Fisherman Bejamin S. Wakefield, father of George W. Wakefield, our longest serving Goat Island Lighthouse keeper, crashed his own funeral.

Captain Ben of Cape Porpoise was fishing with Josiah Hutchins off Wood Island on May 4, 1891. A fierce gust of westerly wind knocked over his schooner, M.Y.O.B.(Mind Your Own Business). She quickly filled with water and sank. Capt. Dan and Charles Golthwaite, watching from the Pool, saw the men clinging to the foremast, the only part of Ben’s schooner still above the surface. The Golthwaites set off in their dory to rescue the fishermen. Meanwhile, Ben had let go of the mast and worked his way around to his half-submerged dory still tied to the wreck. He got the dory free, but the rough seas carried the dory and Capt. Ben toward the shore of Wood Island and dashed them upon the rocks. The Golthwaites just managed to get his lifeless body in their boat.

Ben’s wife Henrietta Martin Wakefield was notified that her husband had expired, but in her grief, she refused to believe that he was really dead. She could scarcely be prevented from taking his body home. She kept thinking of how often Ben had expressed a paralyzing fear of being buried alive.

For three weeks, Henrietta would not allow the undertaker to bury her husband. Just in case, she had him put in a casket with the lid open and sent a family member to the vault check on him every day. Much to everyone’s amazement, no discernable signs of decomposition were apparent. The best doctors from Saco were summoned to examine Mr. Wakefield. He was indeed deceased and was buried in the family plot in Saco.

Poor Henrietta had been down this road before. One stormy fishing season years before, Ben had gone on a fishing trip to the Grand Banks and was away from home much longer than expected. She eventually got word that his vessel and the whole crew were lost in a storm. The congregation gathered at the Church-on-the-Cape for Ben’s memorial service. Just after they had prayed for his soul, the dearly departed Captain Ben Wakefield had walked into the church.

Happy Halloween!