The Captain Lewy

A Little Piece of Maine History

The Captain Lewy is located on the west shore of Greenland Point. While all that remains of her is half a rusty boiler, a dozen or so hull timbers, and many old spikes, the Captain continues to be a source of mystery and legends today. Below is the history of the Captain Lewy.

The Captain Lewy, a big paddle wheel steamboat, plied the Big Lake waterways in Washington County, Maine between 1853 and the 1920's. The facts tend to diminish the glory about this old boat; but another fact is that just the mention of this name sparks a lively interest in many eyes, or recall of fond memories of a subject long gone. People in the Big Lake region will even go to the spot in Greenland Cove on Long Lake where its last owners towed it to be burned some fifty-odd years ago and muse over the few planks under water there on shore, as though to dredge up some memory to keep it alive. To us now it is a one-of-a-kind memorial to early history. It would be a likely guess that a third of the families of the surrounding towns of this lake region would have in their proud possession a postcard, or photo, or momento of bolts, boards, or just pieces of the old Captain Lewy.

It came as rather a shock when one senior citizen described her as 'just an old scow with several structures built on to it.' In view of its long useful life one tended to glorify it more than that. Minnie Atkinson, author of Hinckley Township, or Grand Lake Stream Plantation (1920) assessed the steamboat in these words: 'The Captain Lewy is said to have been built in 1854. It retains it's identity by grace of a succession of parts....'

There are several matters of historical report which differ. First, the spelling of Lewy (or Lewy); second, the year it was built - 1853 (or 1854); third, the length of the boat - 110 (or 100ft.). From this point on I have chosen to use the spelling Lewy as used in Belmore's Early Princeton, Maine. He tells of the first person to settle in what grew into the town of Princeton - an Indian who had come up the St. Croix River from 'salt water below' (the Calais - St. Andrews area). He said his name was Louis and the white settlers spelled his name Lewy, as he pronounced it. The settlement which grew up in the vicinity of this Indian's island home was called Lewy's Island. Historical notes say that people in West Princeton spoke of going to town as 'going out to The Island'. It was later, in 1832, that the town was incorporated by an act of the Legislature and named Princeton instead. Also to support the spelling of Lewy, the Princeton order of Masons was chartered and incorporated as Lewy's Island Masonic Lodge #138. Further the lake which Princeton skirts was named after this outstanding Indian, is called Lewy Lake. Now we go on to what Harold Davis, in An International Community on the St. Croix, calls the 'first of the lake steamers', in the Big Lake region.

Charles Spooner and Abbott Moore built the steamer. It was financed by the Schoodic Lake Steamboat Corporation, a group of Washington County mill operators and lumber merchants. Her purpose was to tow rafts of logs to a point where they could be floated from the lake system into the west branch of the St. Croix River. Shares of stock were sold at twenty dollars par, but in years to follow they began practically worthless to minority holders. George F. Todd became sole owner of the steamer, then in 1889 he sold it to Henry McAllister who operated the Lewy for many years.

Before World War I the St. Croix Paper Company, now Georgia-Pacific, bought the steamer and it was said by Belmore 'they laid out a large sum of money in reconditioning her. In about three years the paper company shifted its main operations from the Big Lake section to its lands on the East branch of the St. Croix River, and the boat ceased to be of use to the company or anyone else. The steamer, engines and all, was sunk in Greenland Cove on Long Lake without the ceremony due its long and useful career.' She was the last, as well as the first, of several steamers in this lake region.

The boiler and two engines for the Captain Lewy were hauled from Calais to Princeton over the Baring and Houlton road, now Rt. 1. The boat was built along the lines of the Mississippi River steamers. It was flat bottomed with no keel. It measured 110' long, and drew only two feet of water. The boiler, 'as big as a car,' I was told, was fired by cordwood, which was piled on each side of the vessel. The engine room was aft with two steam cylinder engines located one on each side of the vessel with a big piston on both sides that ran to the end and turned the paddle wheel. The midship section housed a dining area and two bunks for the crew. There was no railing around the boat and it was not painted.

The Indian Lewy, because of his experience and knowledge of the waters, particularly the position of natural channels, was hired as a navigator on this stern wheeler, which was named for him. He would station proudly at the bow and motion to the man in the wheel-house above, what direction to take, thereby earning himself the name 'Captain Lewy' from then on.

While at his summer cottage on Big Lake, the artist, Tristam Richards, Princeton born but a resident of Tyrone, PA., built a replica of the Captain Lewy to scale. A clock mechanism moved the paddle wheel. He donated the replica to the St. Croix Historical Society, this being the only such society or museum depository in the area. Presently the Holmes Cottage in Calais, housing the artifacts of the Society, is closed; but hopefully there will be a future opening when this may be viewed.

The diaries of Cyrus Smith(1840-1911) of Princeton, give a vivid historical record of the steamer in its last active years. The following exerts are from 1892 in particular, and explanations are in (parentheses).

Other people known to have worked in the crew of the Captain Lewy are:
John McCurdy, Tom Calligan, Alden Kneeland, Ed White, Horace and Jim McLaughlin, Dan Kidder, Bun Crosby, George Monk Sr., Maurice Dawe, Lon Monk, and Ward McCann. Some of the cooks were: Asa Sprague, Calvin Carle, and George Soctomah.

At the Narrows between Big and Long Lake at Indian Point, and again at Kneeland's Narrows between Long and Lewy Lake, they used a capstan. The vertical cleated drum or cylinder revolved on an upright spindle in the center of the headworks and the crew used ropes around this to position the booms, bringing the logs up to the big raft. Then they opened up the boom and the current carried the logs down through the narrows. On the other side of the narrows there were piers with connecting boom logs to catch and gather the boom together again.

This has been a partial record of a working steamer. I am indebted to Maurice Richards for information in a short article, I Remember the Captain Lewy. There are other memories: the story of the race between the Captain Lewy and the Barnard. Although smaller boats like the Barnard and the Wildcat usually were engaged to take church groups up lake for Sunday school picnics, at least once it is recalled the Captain Lewy took them - or rather, it pulled a scow loaded with people. Settees and chairs were put on the scow for comfort - also a barrel of Ice water was taken on board.

At the end of each logging season the Captain Lewy was brought to shore at several locations throughout its history. Sometimes it was brought up in the area of the old fairgrounds on Lewy Lake, sometimes in Dresser's Cove, which is across Lewy Lake on the Indian Township side where Play Stead Camps are located. It is last remembered pulled upon ways in out of season at the place near MacKechnie's Mill just across the bridge on the Indian Township side. By prearrangement, when the boat was taken for the final run of the season to its moorings, the children of the town were invited to ride across the lake on her. Her towing season was short, beginning when the ice went out of the lakes, and ending sometime in July. With a fond backward glance. Fred Richards told me what fun they used to have swimming by the paddlewheel, reaching up to catch hold of the paddles, trying to climb up them as they turned on down and around.

Logs are still cut in this area, harvested by mechanical equipment and loaded on long trailer trucks. So logs still flow through Princeton, but down the Route 1 highway instead of by waterway.

---Roberta Carle Wheaton, Slipps Point, Princeton, ME - 1970's

Still over twenty years later the remains of the Captain Lewy still survive on the shore of Greenland Cove for everyone to see, and it continues to take children on rides every season, if only in their imaginations...

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Revised February 24, 1999