Biddeford History & Heritage Project

It has been said that the first vessel built in Biddeford was a sloop built for Lord Pepperrell at Biddeford Pool in 1696, but this is not verified. The first official record of a vessel built in Biddeford was the schooner "John", built in 1806. She was 83 tons and 66 feet long; the builder is unknown. After this time shipbuilding on both sides of the river was brisk.

On the Biddeford side, the earliest shipbuilders included Joseph Deering, Nathaniel Waterhouse, Simeon Goodwin, and finally John and Moses Pike. There was a prominent shipyard at Biddeford Pool that was run by Captain Thomas Cutts, Jr.; the yard built ships for the Cutts family interests. This was the shipyard that was famously attacked by the British in the War of 1812.

The largest and most productive shipyard on the Saco (and certainly the one that launched the most sizeable vessels) was that of brothers Edmund and Elisha Perkins. The brothers operated the E. & E. Perkins yard for over 30 years at a site of the Biddeford side of the river a short distance below the falls and Factory Island.

There are no original records of the Perkins brothers' business known to still exist, but we have custom house records, newspapers, and city directories which provide many clues about the shipyard.

The first record of the Perkins family of shipbuilders is the entry in 1828 of the schooner "Boston Packet", built by Elisha Perkins. She was an 88 ton, 67 foot two-masted topsail schooner in regular service between the Saco and Boston.

The last known ship produced by the yard was the ship "Priscilla", built in 1865. The shipyard appears to have closed in 1866, after the death of Elisha. Edmund disappears from the local records after this time, and is thought to have moved away with his family. Elisha and his family are buried in Saco at Laurel Hill Cemetery, overlooking the river on which he made his living.

Perkins and the other smaller shipbuilders in the area were large employers, and required skilled carpenters, joiners, and blacksmiths. Additionally this created opportunities for sea captains and sailors. In the 1849 Directory of Biddeford and Saco, there were listed 25 ship carpenters, 10 ship masters, 10 mariners, and two shipbuilders (Edmund and Elisha Perkins).

The vessels being built along the Saco River were largely schooners engaged in coastal trade. These coastal vessels sailed up and down the Atlantic seaboard, through the Caribbean and the West Indies--some even made it around Cape Horn to wind up on the Pacific coast.

The local markets demanded the smaller coastal vessels, but the shipyards also built larger ships for sale to outside interests. Practically all the larger vessels built on the Saco were for Boston, New York, Salem, Portland and similar registry and thus they escaped local records.

The 1849 Directory of Biddeford and Saco reports that during the years 1845-1848, the Edmund and Elisha Perkins yard built 10 vessels totaling 3,695 tons; while the custom house records mention only four vessels totaling 630 tons. This is a good example of the limits of the custom house records.

The explanation is that the larger vessels were built either for outside owners or for registry and operation outside the local port, and would be recorded at those districts. Examples of this include Biddeford built vessels found in the New York registry of 1875 (sloop "Richard McManus" - 824 tons, built by Perkins in 1864); and the Brunswick registry of 1875 (ship "Priscilla" - 954 tons, built by Perkins in 1865).

After the closure of the Perkins yard, the most prolific shipbuilder remaining in the area appears to have been Captain Richard F. C. Hartley. Hartley, the son of a sea captain and noted shipbuilder, went to sea in 1838, at the rather late age of 26. He left the sea at the outbreak of the Civil War and devoted himself to shipbuilding.

His first yard was on the Biddeford side of the river in the vicinity of the Perkins yard. Captain Hartley eventually moved to Proprietor's Wharf in Saco and organized the Saco Shipbuilding Company, where he built many fine vessels. Captain Hartley died at sea in September 1897, a passenger on board his own vessel, the schooner "Richard F. C. Hartley". He was 85.

Between 1780 and 1874, more than 150 vessels were built on the Saco River. From 1845-1856 records show the building of 40 vessels--an average of 3.33 per year. The following eight years (1857-1864) saw only nine vessels built in the area, or about one per year. This was due in part to economic depression and political upheaval prior to and throughout the American Civil War.

Following the war a handful of builders produced few ships in Biddeford, and there seemed to be only one major shipbuilder remaining on the Saco side of the river after this time as well. After this Biddeford would build one last big ship.
During the First World War, with its great demand for emergency tonnage, a four-masted schooner was built as a speculative enterprise on the site of the old Perkins yard at Biddeford.

This vessel, named the "Jere G. Shaw" for a prominent businessman of Biddeford, was launched November 16, 1918. She had four masts, was 193 feet long, 36 feet wide, and 15 feet deep. The tip of her mainmast was 120 feet above the deck. She measured 739 tons. Her keel was built of oak from the trees of Biddeford and surrounding York County.

The "Jere G. Shaw" was the last large sailing vessel built on the Saco River. She traveled to Barbados on her first voyage and was owned in Biddeford for several years. She made several voyages to the West Indies, but was then sold at a heavy loss. She was wrecked in a great storm off Cape Hatteras in October 1930.

Biddeford remained home to skilled craftsmen and the boating trade, although on a smaller scale. The Staples-Johnson (later Marblehead) Boatyard built 30-40 foot custom and stock boats from the 1920’s through the 1950’s with a break at the end of the Great Depression. The Marblehead Boatyard burned to the ground in 1962.

The next year, Earle Rumery, the former president of Marblehead opened his own boatyard and marina--Rumery’s Boatyard--which is still in business today and thriving as a full-service builder, repairer and restorer of all kinds of vessels. A few years ago Rumery’s restored a beautiful three-masted ship from Bermuda, and at its re-launch it was the largest vessel launched in Biddeford since the "Jere G. Shaw" in 1917.