Two members of the Nowell family are of particular interest in the history of Kennebunkport. I have written several articles about Brigadier General Simon Nowell who lived at the corner of Union and Maine Streets across from Graves Library. Simon’s son Captain George W. Nowell is the subject of my story today. He lived in the house that stands next door to the Kennebunkport Post Office. The exterior of their houses haven’t changed much over the years so you will likely recognize them in the old photographs.

Unlike his father, George was risk averse. Given his dangerous occupation, he wisely insured his ships and his life on his young family’s behalf. He became master of the 882-ton ship “Tropic” shortly after she was launched at the Landing in 1855.

A trip around Cape Horn was the most dangerous sailing voyage of all. In 1860, Nowell sailed the “Tropic” to San Francisco. On her way back around the horn for home “The Tropic” came upon the disabled schooner “Potomic” of Franklin Maine. She was filling with water in a blowing gale. Nowell attempted to go alongside her, but the seas were too rough. Captain Winslow Ray, his first mate, and two crewmen of the “Potomic” jumped overboard. Captain Nowell sent out a boat and successfully hauled to four men to safety.

January 6, 1862, the British brigantine, “Village Belle” was on her way from Clyde River, Nova Scotia to Trinidad with a cargo of lumber when she was dismasted in a heavy gale and began to take on water. By the time “The Tropic” came upon her she had 3 feet of water in her hold. Captain Nowell rescued the crew and landed them safely at Havre, France.

Queen Victoria got word of Captain George W. Nowell’s heroic rescue of her Nova Scotia subjects and had a telescope or spy glass sent to him as a thank you. The glass was accompanied with a letter of thanks and request that Captain Nowell send a bill for the care and feeding of the crew of “Village Belle”

Captain Nowell sailed for Cape Horn again in late 1862 and was never heard from again. He was assumed lost in the Straits of Magellan.

The Kennebunkport Historical Society purchased the telescope from the estate of a Nowell descendant in 1964 along with the thank you letter addressed to Capt. Nowell from Queen Victoria’s Government representative and the two shipwreck paintings by Antoine Le Provost painted in Havre, France in 1862 of the rescues of the crews of the Potomic and “Village Belle.”