You have probably heard about the wreck of the 4,000-ton British freighter Wandby at Walker’s Point in March of 1921. In fact, that shipwreck is so famous we now have a Kennebunk restaurant named after it.

You may also have seen the iconic photograph of the 121-ton schooner Empress on the rocks nearby at Arundel Point when the tower of St. Ann’s was still under construction in October of 1891.

However, you may not be aware that two of the oldest Maine two-masted coasting schooners still afloat were pummeled by heavy seas at those two Cape Arundel locations within a twelve-hour period on July 2, 1914.

The schooner Mary Augusta, built at Elsworth Maine in 1867, washed up on the rocks at Walker’s Point at 2:30 pm on July 2, 1914 with nobody onboard. She was full of water and struck the rocks with such force that her shrouds gave way knocking her main masts into the angry sea.

Captain Winfield Tainter of Winterport, his son Raymond, and the third member of her crew landed later in their power dory, having abandoned the schooner, before she reached the rocks. The Mary Augusta was carrying 250 tons of soft coal. She was a total loss. All evidence of her wreck was swallowed up by the sea within a week.

The two-masted schooner Mary Weaver, also built in 1867, was bound for Calais when she sustained damage in the same heavy seas later that night trying to get into the Kennebunk River for shelter through the stretch of dangerous rocks near Arundel Point. The crew was able to get her chained up for the night and call for a tug, but she was “leaking 1000 strokes per hour” by the time revenue cutter Woodbury had hauled her to Portland. Unlike the Mary Augusta, the schooner Mary Weaver was soon sailing again.

If you are interested in learning about the Shipwrecks of the Kennebunks, join me at the Townhouse School next Thursday night at 7pm for my next slideshow.