In Episode 331 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger stroll the beach of Harpswell, Maine, scanning the horizon for a ghost ship called Sarah that dates back to a torrid and tragic story from 1813. They say if you spot the ship, it’s a harbinger of doom. That someone in Harpswell will die. Poet John Greenleaf Whittier immortalized the story in one of his haunting poems.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Voice Actor: Michael Legge
Theme Music by: John Judd
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The Dead Ship of Harpswell, by John Greenleaf Whittier
What flecks the outer gray beyond
The sundown’s golden trail?
The white flash of a sea-bird’s wing,
Or gleam of slanting sail?
Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point,
And sea-worn elders pray,—
The ghost of what was once a ship
Is sailing up the bay.
From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,
O hundred-harbored Maine!
But many a keel shall seaward turn,
And many a sail outstand,
When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms
Against the dusk of land.
She rounds the headland’s bristling pines;
She threads the isle-set bay;
No spur of breeze can speed her on,
Nor ebb of tide delay.
Old men still walk the Isle of Orr
Who tell her date and name,
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards
Who hewed her oaken frame.
What weary doom of baffled quest,
Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine?
What makes thee in the haunts of home
A wonder and a sign?
No foot is on thy silent deck,
Upon thy helm no hand;
No ripple hath the soundless wind
That smites thee from the land!
For never comes the ship to port,
Howe’er the breeze may be;
Just when she nears the waiting shore
She drifts again to sea.
No tack of sail, nor turn of helm,
Nor sheer of veering side;
Stern-fore she drives to sea and night,
Against the wind and tide.
In vain o’er Harpswell Neck the star
Of evening guides her in;
In vain for her the lamps are lit
Within thy tower, Seguin!
In vain the harbor-boat shall hail,
In vain the pilot call;
No hand shall reef her spectral sail,
Or let her anchor fall.
Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy,
Your gray-head hints of ill;
And, over sick-beds whispering low,
Your prophecies fulfil.
Some home amid yon birchen trees
Shall drape its door with woe;
And slowly where the Dead Ship sails,
The burial boat shall row!
From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point,
From island and from main,
From sheltered cove and tided creek,
Shall glide the funeral train.
The dead-boat with the bearers four,
The mourners at her stern,—
And one shall go the silent way
Who shall no more return!
And men shall sigh, and women weep,
Whose dear ones pale and pine,
And sadly over sunset seas
Await the ghostly sign.
They know not that its sails are filled
By pity’s tender breath,
Nor see the Angel at the helm
Who steers the Ship of Death!
. . . . .
‘Chill as a down-east breeze should be,’
The Book-man said. ‘A ghostly touch
The legend has. I’m glad to see
Your flying Yankee beat the Dutch.’
‘Well, here is something of the sort
Which one midsummer day I caught
In Narragansett Bay, for lack of fish.’
‘We wait,’ the Traveller said;
‘serve hot or cold your dish.’
Harpswell, Maine, circa 1910.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[OCEAN WAVES / SEAGULLS]
RAY: It’s a cold and gloomy winter’s day to be out here on the shores of Maine.
JEFF: It is. Not really a day for the beach. It looks downright… I don’t know…
RAY: Ominous?!
JEFF: Yes. Ominous. You almost get the feeling something bad is in the air. Look at the icy fog rolling across the water…
RAY: Okay, now I’m a little freaked out. I’m sure the islands of Harpswell, Maine, are picture perfect in the summer, but right now… yeah…
JEFF: Being here near dusk. It feels gloomy. Like something bad could happen at any time.
RAY: Right…
JEFF: Keep your eyes pealed on the water, Ray. Because we’re looking for a ghost ship. And I hope for the sake of the people of Harpswell that we don’t see it, because if we do, it means a local is going to die. We’re in Maine searching for the Dead Ship of Harpswell.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger, and welcome to Episode 331 of the New England Legends podcast. We’re on a mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. So many of our story leads come from you, so please reach out to us anytime through our Web site with your tales of ghosts, monsters, aliens, roadside oddities, true crime, and the just plain weird. We love hearing from you.
JEFF: Quick announcement! Zombie Prom 2024 is coming to Milford, Massachusetts, on Saturday, February 17th to benefit Community Harvest Project in Grafton. Ray and I have been hosting this event for years. It’s a ton of fun for a great cause. Check out our Web site for ticket information and hotel deals. We’ll get back to searching for the Dead Ship of Harpswell right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
RAY: Okay, Jeff. Ghost ships always freak me out.
JEFF: I get it. We’ve covered a few of them before.
RAY: We’ve learned over the years there’s two kinds of ghost ships.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: There’s the physical ship. It’s solid. You can touch it. But it has no living person aboard, yet it sails itself.
JEFF: Yup. Like the Mary Celeste we covered way back in Episode 88.
RAY: Right. Then there’s the other kind of ghost ship. A phantom ship that’s seen and then vanishes.
JEFF: Like the Ghost Ship of New Haven harbor that we covered back in Episode 43. We’ve actually covered several ghost ships. Both kinds over the years.
RAY: So is this one the crewless kind or the phantom kind?
JEFF: This is a little of both! And they say it’s a harbinger of death. If you spot the ship, it means someone in Harpswell is going to die. The legend even made it into one of John Greenleaf Whittier’s poems way back in 1866.
RAY: If you’ve been listening to us for a while, that’s a name you’ve heard before. Whittier covered many New England Legends in his day, but he did it in poem form.
JEFF: That he did.
RAY: A little more about Harpswell, Maine. The town is made up of a peninsula and more than 30 small islands. The town was incorporated in 1758 and grew on the back of farming, fishing, and shipbuilding. Author Harriet Beecher Stowe once called Harpswell home.
JEFF: No doubt the sea has been an integral part of life here for centuries. Folks here lived and died by the ocean, so it makes sense they’d keep a close eye on any signs the mighty Atlantic might offer. To find this ghost ship, let’s head back to 1812 and visit Harpswell.
[TRANSITION]
[SPRING BIRDS]
RAY: It’s a beautiful day here in late April of 1812. It’s an exciting time for this young country called America. Fortunes are being made all the time. Here in Maine…
[HORSES TROTTING]
RAY: Two young men, Charles Jose and George Leveret of Portland are riding Middle Road to Yarmouth. The two childhood friends are loaded up with their family’s money and heading to Freeport.
JEFF: Their plan is to commission a full-rigged ship for the West Indian trade. They’re chasing their fortune with plans to take salt cod, pine boards, and barrel staves to the southern islands and bring back molasses, rum, coffee, and sugar for sale up north.
[HORSE STOPS]
RAY: It’s about noon when the two young men reach the Inn at South Freeport. It’s here they plan to take a break and eat their dinner before heading to the shipyard to negotiate their ship purchase.
[DINNER PLATES CLINKING / DINERS EATING]
RAY: Dinner is served by the Innkeeper’s daughter. A young woman named Sarah Soule. She’s beautiful, and full of all the charm an innkeeper needs to keep customers coming back. Charles and George are both smitten. Neither has ever seen a more beautiful woman.
[DINNER SOUNDS FADE]
JEFF: With dinner finished, George Leveret is ready to make his way down to the shipyard. But Charles Jose claims he isn’t feeling well. He’ll need to stay behind and rest. Leveret agrees…
[DOOR CLOSES]
JEFF: And heads down without Jose.
RAY: Meanwhile, Jose feels fine. He’s just desperate for some alone time with the beautiful young Sarah. He tries to woo the young woman, but she makes it clear that she’s not attracted to men of Spanish descent. She likes Englishmen. Jose is heartbroken… but falling in love was not why he came here in the first place.
JEFF: Leveret returns to the Inn and explains he’s struck a deal. That that keel to their new ship will be laid within a couple of days. As he explains the details to his partner, Jose. He catch’s Sarah smiling at him from across the room. That’s when Leveret proposes they name the ship Sarah after the beautiful Innkeeper’s daughter.
RAY: Jose doesn’t love the idea of naming the ship Sarah, but he agrees because he doesn’t want to look bitter.
[HORSE CLOPS]
RAY: With their ship construction underway, the pair head back to Portland. But they argue almost the entire journey. Charles Jose is seething with jealousy. Once on the bridge in Yarmouth, Jose tries to force Leveret’s horse over the side to the Royal River below. Thankfully, Leveret keeps his balance. By the time they reach Portland, Charles Jose quietly disappears from town. He walks away from his old life completely.
[OCEAN SOUNDS BUILDING]
JEFF: It’s now the Autumn of 1813. Leveret’s new ship The Sarah, is now complete and ready for launch. Even better for Leveret, he proposed marriage to Sarah Soule and she accepted. Not only will they be christening a new ship, but a new marriage as well.
[SPLASH]
JEFF: While the ship launch goes according to plan. The wedding does not.
RAY: No. The plan is for the couple to be wed in Freeport’s First Church. But as the guests began to arrive it’s clear the church isn’t big enough to hold everyone. As a quick fix, the couple decide to hold the wedding at the shipyard. Decorations and evergreens are quickly brought down to dress up the place.
JEFF: To the older folks in town, this is a very bad idea. It’s bad luck to change the wedding venue. It does NOT bode well for the future of the young couple. Even the clergyman who was supposed to officiate the wedding bows out. He wants no part of this unlucky move.
RAY: Still, the show must go on. A new clergyman is brought in from Yarmouth, which delays the wedding even further. Still, the wedding finally happens, and the couple start their life together.
JEFF: The Sarah is ready to sail, but Captain Leveret is having trouble finding a crew. Word has spread that the captain and the ship may be unlucky. Born under a bad sign. Only five Freeport men sign on. The rest of the crew are recruited from Portland, but most come from nearby Harpswell.
[OCEAN SOUNDS]
RAY: With The Sarah ready to sail, a strange foreign barque (Pronounced Bark) painted black sails into Jarious Point near the mouth of the Kennebec River. She flies no colors. Some of the vessels in the region assume they’re smugglers. They ask no questions.
JEFF: Just as The Sarah arrives in Freeport harbor to load her cargo, this strange black ship sails boldly into the harbor for all to see.
RAY: The strange black ship is called the Don Pedro Salazar. Unbeknownst to Captain Leveret… the ship’s captain is none other than Charles Jose!
JEFF: Captain George Leveret’s childhood friend turned foe!
RAY: Some locals in town learn that when Charles Jose left Portland, he sailed for Cuba where he purchased the wrecked Don Pedro Salazar, had the ship fixed up, and crewed her with some tough-as-nails Cuban sailors. He had come to Portland to secure an American registry for his ship. This isn’t an unusual practice for a new ship. Which would explain why the ship flew no flag.
JEFF: With the legal formalities complete, and her cargo sold off, the Don Pedro Salazar sailed out of port and laid low near the wooded Mark Island. There they wait… until they spot The Sarah under full sail.
[SAILING OCEAN]
RAY: With no colors flying, the Don Pedro Salazar follows The Sarah just out of canon range. The Sarah continues her journey south to the Bahamas. All the while being shadowed by this strange black ship. It’s making Captain Leveret nervous. He suspects pirates, so he alters course for Nassau and the British Admiralty.
JEFF: Captain Jose sees the course change and immediately figures out what The Sarah is up to. With no time to waste, Captain Jose orders the jolly roger flag hoisted. With top speed, The Don Pedro Salazar bears down on The Sarah.
[CANNONS FIRE]
JEFF: With cannons blazing, the Don Pedro Salazar pulls along side The Sarah, so the buccaneers can board and loot the defenseless ship.
[MUSKETS/PISTOLS FIRING/MEN YELLING]
JEFF: Within moments, all aboard The Sarah are dead, except Captain George Leveret who stands stoic at the ship’s wheel as the pirates and his former childhood friend close in.
RAY: Meanwhile… over a thousand miles to the north, Captain Leveret’s bride is eating breakfast with her mother in Freeport, Maine. Suddenly… two crimson drops on the back of her hand catch Sarah’s attention.
[WOMAN SCREAMS]
RAY: Sarah is certain the drops of blood are a sign that her new husband has just been killed. Her mother assures her she must have pricked her hand. She wipes the blood away and finds no break in the skin. Moments later… four more drops of blood appear. Sarah faints.
[OCEAN SAILING]
JEFF: Meanwhile, back on The Sarah, the pirates offer Captain Leveret a fate worse than death. They tie him to the foot of the mainmast, they set the helm and tie it up with rope, they raise a sail, then return to the Don Pedro Salazar, leaving The Sarah to sail off into open ocean with only her incapacitated Captain aboard.
RAY: Just as The Sarah sails out of site of the Salazar, something incredible happens. (EERIE) The ghosts of the Sarah’s slain crew rise up and get to their posts. They correct the ship’s course, and sail her north toward the port they know best: Pott’s Harbor in Harpswell, Maine.
JEFF: For days the ship sails north until it reaches the Harpswell Harbor. The harbor pilot sees The Sarah and word quickly spreads the crew had brought her home. The pilot hails the Sarah, but the ship ignores him. These shoals are tricky. The pilot knows every rock beneath the surface. Yet he stares in awe as the crew navigates the harbor like experts without hardly slowing down.
RAY: When the ship reaches Pott’s Harbor it glides to a stop near shore. But no anchor is dropped. Just a single lifeboat is lowered carrying Captain Leveret. The ship rows to shore, the gravely ill Captain Leveret is laid on the grass with his logbook, and the lifeboat returns to the ship just as a thick fog rolls in, then rolls away. When the fog dissipates, The Sarah is nowhere to be seen.
JEFF: The last item in the captain’s logbook is his new heading for Nassau.
RAY: Captain Leveret eventually recovers to tell the tale, and is reunited with his bride. But no one in Harpswell can ever forget the Sarah and the ghostly crew that brought their captain back to Maine. Plus… this is NOT the end of The Sarah. For years the ghostly ship is spotted in and around Harpswell’s shores. Whenever the ship is seen from shore, it means that someone in Harpswell is doomed.
JEFF: The ship is a harbinger. Everyone around these shores knows the story. And they know what it means to see the ship. Just a few decades later, John Greenleaf Whittier immortalizes the story in his poem “The Dead Ship of Harpswell.”
WHITTIER:
From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,
O hundred-harbored Maine!
But many a keel shall seaward turn,
And many a sail outstand,
When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms
Against the dusk of land.
In vain o’er Harpswell Neck the star
Of evening guides her in;
In vain for her the lamps are lit
Within thy tower, Seguin!
In vain the harbor-boat shall hail,
In vain the pilot call;
No hand shall reef her spectral sail,
Or let her anchor fall.
Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy,
Your gray-head hints of ill;
And, over sick-beds whispering low,
Your prophecies fulfil.
Some home amid yon birchen trees
Shall drape its door with woe;
And slowly where the Dead Ship sails,
The burial boat shall row!
And men shall sigh, and women weep,
Whose dear ones pale and pine,
And sadly over sunset seas
Await the ghostly sign.
They know not that its sails are filled
By pity’s tender breath,
Nor see the Angel at the helm
Who steers the Ship of Death!
RAY: And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: Between the story and the poem, this ghost ship sailed into legend. We should point out that there are variations on the backstory of this one. Some believe the ghost ship was the Dash, built in Freeport for Seward and Samuel of Portland. But the end result is the same: when the ghost ship sails into Pott’s Harbor, it means death is coming for a resident.
RAY: Most of what we know about the details of the version we shared came from the October 29th, 1960 Lewiston Journal newspaper.
JEFF: That and an eerie John Greenleaf Whittier poem.
RAY: We’re always looking for some kind of sign of trouble, aren’t we?
JEFF: What do you mean?
RAY: We’re looking for any kind of warning that there’s trouble ahead. Even if it doesn’t make sense, and even if there’s not necessarily a connection.
JEFF: Like on Groundhog Day we say if a groundhog sees his shadow it means a longer winter.
RAY: exactly. And if you see a ghostly ship near Harpswell, it means a local isn’t long for this world. Which means the only way we can be safe here today is… if we leave.
[OUTTRO]
JEFF: That’s true! But don’t leave us just yet because we’ve arrived at After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
RAY: After the Legend is brought to you by our Patreon Patrons. Our Patrons are the best! They support us in everything we do and help us with all of the costs associated with bringing you two stories each week. Plus, they get early ad-free access to new episodes plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear. It’s just $3 bucks per month. And it goes a long way in helping us. To sign up head over to patreon.com/newenglandlegends
To see some pictures of Harpswell, Maine, and to read the entire John Greenleaf Whittier poem click on the link in our episode description, or go to our Web site and click on episode 331.
If you haven’t subscribed to our podcast, please do it right now. It’s free and we don’t want you to miss a thing. We’re building a community of odd-loving weirdoes here. We’d love to have you more involved. Email us anytime through our Web site. Join our super secret New England Legend Facebook group. Or stop us on the street and tell us about your strange local legends. We love hearing from you.
Thank you to Michael Legge for lending his voice acting talent this week. Thank you to our sponsors and to our patreon patrons. And our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
