot single-masted sloop* he kept at his pineapple plantation at Plantation Key. His wish for it was to use it as a wrecker when the opportunity presented itself.
Consequently, he had set it up with all the necessary equipment he would need. The boat had two spare 750-pound anchors, and he had the two longboats stowed aft for moving the anchors or ship’s cargo as needed during a wrecking salvage operation. He also had hooks, blocks, tackles, lines, axes, saws, and carpenter’s tools.
His first mate, John, saw him and waved. He crossed the gangplank and up onto the deck of his ship.
“How goes it, John?”
“We’re loaded and ready to cast off, Captain,” John answered.
“Did you have any luck finding men?” Dan asked.
“Yes Sir. Only two, but they’re fine men,” John exclaimed. “You know, Capt’n it’s hard to find seamen who don’t mind farming, but since you pay good, they're ready.”
“Just one minute, Capt’n. Ok, mates, gangplank in and cast off.”
The four regular crew members and the two new men ran about getting the boat loose from its tyings.
“Captain, as you can see and feel, the wind is right to pull us out from the dock. We’ll be out in the channel in no time.”
“Right, John. Carry on.”
“Aye aye, Sir!”
It seemed this Key West port had, for most of the time, a cooperative breeze. If there wasn’t one, they would have to man the two quarter boats with a couple of hired hands to tow the ship away from the pier, and get her out into the harbor.
Dan thought, it was summer and only eight 'clock early morning. That was good, for they would get up to the Key Largo harbor, and it would still be light when they went into the channel. He would never chance it in the dark unless it was an emergency or a wreck was in progress.
The usual method they used, if they weren't taking on a lot of supplies, was, they would anchor in the harbor and go back and forth in the quarter boats.
“There, we’re underway sir. Yonder, there is one of the new men, Roberts. He is a new Englander and Benjamin, the dark Bahamian there, is a salvage diver. We’re in luck. He’s got experience diving on at least three wrecks and grows fruit back home. Looks like a double helping, Sir.”
“Good work, John,” Captain Dan commented. “Let’s tak’er out into the Southwest channel, then east up the Hawk Channel along the Keys.”
It was a long trip of sailing, about 75 nautical miles east-northeast and then northeast another 15 miles to Key Largo. John loved this trip. It took about ten hours. Key Largo was the largest and longest of the Keys. Their course took them as much as five miles out from the chain of Keys and as little as a half of a mile.
The water was turquoise. Farther out was the deep blue of the straits of Florida. You could see large flocks of ibis and gulls with the occasional line of fishing pelicans skimming the tops of the waves. Porpoise abounded in these waters and raced playfully alongside the Jenney Mae as she traveled up the Keys. It was a beautiful day, and the first mate “heaved the log.”*
“It looks good, Sir. We’re traveling along at ten knots,” John exclaimed.
“It’s looking shipshape, John. At this rate we’ll be there on time. Since we have six shipmates now, in two hours, let two men be relieved for an hour, then two more, and the last two after the noon meal. We should be there around five this evening with plenty of sun to guide us in through the channel.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
From the Author:
My second full-length book , Florida Keys’ Watercolor Kapers is composed of 336 pages. There are 12 stories running from 6 pages to as many as 72 pages. It is fully illustrated with 88 watercolors and sketches. The watercolors I made roaming around Key West after I finished my 750 mile hike from Georgia to Key West. (See book or Don Browne’s SouthWest Florida Online News records, A Walk Across Florida.) As you read these stories you will experience Key West, the Keys, and the Caribbean. These stories span the time of the early 1800’s to 1969.
bkranich.wixsite.com/bobkranich
