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To a Gallant Ship BY THEODORE C. WYMAN
ALTHOUGH I NEVER sailed on her, I think of the Alice S. Wentworth as one of the vessels in my life because of the interest I have in her. She became a part of my life as I was a shareholder in her and knew her well during the years I lived on Nantucket. Her skipper was old Zeb Tilton, a cross-eyed giant of an ancient mariner, and he sailed her for thirty-five years in the coasting trade. He sailed her many times with one man, or with his daughter for crew, between the mainland, the Vineyard and Nantucket and at times for longer voyages along the coast. Zeb's address now is "Fiddler's Green," and he went there in 1952 at the age of eighty-five. As always, old records vary to some extent, but the official records according to research show that the Alice Wentworth was built during the Civil War in 1863 at South Norwalk, Conn., and christened the Lizzie A. Tolles. She was completely rebuilt at Wells, Maine, in 1905 or 1907, and was the oldest documented vessel flying the American flag. She had the traditional lines of an old New England two-masted schooner with a length of 73.2 feet, beam 22 feet and she carried four sails with a sail area of 4300 square feet. Her draught was six feet (twelve feet with a centerboard which was off center to port of the mainmast). The time came in 1939 when Capt. Zeb ran into financial difficulties and the Alice Wentworth was put up for auction. It did not seem right that the ancient mariner should lose his ship and, through the efforts of Captain Ralph M. Packer, the Schooner Alice S. Wentworth Associates, Inc., was formed and shares were sold to help purchase the ship and liquidate her debts. There was no idea in the minds of those who purchased the shares that they were making a financial investment. It was just a chance to help someone whom they admired and to keep alive a chapter in a seafaring tradition that would be a sad loss if it could not continue. And yet the rewards to the shareholders were all out of proportion to the small investment each one made. They had a chance to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors and become ship owners and the few annual meetings aboard the schooner were treasures beyond price. They did receive one dividend of a dollar a share in 1939, but their certificates of cap ital stock will represent a legacy of priceless sentimental value. Ceptain Zeb was forced by natural circumstances to end his association with the ship he had sailed for so many years and in 1944 the Alice Wentworth was sold to a Captain Parker Hall who took her to Maine, and there she finally ended up on Maine schooner cruises. Then in 1961 a Mrs. Ann White of Squantum
